It depends on how we define the war on terror. There are three issues that bind us in strife with the Axis of evil.
The world is full of ethnic and religious conflicts. 99.9% of them we don't understand well enough to positively influence.
I see the suggestion that Israel isn't important in this argument. Without any religious justifications, we can see that Israel is not just another ethnic problem. Our values in the west are Judeo-Christian in origin, regardless of our individual beliefs. Furthermore, Israel is the only democracy in the mideast where religious tolerance is practiced. And our commitment to Israel stems from our horror at the depravity of the Holocaust, a phenomenon that apparently continues to have legs; Arafat and Saddam have direct links to Nazism via the Mufti of Jerusalem, who worked for Hitler in Kosovo and in the mideast.
A billion muslims fall asleep every night worrying about six million Jews who are just trying to survive until the next day. That has to worry us, as Israel is yet another democracy on the edge of civilization facing the thundering hordes beyond our gates. It's our fight, too. And 9/11 proved it. Prestowitz tells us to pull back and avoid dependance on mideast oil -- that will solve our problems. But if I've paid for the damned oil, I refuse to have my dollars used against me. If they are, then I believe we have a number of financial, political, and military options at our disposal, and we needn't fear the effects of crushing our enemies.
Iraq had reached the pinnacle of pan-arab nationalist power, if one discounts the as yet undeloped atomic weapons in Iran, a Persian nation. Iraq was sponsoring mideast terror, and I am not going to ignore the rumors that it had global ambitions for terrorism; sheltering as many international terrorists as it did right up until Baghdad's fall is enough of a threat to me. Pakistan should also be included in the Axis of Evil, but continues to be a juggernaut of State Department bewilderment that I think is beyond the scope of this discussion.
If you think we need to strengthen our military, then we should give recruiters better financial news for recruits, and we should continue developing our own weapons systems, both NMD (missile defense) and nuclear. Pulling back, losing focus on the Axis of Evil, any sort of hesitation now would be a victory for this ragtag collection of international robbers, dictators, and racists.
The WMD genie is already out of the bottle - plenty of countries have chemical and biological (the most dangerous of all) capabilities. At the moment our greatest danger, IMHO, isn't state sponsored attacks on the US but WMD in the hands of those involved in religious and ethnic wars who seek to punish the US for taking sides. That incidentally, is the reason the attacks on Israel have spread to the US.
I certainly see the Israeli-Palestinian War as just that, a war fought over religion and land - just like lots of other wars. Like other ethnic and religious wars, I think we should make it a point to stay out of it - in every way.
Iraq was a basket case. It's equipment was outdated and in short supply. That Iraq was a power in any respect when we invaded and occupied it is a laughable assertion. There isn't any connection between Iraq and 9/11. Don't take my word for it, that's the US government's position - the result of a lack of evidence to suggest any other possible conclusion. Since two (of four) of Pakistan's provinces have elected governments sympathetic to the Taliban you might be right about Pakistan. Since almost the entire region defines us by our support for Israel, however, I don't know why that should be all that surprising.
My concern for our armed forces is really two fold. In the first place, I'm concerned that we're configuring our forces to play policeman to the world and therefore handicapping us in the event of a major, large scale war of national survival. My second concern is that we won't have the military forces in the numbers we need because of recruitment/retention shortfalls which I believe are looming. In my view, we'll need to return to the draft if our committments aren't quickly reduced and we don't return to a policy which places the emphasis on defense instead of playing policeman to the world.