It's Not Over Yet

We shouldn't expect results overnight. Bush has always spoken of the war on terrorism as an intergenerational challenge akin to the cold war. Don't forget, many despaired about the West's prospects in that earlier conflict. In the late 1940s, communism appeared to be on the ascent, just as Islamism is today. Our enemies at the time--China and the Soviet Union--were far more powerful than al-Qaeda and Iran are today. When Whittaker Chambers publicly broke with the Communist Party in 1948, he declared, "I know that I am leaving the winning side for the losing side."

Yet the West ultimately prevailed. Just as the Soviet empire fell apart with shocking suddenness after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, so today's malignant status quo in the Middle East could crumble more quickly than anyone expects. All that may be required is a functioning model of a democracy in a major Middle Eastern country. Bush hoped that Iraq would set that example, and it still may. Or perhaps the spark will come from a post-theocratic Iran. Or a post-Mubarak Egypt. The people of the region are hungry for change; dissatisfaction is palpable in the streets from Cairo to Tehran. The Muslim masses just need to be shown that it's possible to set themselves free.

Our ultimate victory in this struggle is virtually foreordained. Of all the possible alternatives, only liberal democracy has shown itself able to satisfy the deepest yearnings of human nature. The real question is not the outcome but how many people on both sides will die in the intervening decades. As in earlier struggles against communism and fascism, vigorous American leadership can lower the body count and hasten freedom's triumph. A retreat into isolationism à la the 1930s or '70s or into the bad old ideas that governed U.S. policy in the Middle East prior to 9/11 will prolong the suffering and make a major conflagration more likely, not less, in the future.

> Boot is the author of the forthcoming War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today