Like a condemned man allowed to speak to the court after his sentencing, George Bush gets to talk to the American people one last time tonight before his presidency is quietly consigned to history.

His final prime-time address, aides say, will endeavour to be forward-looking. A cynic might say that is because there isn’t much worth talking about the last eight years. Perhaps even Mr Bush is putting his faith in the audacity of hope.

But even if the President would prefer to leave with his eyes on the future, the rest of the world will surely ponder the last few days of his presidency mainly by looking back.

Americans seem to regard the Bush years as among the worst in their nation’s history. His opinion poll rating remains, to the end, just about the lowest since records began.

Around most of the world his standing is, if anything, lower.

So the only really interesting question to ask about Mr Bush as he leaves is this: is there any way that this almost universal judgment could be wrong. Is there anything of Mr Bush’s legacy that will be valued by anyone outside a small group of Bush family friends and admirers?

The economic mess he leaves is of course uppermost in Americans’ minds. But it’s a global phenomenon whose roots, in fairness, go much deeper than decisions made by Mr Bush. For most people around the world the more direct question about his legacy is framed – negatively - by all the controversial foreign policy events of his administration.

The invasion of Iraq, and the failure of its most basic premise, the existence of weapons of mass destruction; the tragedy that unfolded in the country afterwards; the depravity of Abu Ghraib; Guantánamo and the seizure and detention of terrorist suspects around the world; torture and interrogation techniques; uncritical support for Israel in Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza; climate change.

These are the landmarks of the last eight years that have proclaimed America’s position in the world. Some, to be fair, such as Israel and climate change, are the results not of just some specific Bush Administration approach, but are rooted in a much broader consensus in US politics.

But even without those the list is long enough and deep enough to add up to a pretty profound indictment of the Bush years.

Has he anything with which to defend himself?

Certainly. First and most important, he would argue, he protected the US after September 11, 2001. No small feat, that. In the days after the terrorist attacks it was assumed that the next few years would see much worse assaults on US targets. But it has been almost seven and a half years since the horror of that day, and despite warnings from critics that some Bush policies made terrorism more likely, if anything al-Qaeda and its associates look weaker today than they did eight years ago.

Mr Bush and his much vilified Vice-President Dick Cheney insist that this is the flip-side of some of the most controversial measures of his presidency: the detention programmes; interrogation techniques and restrictions on civil liberties at home.

Second, though much derided, Mr Bush’s promotion of democracy in the Middle East has borne some fruit. After a disastrous three years, the Iraq war is largely won and that benighted nation seems tentatively set on a course of pluralist democracy, just as Mr Bush said it would, and the very idea his opponents scoffed at.

It was a big, bold and perhaps crazy exercise, but history may judge that the US-led effort from Kabul to Baghdad in the early years of the 21st century laid the foundations for the kind of progress in a region that has not seen much of it in the last 500 years.

There were smaller achievements too: Mr Bush’s very personal effort to lead vast programmes for the eradication of AIDS in Africa; much improved relations with China and India, the two emerging powers of the next century; a steadfast commitment to keep trade flowing, in spite of hostility at home and around the world.

Yet the bigger judgment will still have to hinge on this question: did America emerge stronger from Mr Bush’s term?

The damage can be measured in both soft and hard power. The disasters caused by Iraq and the aggressive anti-terror policies cost the US heavily in terms of prestige and esteem.

But perhaps even greater was the damage done to America’s military and its ability to project the nation’s might around the world.

Eight years ago it was simply assumed that America was so powerful that it could achieve almost anything it wanted. Perhaps as a proposition it was always preposterous. But Mr Bush may be remembered as the president one who tested it to destruction.

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