We face a stark choice in the present war: either the terror ends or America does. People fail to grasp the elemental nature of this war. This is not a war for revenge, though revenge we shall have, this is not a war to advance the cause of freedom, though freedom we shall spread, this is not a war for or against a religion, though religion we need and shall fight. This is a war for national survival in which we are racing against a clock perpetually moving closer to midnight. The only reason the terrorists have yet to kill millions or tens of millions of our citizens is that, for the moment, they lack the weapons with which to match their hate. They cannot be contained or controlled and, therefore, the only option open to us is to work towards the complete and total extermination of the enemy.

Some expected this war to be easy, to be a Clintonite exercise in drive-by cruise missile strikes. It can’t be. It won’t be. Not if we’re going to win. This war will be, in the words of Secretary Rumsfeld, “a long, hard slog.” Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.

Iraq is a critical front in our War on Terror: but it is far from the only front. All across the world tiny handfuls of American and Coalition warriors are slowly and steadily reducing the forces of the enemy. However, we shall never be victorious in this war until we launch a much wider and more vicious war. This is a fanatic enemy, much like the Japanese of the Second World War. They surrendered only after four years of brutal fighting and two atomic bombs. It is not just al-Qaeda and its allies which must be broken: we must also make the civilians who support them see the folly of their ways. I increasingly wonder if the Moslem world at large will learn the folly of their intransigence only when they have had their own Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

This war will not be won by the stationary. Though the war is defensive in nature, it must be offensive in means. To simply await attack is a strategy which invites defeat. We must fight the enemy in their own countries. If necessary we must burn their homes, kill their neighbours, and salt their fields. We do not do this because we desire to cause pain: we do it to avoid the arrival of a day of horror unlike any we have ever known. With a single bomb, in a single second, a single terrorist could kill more Americans than have been killed in every other American war combined. If we allow the continued advance of the enemy, millions will die.

But the terrorists do not operate in a vacuum. The terrorists are nothing more than weapons, the soldiers of a cause. We must, as the left so often advocates, attack the roots of the problem.

In a recent column Mark Steyn names five regimes that must be overthrown before the war can truly be over: Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia. I concur with all of these, however I would add to that list: Libya, Cuba and Venezuela. Libya has an active nuclear program and is a sponsor of terrorism. Cuba has a long-standing program for the development of Weapons of Mass Destruction, is known to be a state sponsor of terror, and generally, by its presence, offends American honor. Venezuela has direct ties to both al-Qaeda and the former regime of Saddam Hussein. It is seeking to subvert the governments of neighbouring nations. Overall it, due to the size of its economy, must be considered the greatest threat to peace in the Americas.

However, these attacks cannot be scattershot. Rather, they must be part of a well-planned and coherent strategy for taking the fight to the enemy.

What are we fighting? We’re fighting more than terrorism. We’re fighting Islamism, we’re fighting Communism: in the broadest possible sense, we are fighting totalitarianism. Though the goals of the Syrians, Iranians, North Koreans, and Venezuelans may vary wildly in the long term, they all share the same short-term goal: the destruction of American power. Functionally they are all one and the same enemy. There is not an “Iraq War” an “Afghan War” and a (forthcoming) “Second Korean War”. There is only one war. There is only one enemy. We are fighting the anti-American totalitarians in the world, because they are conspiring together to break American power. Whatever the ambitions are of the rulers in Damascus, Pyongyang, or Tehran, the common thread between them is that their ambitions are frustrated by American power. They will keep coming until either they are all destroyed, or until America is destroyed.

To put it another way: we are fighting anti-Americanism. Anti-Americanism is the common ideology of al-Qaeda, North Korea, Hamas, and virtually every other evil and malevolent group in the world. It is the tie that binds them together into a vast and threatening Axis of Evil, which seeks to destroy the Republic. They seek to destroy America not only because the United States is the global Hegemon, but because it is the only nation capable of holding that position which would seek to thwart their plans. Can anyone see the modern European Union sending forces to assist in the defense of South Korea or Israel? Would China resist the establishment of a series of Communist dictatorships in South America?

The terrorists are merely the weapons of the anti-Americans: we need to destroy them, but they will not go away unless we destroy their base of support. In this, they have two bases: the states which threaten America and those people who hate it.

Those within the United States who aid the enemy need to be dealt with harshly. The Congress should consider suspending habeas corpus in terrorism-related cases, allowing the President to hold for the duration terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. I realize that this would be illegal per Ex Parte Milligan, but I suspect that the Supreme Court might be, under the right conditions, inclined to revise that ruling.

Obviously it will be harder to convince the populations of other Arab nations to abandon their anti-Americanism by such means. However, perhaps a few demonstrations of American resolve would go along way towards convincing people to remain quiet. Al Jazeera, the TV news network, has recently been shown to be complicit in attacks on US forces. Bombing its offices and ‘accidentally’ killing a few of its reporters might well convince people that the United States means business. In the Arab world few things are respected more than strength. There have been many reports that al-Qaeda possesses a small navy which is presently floating around the world’s oceans. Perhaps one of those ships could be located and then obliterated with a tactical nuclear device on the pretext that the ship was believed to contain biological weapons which could have leaked. That, I think, would go a long way towards convincing the world of American resolve.

Overall, I propose the following strategy. A constant high intensity campaign of strikes by Special Forces, designed to target terrorists and people who support them. These strikes should include well-publicized air attacks at surprising points around the world, to simply hammer home the truth of America’s global reach. These should be combined with other strikes aimed at convincing the various populations of enemy nations of American resolve and the dangers of confronting Americans.

At the same time, a lengthy series of direct attacks and invasions should take place with two principal aims: overthrowing anti-American governments and forcing terrorists to fight on their own soil. These attacks will also allow the establishment of friendly governments who can provide troops for later attacks. For example, if the United States were to invade the Sudan in 2009, it might do so with the assistance of Iraqi troops.

Convince the people of the futility of resistance, kill the terrorists, and smash their states. We will fight them in Damascus so that we shall never meet them in Denver.