After the second world war the economy of most of Europe was ruined and many countries relied on allies to support them financially and help them rebuild. Greece and Turkey were powerful governments being threatened by communism. Greece had a communist rebellion against their government, and Turkey was a target of the Soviet Union hoping to gain partial control over the straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Britain had been providing them with financial aid at the time but due to the troubles it faced due to world war two, it had to cut off financial aid to allied countries in order to focus on rebuilding. Britain asked the United States to provide aid to these countries in their place, so President Truman created the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan contributed billions of US dollars towards the economic recovery of Europe. Three years later Europe had grown even more powerful than it had been before the war. Although it was not immediately effective, it eventually proved to be one of the most successful foreign aid programs in history and became the height of the United States involvement of foreign …show more content…
In 2002 Bush made a speech accusing Iraq, Iran, and North Korea of hiding terrorists calling them the “Axis of Evil.” Bush believed that Saddam Hussein had developed an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. He made multiple other accusations which all turned out to be false. Hussein was not linked to the september 11th attacks but Bush still made the decision to go to war with Iraq. This declaration of war was met with protest from up to fifteen million people, and no support from any of its allied countries except for Great Britain. Hussein was eventually captured and was discovered to have ordered the death of many Iraqi citizens, however the after effects of the war had few positive results. The United states was very isolated in the popular world view, and this marked the last time the United States acted as a prominent figure in foreign