As further evidence that the present administration has utterly failed in its attempts to make the world safer and more hospitable to Americans, the latest Pew Research Center Global Attitudes Report points out that in most cases, the U.S.’s image has sunk even lower among most citizens around the world:

Favorable views of the United States dropped sharply over the past year in Spain, where only 23 percent said they had a positive opinion, down from 41 percent last year, according to the survey. . . . Other countries where positive views dropped significantly include India (56 percent, down from 71 percent); Russia (43 percent, down from 52 percent); and Indonesia (30 percent, down from 38 percent). In Turkey, only 12 percent said they held a favorable opinion, down from 23 percent last year.

Declines were less steep in France, Germany and Jordan, while people in China and Pakistan had a slightly more favorable image of the United States this year than last. In Britain, Washington’s closest ally in the Iraq war, positive views of America have remained in the mid-50-percent range in the past two years, down sharply from 75 percent in 2002, before the war.

Support for the fight against terrorism led by the United States is also down, Pew found. Although strong majorities in several countries expressed worries about Iran’s nuclear intentions, in 13 of 15 countries polled, most people said the war in Iraq posed more of a danger to world peace. Russians held that view by a 2-to-1 margin.

“Obviously, when you get many more people saying that the U.S. presence in Iraq is a threat to world peace as say that about Iran, it’s a measure of how much Iraq is sapping good will to the United States,” said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center.

Congratulations, President Bush and your Republican administration on a job well done. You’ve managed to squander the goodwill that almost all nations had for us after the 9/11 attacks, ignored negative evidence in order to invade a country that had nothing to do with the attacks, spent billions of dollars that otherwise could have been reinvested in American institutions such as social security and education, engaged in illegal torture and cold-blooded murder while in Iraq, and cost the lives of close to 2,500 American men and women -- and counting.

Mission accomplished? No, more like Nothing Accomplished.