The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 revealed to many Americans the unsettling truth that national power does not necessarily produce security--that the United States’ technological sophistication and dependence on global trade made it simultaneously more powerful and more vulnerable. As it was shaped by U.S. political leaders, this sudden, shocking consciousness of insecurity led to a profound change in U.S. political culture, as international terrorism quickly came to occupy a place in the American psyche akin to the monolithic global threats of the Soviet and Nazi eras. The social context created by 9/11 and the Bush administration’s framing of the new reality facing American foreign policy are critical variables in understanding the course of American foreign relations since then. From the days immediately following the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration presented a clear, coherent vision of the world in its public pronouncements, constructing an image of reality which defined the identity of the United States, its enemies, and the rest of the world in ways which served to enable subsequent foreign policy. Realist analyses which describe the evolution of U.S. foreign policy in this era in terms of material capabilities and interests alone are not sufficient in understanding the process. Constructivist perspectives which acknowledge the role of ideology and identity construction in the years since 9/11 era are necessary for a full understanding of this change. This paper will assert that a set of core assumptions were the critical ingredients in the Bush administration’s construction of the post-9/11 world: that the promotion of democracy and peace were central goals of American identity and foreign policy; that America itself was profoundly vulnerable to extant but invisible threats, both internationally and domestically; that the world was divided into two camps, loosely defined as “civilization” versus “terrorism” or barbarism; that individuals and groups in the “terrorist” camp were irrational and, by virtue of their rejection of civilized norms, not fully human; that opposition to terrorism and undemocratic governments was a continuation of the United States historic opposition to fascism and other forms of totalitarianism; and that other states which ought to be in the U.S. camp might or might recognize their duty to defend freedom, imposing a moral obligation on the United States to act whether or not international consensus could be reached. The Bush administration’s successful assertion of this vision of reality created the political environment which allowed post-9/11 American foreign policy in general, and the war in Iraq in particular, to be carried out. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]