Winning the Right War: The Path to Security for America and the World

Introduction Six years after the start of the "war on terror," Americans are less safe, our enemies are stronger and more numerous, and the war's key geographic battlegroundthe Middle Eastis dangerously unstable. In Iraq, thousands of American soldiers, and tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians, have been killed or wounded while more than 150,000 U.S. troops fight to contain an insurgency and a civil warat a cost of over $300 million per day. In Iran, an Islamic fundamentalist regime remains firmly in power and is defiantly pursuing a nuclear weapons program, undermining American efforts in Iraq, and subsidizing increasingly brazen terrorist groups in the Middle East. Palestine is now led by one terrorist group, Hamas, while another, Hezbollah, is increasingly popular and influential in Lebanon, having proclaimed victory in its war with Israel in the summer of 2006. Syria remains under an anti-American dictatorship allied to Iran, and no peace process between Israel and any of its neighbors exists. More broadly, according to repeated public opinion polls, the popularity and credibility of the United States is at an all-time lowHezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah is far more popular in the Muslim world than President Bush; most Muslims would prefer to see China or France replace America as the dominant outside power; and majorities even among America's traditional allies now have a highly unfavorable view of the United States. While the U.S. homeland has not been attacked successfully since 9/11, Osama bin Laden remains at large, and there have been numerous major terrorist attacks all around the globe in that six-year periodapproximately twice as many as in the six years before the war on terror was launched. Far from being "on the march," democracy in the Middle East is in trouble, and where it has advanced in most casesincluding Palestine, Iraq, Egypt, and Lebanonit has produced unintended and often unwanted consequences. For a war that has now been going on longer than World War II, the balance sheet is dismal. The Bush administration always warned that overcoming the terrorist threat would take time. One possible conclusion, therefore, is that the challenge posed by Islamist terrorism is so enormous that the current difficulties are to be expected, and that there is in any case no alternative to the administration's approach. According to the journalist and author Max Boot, a prominent supporter of George W. Bush's foreign policy, "It is far too soon to judge the results of the President's grand strategy of transforming the Middle East, which is still in its early stages."1 This is the argument used by the White House when it claims "significant progress" in the war on terror, makes the case for resolve and perseverance, and warns its critics that they risk encouraging the terrorists by raising questions about the administration's approach.2 An alternative explanation of the failure to make more progress could be that the United States is mostly on the right track but simply failing to put sufficient resources and energy into the war effort. This is the argument made by many of President Bush's critics on the right, such as former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who argues that Bush's "strategies are not wrong, but they are failing." Gingrich believes the struggle between the West and the forces of militant Islam should be considered an "emerging World War III" and argues that it can be won by mobilizing more "energy, resources, and intensity."3 It would be comforting to believe that the main cause of America's difficulties has beenGordon, Philip H. is the author of 'Winning the Right War: The Path to Security for America and the World', published 2008 under ISBN 9780805088007 and ISBN 0805088008.