How to look at the war on terror

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Imagine the date is Sept. 12, 2001. Ask yourself this question: Are you willing to bet that two years will pass and there will not be another terrorist attack on American soil?

I will wager that there is not one person reading this column who would have made that bet two years ago.

There is only one reason for this relative security that Americans enjoy. It is not that the terrorists have given up their violent agendas or their hatred for us. They have not. It is not because U.S. borders are secure or because U.S. internal security systems have been successfully overhauled.

There is one reason -- and one reason alone -- that Americans have been safe for the almost two years since the September 11 attacks.

That reason is the aggressive war that President Bush and the U.S. military have waged against international terrorism and its "Axis of Evil." The war on terrorism has been fought in the streets of Kabul, Afghanistan, and Baghdad instead of Washington and New York. By taking the battle to the enemy camp, by making the terrorists the hunted instead of the hunters, Mr. Bush and the U.S. military have kept Americans safe.

Now the battlefield of the war on terrorism is post-liberation Iraq. The jihadists of al Qaeda and radical Islam and Arab fascism are crawling out of the snake pits of Tikrit and slithering across the borders from terrorist bases in Syria and Iran to attack U.S. troops, U.N. diplomats and anyone helping the U.S. cause. Their goal is self-evident: To force the collapse of civil order and to inflict enough casualties on Americans that the United States will withdraw.

Such a withdrawal would be a massive defeat for the forces of order and decency not only in Iraq but in the world at large. It would be a dramatic victory of the forces of evil.

If Iraq can be secured and become a U.S. ally, then Syrian terrorism and Iranian terrorism and Palestinian terrorism will have no place to hide. American pressure on terrorists everywhere will be dramatically enhanced. If, on the other hand, the United States withdraws in defeat, then terrorism will flourish again in Baghdad, Basra and Tikrit, but also in Damascus, Tehran and Ramallah.

The way to think about the war on terrorism is to ask yourself who is supporting Mr. Bush and the U.S. military in this life and death engagement, and who is not?