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This conflict is simply an outbreak of the age long battle of good vs. evil. Fortunately President Bush has the moral clarity to approach it from that angle.

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...nation-building... ...coalition-building... ...constructive engagement... ...address root causes of terrorism... ...new Marshall Plan...

Geez, did this come from Madeline Albright's press office?

Look, the author stated it way back in the first paragraphs of the article. These people come from a nomadic culture that respects strength and victory, and sees anything else as evidence of decadence, vacillation, and weakness. So instead of sending the Secretary of State running around the globe like the world's nervous nanny every time something ugly happens, we should retaliate instantly and squash them like bugs. In time, they will learn not to risk hurting us.

Coupled with this, of course, we should also make like a good shepherd and keep the flock out of their wretched and pestilential little countries.

It is convenient and easy to blame one madman, Osama bin Laden, as the villain of the story. If we get him the struggle is over. Unfortunately it is not that simple. He can carry out his evil deeds because he is the expression of a much bigger problem. He exists because throughout the Islamic world, from Pakistan to the Middle East and North Africa, there are very few successful nation states. Most of them have failed to deliver good government, progress, and prosperity for their people and they need an enemy to justify their failure. The forms of failure vary, but all have to do with the internal struggle within the Islamic world that gets turned outward from time to time, as it has now. These leaders have only succeeded in convincing large numbers of their people that the source of their ills is the West, in general, and America, more particularly. America is hated both by those who envy what we have and by those who are repelled by it.

This is mostly BS. These states were mostly "front-line" states during the Cold War. The modernists tended to be aligned with the Soviet Union (or at least that was our perception -- e.g. Mossedegh, Nasser, Asad, Quaddafi), and the US backed the fundamentalists (e.g. Shah of Iran, King of Jordan, King of Saudi Arabia, Pakistani ISI, Emirs, King of Morrocco).

A consequence of winning the Cold War is that the fundamentalists win in the Middle East.

This article is full of bad history and naive assumptions.

For most of the last millennium it is fair to say that Europe has tried to dominate the Arabic world, with some success.

No, for most of the past 1,500 years the Muslims have tried to dominate the world, including Europe. Europeans reacted, mostly defensively. Only in the last couple of hundred years were the tables turned, when Europe gained technological ascendancy.

It's also extremely naive to think that, at this point, Saudi Arabia is our friend. To the contrary, they are among our most dangerous enemies. They are the cesspool right at the bottom of the worst Islamic terrorism, and they are still working against us. They do so covertly, because they know they are vulnerable, despite all their oil wealth and religious leverage through control of the Islamic holy places.

No, a new Marshal Plan wouldn't work. The original Marshal Plan put civilized Europe back on its feet again. With the Arabs, there is no similar cultural or civilizational basis to work with. We have already pumped more than a hundred billion dollars into the region--despite all their oil wealth and supposed religious brotherhood, these people have proved incapable of helping themselves--and the money has only served to make matters worse, funding explosing population growth and sick education systems.

About the only thing he gets right is that this will be a long, difficult, and dangerous war. Where it is going, and whether America still has the nerve and courage to fight it to the end, remains to be seen. There are still plenty of courageous men and women left in this country, but there are also plenty of moral morons without honor. We are going to be tested, I think.

Swords then plowshares must be the essence of the West’s strategy. The military response will come first but then we must act boldly and generously to address the causes which create such fertile soil for fanatics. We must win a military-intelligence victory and then help build successful nations out the collection of failed societies and lead in building a more legitimate international order.

First we are to be the worlds policemen, but now we must also be the worlds therapist?

Nonsense. Islamic countries will never succeed because their religion embraces primitivism. Picture, if you will, nations filled with militant Amish. Could any amount of help we offered them make the slightest bit of difference?

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For Osama bin Laden, triggering a war between the West and the Islamic world would be the biggest possible success. His hope is to provoke us into an indiscriminate and excessive response.

If the West exterminates Moslem, leaves no vestiges, then that would be playing right into OBL's hands! He will have won!