I recently wrote about the very strong possibility that Zimbabwe is well on its way to complete collapse, which would almost certainly mean tragedy as bad or worse than we saw in Rwanda, Cambodia and Bosnia and are currently seeing in Darfur.

But, turns out that, according to an analysis published in Foreign Policy magazine, Zimbabwe is not at the top of the list of failed states...at least not yet. Perhaps not surprisingly the Sudan leads the list as the most unstable nation on earth. Neglect by the international community is cited as part of the reason for the situation in both the Sudan and Zimbabwe. But for two states among the top ten failed states, neglect is not the problem. Iraq is number two and Afghanistan is number 8. Interestingly our ally, Pakistan at number 12, does slightly worse than North Korea, which comes in at number 13.

The rankings take into account 12 factors, including economy, human rights, refugees, etc.

No one would look at North Korea or Zimbabwe and see them as anything but failed or failing states. Dictatorship by a corrupt and self-serving leadership is ruining these, and other, nations in a very predictable way. And the crises in Somalia and Sudan, for example, are clearly crises that could have been dealt with better had the international community done something before things got this bad. In the case of Somalia are best opportunity was early in the Clinton Administration where we had secured most of the nation. But a single petty strongman shooting down a single helicopter, spooked Republicans in Congress who proceeded to insist that we cut and run from Somalia. We left, allowing the nation to collapse into such chaos that Islamic Fundamentalists (with al-Qaeda links) and Ethiopia became the competing chances for some semblance stability.

But Iraq and Afghanistan have been the very focus of Bush's foreign policy. Billions of dollars and thousands of dead American soldiers have led Iraq to becoming the second most unstable nation on earth. Afghanistan has hardly ever been stable, but Bush's policies have done nothing to improve it.

Billions of dollars and thousands of dead American soldiers...for what? Failure. Dismal failure.