Bush bravado
THERE WAS no particular event compelling President Bush to deliver a speech yesterday offering his familiar definition of the enemy in a war on terrorism, suggesting a false analogy to the Cold War, and sketching a strategy for victory that was long on bravado but short on plausible plans for overcoming Al Qaeda and its affiliated networks.
Political considerations no doubt had something to do with the timing of Bush's talk to the National Endowment for Democracy. At a time when polls indicate disenchantment with his competence at protecting Americans in jeopardy, Bush had reason to change the subject of popular discourse from hurricanes and disaster relief to the pure evil of terrorism.
Nonetheless, Sept. 11 did happen, as did the horrific bombings in Madrid, London, Bali, Istanbul, and many other places. The chief of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Zarqawi, has been supervising suicide bombings at Shi'ite mosques and marketplaces in Iraq.
On certain points yesterday, Bush made proper use of his powers as head of state. He made a crucial distinction when he insisted that whatever the labels applied to the ideology of the terrorists -- Islamic radicalism, militant jihadism, or Islamo-fascism -- it is ''very different from the religion of Islam."
Bush is also right to warn of the danger of Al Qaeda or an affiliate seizing power in a nation-state, as they had in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. But he misconstrues the current conflict in Iraq when he agrees with Osama bin Laden that Iraq is ''the central front in our war on terror." The foreign Islamist fighters under Zarqawi are but a small fraction of the forces waging guerrilla warfare there. However Iraq's internecine conflicts play out, there is little chance that the foreign jihadists will take power in Iraq.
This misreading of the Iraqi scene is Bush's way of rationalizing his own floundering policy there. No less unfortunate was his analogy between a war on terrorism and the West's long battle against communism. Stalin and Mao ruled enormous countries with large armies, atomic bombs, and long-range missiles. There is no basis for comparing their powers to bin Laden's or Zarqawi's.
These flaws in Bush's address would be negligible if he had offered a credible strategy for winning his war on terrorism. Instead, he commended the ineffectual tactics that are on display in Iraq when US forces flush insurgents out of one place only to see them regroup in another. As for the larger conflict against Al Qaeda, Bush could only vow to ''keep our nerve" and eventually win a victory.
The next time he raises the topic of terrorism, Bush ought to tell Americans more precisely how his administration means to protect and defend them.
