Yes, It IS World War IV

Here’s a topic we’re never going to hear from either side in the next two months:

What's needed here is some new thinking. The old way of analyzing ‘Islamic extremists’ needs to be thrown out, probably along with much of the vocabulary Americans use to address the threat. A good starting point is a careful reading of the 9/11 Commission's final report, not for its discussion of how the terrorist attacks happened, but for its illuminating description of the motivation of Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants.

The bin Laden goal isn't simply to humiliate the U.S. Nor is it to overthrow the government of Saudi Arabia, or Egypt, or Jordan. The goal is to eliminate those governments - in fact, to eliminate those nations.

Mr. bin Laden's dream is to remake the world order, uniting the world's billion-plus Muslims under a new caliph - that is, a modern-day successor to the Prophet Mohammed who would rule the broad Islamic world spanning the continents. ‘For those yearning for a lost sense of order in an older, more tranquil world, he offers his 'Caliphate' as an imagined alternative to today's uncertainty,’ the 9/11 report explains. Thus, the extremists who target the U.S. aren't interested in changing nation-states, but in wiping them out. Because the U.S. supports those nation-states, the first step is to cripple America. In sum, the militants really are revolutionaries.

The left would freak out even more than they have already (if that’s possible) at the specter being raised of any military action beyond Iraq. And the Bushies are clearly banking on the liberation of Iraq being the “stone in the pond” whose ripples will remake the Middle East for the better without our having to undertake any further invasions.

Unfortunately, events are unlikely to accommodate themselves to our electoral schedule, as the Beslan massacre illustrated in grisly fashion last week. And even Mr. Seib doesn’t seem to fully grasp the magnitude of the Hobson’s choice with which we’re faced. The fact is that as the Islamists strike at the Russians and at “Old Europe,” there is no guarantee – in fact, quite the opposite – that either will make common cause with us in the “war on terror.” Indeed, that could make either or both that much more likely to turn even further against us in order to make themselves smaller targets. And as we see from the perfidy of these ersatz “allies” vis-a-vie Iraq, their greed and anti-American enmity make them unlikely candidates to even assume the role of co-belligerents.

Moreover, with Iran about to go nuclear, and with North Korea already there, we are going to come face-to-face with some horrifying choices in the next few years whether we want to our not. The chances of averting a nuclear mullahcracy without an invasion of Iran are dwindling by the day. Ba’athist Syria, the (at least initial) repository of Saddam Hussein’s WMD arsenal is proving itself to be unsurprisingly unamenable to diplomatic cajoling regarding Bashar Assad’s sponsorship of terrorism and his own pursuit of WMD, just like Saddam was for over a dozen years, and is also leaving us with fewer and fewer options apart from military action. And the plain simple fact is that if we don’t take care of these problems, sooner or later the Israelis will. And the resulting “instability” (to put it mildly) is just what Osama bin Laden, or whatever other would-be “caliphs,” is trying to create.

This is why a Kerry administration would be an unmitigated disaster. Remaining in Iraq is the absolute bare minimum we can do to somehow keep the lid on this simmering Armageddon. To bug out and leave Iraq to be swallowed whole by Tehran and Damascus would be to take a minor terror regime in Afghanistan and upgrade its location and power manifold. It would be a blanket triumph for the Islamists, a boon to jihadi recruitment, put an even bigger collective bullseye on American nationals, interests, possessions, and the homeland itself, and squander everything that over a thousand American soldiers – and, leave us not forget, nearly three thousand American civilians – were sacrificed to achieve.

If we’re going to win this war, this “clash of civilizations,” we not only cannot retreat, but the fighting has only just begun – and is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

And I guess that’s what Vice President Cheney was saying yesterday - even if he didn’t realize its full implications.