Now for the hard part

IN ALL THE BROUHAHA over the recommendations for intelligence reform contained in the 9/11 Commission Report, the commission's most important and sweeping recommendations - those on foreign policy - have been largely ignored.

Those recommendations, which appear in Chapter 12 of the report, entitled "What To Do? A Global Strategy," go far beyond reforming the CIA and other parts of the intelligence community. They lay out a plan for fighting and winning the war on terror. Who is the enemy? What do they want? And how can we win? These are the questions the commission tries to answer in Chapter 12.

"Our enemy," the commission notes, "is twofold: al Qaeda, a stateless network of terrorists that struck us on 9/11; and a radical ideological movement in the Islamic world. . .." In short, says the commission, "the United States has to help defeat an ideology, not just a group of people. . .. How can the United States and its friends help moderate Muslims combat the extremist ideas?"

These are the issues the presidential election needs to be about - but so far neither presidential campaign seems to want to put them front and center. Senator Kerry, who says he has accepted "all" of the report's recommendations, hasn't said whether the

recommendations in Chapter 12 - which amount to the first systematic attempt by a bipartisan group to develop a new grand strategy for a new kind of war - are included in that blanket endorsement. President Bush, for his part, has said surprisingly little about how he will prosecute the war on terror if he wins a second term.

Neither campaign has yet given us anything like a plan for the war - comparable, say, to George Kennan's call to contain Soviet power and communist ideology in his famous 1946 "Long Telegram" from Moscow. The ensuing years witnessed some of the most creative and far-sighted foreign policy in American history, from the Marshall Plan to the creation of NATO, as Washington responded to the threat. We stand at a moment today comparable to the late 1940s. Will our children and grandchildren look back on our response to the new threat and say that we also rose to the occasion?

Most of what the commission says in Chapter 12 is simple common sense. In the short term we must attack existing terrorist groups, harden our homeland defense, and prepare our civil defense response for the likelihood of serious new attacks. In the long term, the commission sees our goals shifting to the prevention of new attacks by isolating and weakening terrorist groups, and states that harbor or support them, while we marginalize and discredit the ideology of fanatical hatred that inspires our bitterest and deadliest enemies.

While the commission correctly identifies the gravest short-term threats we face in the war on terror - the possibility that Pakistan, with its nuclear arsenal and nearly 160 million people, and/or Saudi Arabia, with the world's largest oil reserves, could fall into the hands of Al Qaeda-style fanatical terrorists - it also calls for a long-range strategy to promote openness and ideological change in the Middle East.

This would involve expanded efforts in broadcasting and communications, promotion of more cultural exchanges, building an international coalition to provide better educational opportunities in the region, promotion of free-trade agreements in the Arab world, and other actions aimed at weakening the appeal of radical and terrorist ideas. The commission also recommends that the United States "should offer an example of moral leadership in the world" and put a greater emphasis on "respect for human dignity."

Implementing these recommendations won't be easy, and we probably won't get it right anytime soon. As the commission notes, the Middle East presents particular difficulties - crushing poverty (most people in the Middle East live on less than $2 a day), staggering levels of anti-American sentiment (in Egypt, a major recipient of American foreign aid, only 15 percent of the population has a favorable opinion of the United States), and intellectuals and journalists who are deeply suspicious of the United States and its intentions in the region. It is easy to talk about winning "hearts and minds," but it is easier said than done.

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If the 9/11 Commission Report is a good start to the discussion, it is not the last word. Some of the most critical problems in the Middle East are not discussed in the strategy chapter. Iran's nuclear program appears to be accelerating and its links with terrorists have deepened as Iran has built links to elements in the Iraqi resistance. Can the United States live with a nuclear Iran, or, if negotiations fail, must the United States threaten and perhaps even use force to stop Tehran's nuclear drive? The commission is silent here.

Then there is Israel - another Middle Eastern country mentioned only in passing in the strategy chapter. A very strong bipartisan consensus ensures that the United States will for the foreseeable future continue to support Israel in its quest for security. What kinds of problems does this pose for the United States in an ideological and political competition in the Muslim Middle East - and, given that our support for Israel will not and should not change, how does this affect our political strategy in the Muslim and Arab world?

The commission offers no guidance on these points - but they are probably the two most immediate issues the United States needs to face as it tries to build a political strategy for the Middle East.

