I don't claim to have a grand strategy which will make the threat of terrorism go away. But neither, apparently, does Bush; he's thinking at a tactical level, generally reacting to events, doing things such as invading Iraq whose strategic value is debatable because he can't explain it within a broader context. Maybe it's the first domino, maybe it will draw in and pin down terrorists...he seems to be throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.

Over at CE we engaged in the ritual exchange of position papers on the subject of the false premises of the Iraq War, then I backed off and suggested that there were more important things to discuss, based in the present and looking to the future. What I posted here was just a preamble to a discussion that might have some meat to it, and would at least be a refreshing change from everybody explaining, at great length, why the do or don't like George W. Bush. Endlessly poring over history keeps us rooted in the past. We may be just armchair warriors, but we're a smart bunch of armchair warriors, so I think the challenge of thinking hard about a winning strategy is a worthy one for the Zone.

A concrete example of where I think the subject can usefully be attacked: The nature of the enemy. Bush's childish explanations convey less than no information, they're dangerously misleading: "They hate freedom!" shades seamlessly into "They hate us cause we're so darn good!". Never underestimate an enemy--genuinely crazy people can't be as effective as al Qaeda. If Bush really believes his rhetoric, he's fighting a straw man, and that is doomed to fail.

For a breath of fresh intellectual air, when I get a chance I'll track down bin Laden's manifesto, the half dozen grievances that he's consistently articulated over the years. I've seen it before, and it's not the work of a crazy person, it's the work of a smart enemy. I think it's useful to examine the manifesto because it provides traction that we can't get from the bin-Laden-is-crazy rhetoric. You can't predict what the insane will do, other than wait and react and try to exterminate them one-by-one; but if we understand an enemy's goals and objectives we can focus our efforts on proactively blocking him.

Tom, do you really think Bush knows how to win? He's demonstrated he knows how to fight, but what suggests that he knows how to win?