For according to me, we are facing a gathering Islamist ideological challenge that was not invented by Osama bin Laden. It has a Shia, Iranian version (that triumphed in 1979 with the fall of the Shah), and a Sunni, Arabian version; the two being capable of co-operation as well as mutual antipathy. Terrorism is only the weapon of convenience on both the "Hezbollah" (Shia) and "Hamas" (Sunni) sides.
Dr. Friedman and President Bush are fundamentally agreed that the war is being won. The very fact that no Islamist revolution has overthrown any Muslim regime on the latter's watch is, to both men, an indication the U.S. can prevail. I support them for their willingness to fight the war, but am not so sanguine about the outcome.
On the one hand, the Americans remain under extraordinary international pressure to retreat; on the other, the appeal of the Islamist ideology is still growing, and finding its voice through such mass media as Arab satellite television.
If, for instance, a President Kerry were to take the Americans out of Iraq, mission unaccomplished as in Vietnam, we would see a storm-tide of Islamist triumphalism, and the belief would quickly spread through the Muslim world that an aggressive, Jihadist, politico-religious Islamism is the wave of the future.
The same, of course, would happen if a President Bush did that. But everything we know about the man suggests he wouldn't.
One of my reasons to pray for his victory in the coming U.S. election is because he wouldn't. I don't think he fully grasps the dimensions of the conflict -- nobody does. But he knows they are large, he knows the difference between advancing and retreating, and that's really all he needs to know, for now. The rest we learn as we go along.
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