Last Friday marked the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a day that Franklin Delano Roosevelt told the American people would “live in infamy.”

Sixty-six years later, I’ve been thinking about American history, but also about another, more recent day when America was caught unaware, and about the lack of progress on national defense and homeland security since then.

Unfortunately, in the years immediately following 9/11, George Bush and Congress failed to take the necessary steps to make our country safer and our position in the world stronger. After Pearl Harbor, FDR went to war against Japan and its allies, while at the same time building military and political alliances with democratic governments around the world. By contrast, after 9/11 George Bush alienated our natural allies in the war on terror and pursued policies that isolated America on the global stage. Whereas FDR mobilized the country for a military campaign against the Axis Powers, George Bush and Congress committed strategic errors that set us back years, if not decades, in the fight against Al Qaeda. Even as Osama Bin Laden escaped from Tora Bora into the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, George Bush sent our fighting men and women into Iraq, a country whose leader, while an evil dictator, was not even remotely responsible for the attacks of 9/11. The Iraq war has made our country less safe. It’s time to bring it to an orderly end, and bring our troops home in a responsible, rapid fashion.

Here at home, George Bush recently announced that he wants to slash spending on first-responders and homeland security by more than 50 percent. As a historian, I believe we need to learn from our mistakes so that history does not repeat itself. We need leaders in Washington who understand that being smart and being strong are not mutually exclusive. One goes naturally with the other. The current leadership has let us down. It’s time to try something new.