When this fails (not if), it may be too late to mobilize for war.
The time to do that was September 2001. I don't think our people will consent to that now.
The basis of this war is still forming. It is a slow process. Public opinion, which burned white-hot on 9/12 has cooled and that is a good thing. This will be a long war and will require a hard and tempered response based on more than a horrific intrusion on the public consciousness that an enemy exists out there somewhere. The institutions of our civilization have to reform along the lines of defense, not the least of which is the moral exculpation of what we have to do to defeat this enemy.
The laggards will be along in time. It will take more outrages but more outrages are inevitable.
The best we can hope for is that the price in blood is not too high. Had George Bush the plain eloquence of a Victor Davis Hanson the process would be faster and easier but we have to deal with the realities that are.
It will take the modern equivalent of the slaughter at Omdurman to break the will and capabilities of this enemy. The world is not yet ready for that. The last thing we need now is to be maneuvered into machine-gunning legions of 12 year olds as Iraqi troops did in the Iran - Iraq war.