FAILURE TO EXPLOIT SUCCESS

Is the war on terror over and no one told us? If it is not over, where is it going? I looked up Kerry's foreign policy website and it does not mention the war on terror and Bush has merely told Russett that it is a dangerous world. Having won the war to topple Saddam, the Bush administration put out the word that this is it until the elections. Why? Because he figured out that the march to war unsettles the stock market. I cannot imagine Roosevelt taking time out to settle the nerves of the market.

Be that as it may, when the Bush administration fails to exploit success, he gives his enemies an opportunity to reorganize. I am not talking about political opponents such as Powell (who methodically and subtly takes every opportunity to undercut the Bush doctrine), the CIA which is so blinded by what former Israeli chief of intelligence called" conceptions" that it overestimated Saddam's WMD capabilities, his moves to rid himself of incriminating evidence and his connections to Al Qaeda not to mention the failure to detect the ongoing global nuclear trade. Thank God, the maverick Khaddafi decided to break rank and hand over the good or even the anti-war activists who want to return to the good old days Bin Laden was hosting resettable members of the press.

I am talking about American opponents in the Middle East. Assad feels no pressure to turn over the leaders of the Hizballa who are training Iraqis in placing sophisticated roadside bombs to better kill American soldiers. Nor does the US prevent Sharon and the Europeans from freeing hundreds of terrorists and handing Hizballa a major victory. Indeed, so secure do Assad and Khameini that they use a plane returning from carrying relief supplies to Bam to resupply Hizbalalla. In other words, what happened to the mantra that those who harbor terrorists are terrorists? Prince Charles even visits Iran during a run off to a very suspect Iranian elections not to mention that in Iraq the way to oppose the US is to call for elections.

In Egypt the government paper publishes editorials in support of suicide bombings. The government appoints the editors but the Bush administration has yet to cut a penny from the 2 Billion dollars the American tax payers send Egypt. Not has a penny been cut off from the money that flows into Pakistani coffers despite Musharef failure to stop nuclear proliferation because America has failed to provide him with"a smoking gun."

If the Bush administration is faltering in Iraq, it is because it is doing what it did in Vietnam. It is putting all it eggs in a single basket permitting its opponents to make sure that enough eggs will continue to be broken for it to remain there. Ironically, this strategy makes less sense in Iraq. After all, the enemies are not other superpowers like China or the USSR.

Its time to return to the offensive. Staying on defense may have looked safe but it is losing the war and the American people know it.