The Road to Baghdad

The attacks of Sept. 11 were an act of war against liberal values and the nation blessed with the resources, courage and faith to champion those values globally. Our enemies have as their cause the spread of a political-religious empire based on a perverted interpretation of Islam that substitutes a lust for violence for a love of peace. They abhor liberty and justice. Their choice of civilian and governmental targets indicates that they understand one essential truth about America--the people rule here, not mullahs or kings or generals or the megalomaniacal son of an oil-rich desert kingdom. They believe that the right of individuals to pursue happiness makes societies weak, and that liberty begets only materialism. Since they were routed from Afghanistan and many of their fighters are dead or in captivity, the magnitude of their misjudgment is evident.

Terrorism's appeal will endure where people have no experience with the fruits of self-government. We cannot counter it by advocating freedom only where it wouldn't unsettle economic and security relationships with undemocratic regimes. Until all the world's remaining despotic regimes--be they profoundly cruel or in some respects more benevolent--are replaced by democratically committed regimes, terrorism will always find new adherents, and the threat to America's security and ideals will persist. Change has come to Afghanistan. It must be protected there. But change must also come to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran, the Palestinian Authority and wherever nations are ordered to exalt the few at the expense of the many.

America's voice, as expressed by our government, must be outspoken in support of democratization in all of these countries. The global success of liberty is America's greatest strategic interest as well as its most compelling moral argument. All our other interests are served in that cause. The more countries that are governed with the consent of the governed, the fewer there will be where resentment caused by corrupt rulers can be misdirected toward the U.S.

Change must also come, soon, to Iraq. I share the President's sense of urgency about ending the regime of an often irrational aggressor, a mass murderer who has used chemical weapons on his own soil, persists in violating the terms of the cease-fire that ended the Gulf War and is committed to acquiring nuclear weapons. When he does acquire them, containing his aggression will be far more difficult; he will perceive cooperation with terrorists as a lesser risk to himself; and threats to his rule could be the occasion for a savage man's last blaze of infamy.