President Bush has used his second inaugural speech to give the world the message that his second term would be dominated by the goal of promoting liberty in every nation, with the "ultimate goal of ending tyranny" across the globe.
The 17-minute speech yesterday was almost totally devoted to the theme that the best hope for peace and America's security lay in the advance of democracy and freedom.
Mr Bush used the word "freedom" 27 times and the word "liberty" 15 times in an evident effort to put his controversial decision to invade Iraq in the context of the march of human freedom. Two questions, he said, would determine his legacy: "Did our generation advance the cause of freedom? And did our character bring credit to that cause?"
The speech, which went through 22 drafts, was delivered on Capitol Hill to an audience which included former Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, members of both houses of Congress and thousands of ticketed onlookers.
Mr Bush's oath of office was administered by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who has been performing this role since 1986. After lunch in Statuary Hall, the newly inaugurated president led the traditional parade down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.
While inaugural speeches are occasions for soaring rhetoric, they are also occasions for setting the tone of a presidency; it is clear that Mr Bush's second term, as was his first, will be dominated by a post-September 11th psychology.
His most solemn duty, he said, "is to protect this nation and its people against further attacks and emerging threats." The attacks had exposed America's vulnerability, said Mr Bush, blaming tyranny for the hatred of America found in some other nations as he expanded his moral argument.
"For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny - prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder - violence will gather and multiply in destructive power and cross the most defended borders and raise a mortal threat," he said.
There was only one force that could "break the reign of hatred and resentment and expose the pretensions of tyrants and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom." Events led to only one conclusion: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."
Mr Bush echoed the sentiment of President Kennedy's inaugural speech 45 years ago in which he appealed to Americans: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." A few Americans had accepted the hardest duties in the cause of freedom, helping to "raise up free governments" in intelligence, diplomacy and in "the dangerous and necessary work of fighting our enemies".
Young Americans should "make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself - and in your days you will add not just to the wealth of our country, but to its character."
Advancing the ideals of self-government "is the mission that created our nation."
More was needed now, both to protect America and to advance its ideals. "It is the honourable achievement of our fathers," Mr Bush said. "Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time."
In his inauguration speech four years ago, Mr Bush said halting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction would be a goal of his presidency. Since then Iran and North Korea have advanced their nuclear ambitions and the president's remarks yesterday seemed to be most directly addressed to people in these two nations.
It was the policy of the US, he said, to "support the growth of democratic movements with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny."
Apparently seeking to soften America's aggressive image in some parts of the world, he said the US did not want to impose "our own style of government on the unwilling." He noted too that "America's influence is not unlimited" and that spreading freedom is not "primarily the task of arms." "Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom and make their own way."
Mr Bush did not mention Iraq or Afghanistan and, one week after Human Rights Watch accused the United States of harming the cause of human rights around the world through Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, portrayed the United States as the global champion of individual rights.
US relations with the world required "the decent treatment of their own people", he said. "America's belief in human dignity will guide our policies, yet rights must be more than the grudging concessions of dictators; they are secured by free dissent and the participation of the governed. In the long run, there is no justice without freedom and there can be no human rights without human liberty."
In an acknowledgement of splits at home over the war in Iraq, he said, "We have known divisions which must be healed to move forward in great purposes and I will strive in good faith to heal them." He committed himself to building an "ownership society" where people, not government, had more control over their own lives - an oblique reference to his plan to semi-privatise social security.