One year ago, in the days before the terrorist attacks, Sept. 11 was a date like any other. It had no symbolic importance, its mention did not elicit a visceral sinking or a mental vortex of nightmarish images.

One year ago, had you asked me if Sept. 11 would be an important day, I would have said, "Well, it'll be a busy day ... I have to get to the involvement fair by 9 a.m. and then be back at my apartment to wait for the cable-internet guy to get me online."

One year ago, the top stories were Chandra Levy and stem-cell research.

Things are a bit different now from a year ago. Following the attacks, our nation and the world have acted in ways that hitherto seemed impossible. Americans rallied together as a people in a way unseen since the Second World War. There was an outpouring of support throughout the world from countries as disparate as Russia and Malaysia. For the first time since the 1979 revolution, no chants of "Death to America" were uttered at the Friday public prayer sessions in Iran.

And George W. Bush, a man seemingly better suited for the Waffle House than the White House, rose to the occasion and became a leader.

On Sept. 11, the Kegmeister grew up. He was no longer two sizes too small for his office. He realized that success in his war on terrorism would be fleeting without deep and true international support. So Bush's folk, led by Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, fanned out across the globe, searching for international partners to vanquish the looming and hidden threat.

Although improbable and without precedent, deep and true international support seemed within reach. In the days after the September attacks, nation after nation agreed to help the Bush snuff out terror cells. British Prime Minister Tony Blair called on the international community to "reorder this world around us" and "create lasting good out of the shadow of evil." Pakistan agreed to allow the United States unprecedented support in the Afghanistan strikes.

Russia's Vladimir Putin reached out to Bush with a warmth that melted away four decades of lingering Cold War distrust. Our president was leading the international community into a just war. For a brief time, it seemed as though we weren't going to act like renegade cowboys on the issue of a global campaign against terrorism.

But something happened in the first, long year after Sept. 11. Bush mistook a world sympathetic to the horror and pain of the terrorist attacks for an international mandate to allow unchecked United States military action across the world. He mistook national grief as a cry to create an imperial presidency, whose decisions were beyond question and actions above scrutiny.

Bush now feels as though he has an unlimited mandate, one which covers the right to wage war on Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

There is no doubt that Hussein is a vile dictator. He is a man who has used chemical weapons on his own people, a man who has actively pursued the development of weapons of mass destruction. But does he present such a security risk that we might send a quarter million of our American sons, daughters, friends and siblings over to the Persian Gulf region, a large number of whom might never come back? Does he present such a security risk that we should risk generating increased anti-Americanism throughout the Arab world and beyond?

According to CIA officials, proof of links between Iraq and al-Qaida are sketchy at best. Says Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, "Saddam is not in league with al-Qaeda. Of course he cheers and encourages them. But I have not seen any intelligence that would lead me to connect Saddam Hussein with al-Qaida."

In the first, long year after Sept. 11, after painstakingly building an international consensus on our right to wage war on radical Islamists, we now find that through unilateral decision-making and disrespect of international opinion, global support for the United States has fallen to levels seldom experienced. Even Britain is a bit shaky about whether to get into the Hussein ouster game.

One year later, we need to remind ourselves that it was not Iraq that struck at our capital, scarred Pennsylvania, and caused the World Trade Center to fall, but terrorists blinded by violent and hateful rage towards America -- precisely the type of rage engendered by unilateral action and the flouting of international coalitions.

One year later, we need to reflect on the horror of Sept. 11, honor those we lost, and find solace and pride in our ability to come together as a nation. We need to show the rest of the world that our response to the terror attack will continue to be one based on reason and not simply raw emotion.

One year later, we need to call on President Bush to present a vision for our place in the international community, one which does not place us in a realm alone, cut off from international support and dialogue.