To some degree the commission is still whistling in the dark - still refusing to accept just how difficult our position has become. American interests will continue to lead the United States to make policy choices that are not widely popular in the Middle East.

In the short term, Iran's nuclear program gives us two unacceptable options. On the one hand, a military conflict over Iran's nuclear program - even one limited to preemptive strikes against its nuclear facilities - could unleash yet another wave of anti-Americanism in the region and further inflame the situation in Iraq. This is not the backdrop we need for an ambitious "hearts and minds" program to win friends and influence people in the wider Middle East.

On the other hand, sitting back while Iran develops these weapons and, perhaps, assists some of its terrorist allies in acquiring nuclear and radiological weapons, will dramatically weaken America's position throughout the region, greatly increase the chance of further conflicts, and set the stage for new and more terrible wars between Israel and its neighbors. This course, too, is unlikely to make us safer or reduce the power of fanatics and terrorists throughout the Middle East.

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Even assuming that we can successfully navigate these treacherous shoals, we face other, deeper problems in the region. For the United States to make a credible case that Arabs in particular can and should see us as partners rather than as adversaries, we are going to have to do more than make a few radio and television broadcasts. Expanding academic and cultural exchanges is a good idea and will help; negotiating free-trade agreements and allowing poor Arab countries to export goods duty-free into the United States will also help. But these steps will not be enough.

To win hearts and minds in the Middle East, America must do more than proclaim its adherence to impressive human ideals. We must show concretely how the application of those ideals in our policies towards the Middle East promises to help people there achieve the goals that are important to them.

Some of these goals are, naturally enough, material. America's strategy in Europe after World War II recognized that it wasn't enough to oppose communism intellectually and militarily. We had to show people that capitalism worked - that the material abundance that communism promised was something that capitalism could deliver. The Marshall Plan aimed to help Europe get back on its feet economically, and as prosperity returned to a devastated Europe the communist message progressively lost its appeal.

We must find ways of helping Arabs build prosperous, middle-class societies and demonstrate that inter-civilizational cooperation brings concrete benefits for the large majority. The commission's recommendations for free trade and other initiatives are a start, but much more needs to be done. To take one example: Access to credit for small and emerging businesses and to help ordinary people become homeowners is a major problem in much of the Middle East. Can the flexible capital markets Americans have helped develop find ways to make more credit more easily available - and on terms that are religiously acceptable in a Muslim culture - so that more Arabs and Muslims can join the middle class?

But as a famous Middle Eastern religious figure once put it, "Man does not live by bread alone." Even comfortable, middle-class Arabs - like the Saudi families whose sons hijacked American planes on Sept. 11 - feel humiliated, frustrated, and enraged by the course of modern history. Part of this comes from the way the Christian (or, in some cases, the formerly Christian) West has leapt ahead of the Islamic world and dominated the emerging global society. More of it comes from the failure of the Arab world to prosper, grow, and cooperate after freeing itself from European rule. The sharpest reminder of this failure is the continuing Arab helplessness before Israel.

The terrorists speak of religion, but the driving force behind their popularity is often frustrated nationalism - indeed, Arab radicals only turned from secular nationalism to religious fanaticism after nationalists like Nasser (and Saddam Hussein) failed to solve the Arab world's problems. Helping the Arab world find a legitimate outlet for its frustrated nationalism while promoting its peaceful economic development must ultimately be part of any successful American strategy in the war on terror. Given the role of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in provoking a sense of Arab frustration and rage, this strategy will also inevitably lead the United States back to the thankless and difficult task of attempting to mediate this bitter and intractable dispute.

Crush Al Qaeda, pacify Iraq, block Iran's nuclear ambitions, stabilize Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, restart the peace process between Palestinians and Israelis, maintain the security of the world's oil supply, push Arab leaders to reform without leaving them vulnerable to power grabs by terrorist fanatics - and do all this while making more friends for the United States in a region where most people dislike or even hate us. That is our task.

This is a tall order. Now President Bush and Senator Kerry need to explain to the American people, and to the world, just how they see the war on terror unfolding, and just what they think the United States needs to do to win.

Walter Russell Mead is the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow in US Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author, most recently, of "Power, Terror, Peace, and War: America's Grand Strategy in a World at Risk" (Knopf).

Research assistance for this article was provided by Bryan Gunderson.