"In Hot Pursuit"

Yet the fact that the Israelis have to keep doing it suggests that wiping out the leaders does not actually solve the problem, a principle that at least one "coalition" member is already highlighting. "My advice," Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told the BBC last week, "is not to attack Afghanistan or kill bin Laden. This will result in the rise of a new generation of terrorists." But for the Bush Administration, committed to capturing bin Laden "dead or alive," no strike at all is the one option it doesn't seem to have any longer.

To learn more about the military buildup in the Middle East, go to time.com/battlefield