The United States after Dick Cheney

By: Beatrice E. Rangel - 06/11/2025

The death of Richard Cheney, who in life was considered the most powerful Vice President of the United States, has prompted reflection on the scope of his legacy.

Cheney was selected by George W. Bush for his deep understanding of the American power establishment, his mastery of foreign policy, and his loyalty to the Republican Party. And during the first four years of his presidency, George W. Bush entrusted him with foreign policy and the response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. His legacy in both areas of policy is controversial.

From the perspective of responding to terrorist attacks, many intelligence scholars believe that the restructuring undertaken by Cheney, while significantly improving the capacity of intelligence agencies to operate outside and within the United States, also complicated procedures and did not end inter-agency warfare.

From the perspective of the republic's legal framework, many believe that Cheney thought the Watergate scandal had significantly weakened the institution of the presidency. Therefore, he developed a plan of institutional reforms aimed at empowering the presidency. This negatively impacted the system of checks and balances designed by the Founding Fathers of the United States, whose greatest fear was the consolidation of a powerful presidency capable of overriding the legislative branch and interfering with the judiciary.

In foreign policy, Cheney embraced the argument of some neoconservative analysts that it was necessary to destroy Saddam Hussein's dictatorship to initiate the democratization of the Middle East and establish Iran as the arbiter of regional power. The result was truly adverse because, by destroying Iraq, Iran became the dominant power in the Middle East. Iranian leaders see the West as a whole as the enemy to be defeated. For them, the leader of the West is the United States, a country they describe as the Great Satan. The Iranians immediately devised a plan to destroy the West by supporting terrorism. In Lebanon, they finance Hezbollah, and in the Palestinian territories, Hamas. Both groups are responsible for horrific crimes against humanity and terrorist attacks in the West. Iran also finances the Houthis, who attack commercial vessels crossing the Strait of Hormuz. In short: Cheney opened a Pandora's box that unleashed the most negative and destructive forces imaginable in the Middle East. The current conflict, which has claimed more than 90,000 lives, is part of his legacy.

From a civil liberties perspective, the Patriot Act, which Cheney promoted as a defense mechanism against the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, served the purpose of significantly improving coordination between the agencies responsible for protecting U.S. national security and those responsible for ensuring law enforcement. However, in the area of civil liberties, the initiatives supported by Richard Cheney served to establish a system for collecting metadata on American citizens in general, even those not accused of any crime. This violation of the constitutional precept guaranteeing the right to privacy for all American citizens was perhaps Richard Cheney's worst mistake and the one that earned him the permanent antipathy of his fellow citizens.

Today, Donald Trump himself is fighting against some aspects of Richard Cheney's legal legacy because, despite his authoritarian tendencies, he knows that one day he will be just another ordinary citizen, and he is not at all pleased to know that some of his rights have been limited by a legal framework that restricts individual freedoms and gives too much power to the defense establishment.

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».