Now that the real war has actually begun with bombing strikes, and not just rhetoric, we should hope that our national leaders stay committed to the fight and when the threat of world terrorism has been significantly decreased that they don’t give up.
Instead, now that we have the opportunity, the United States should use it to achieve a position of global power in the Middle East and Asia from which it can influence the balance of power to protect our interests abroad and ensure our domestic security. Not only must the United States defeat our enemies militarily, we must use our global economic weight to reshape the region in such a way so that the specter of fanatical Islamic terrorism can never again darken this nation’s skies.
With a thousand troops in Uzbekistan and special forces believed by many to be currently in operation throughout the region, the United States has shown it is serious about bringing justice to the terrorists. The next step is to continually expand the scope of our operations to instill fear in every person who hates freedom.
Many people have compared the Sept. 11 attacks to the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on Dec. 7. Likewise the end of this current war must be similar to that of World War II. The United States can not come “to terms” with Osama bin Laden and all the other terrorists in the world. Our objective must be to eradicate the terrorists and topple the governments that harbor them, and then, as in World War II, the United States must reshape those nations with democratic freedoms and the benefits of Western civilization.
Toppling the corrupt Taliban theocracy and eliminating bin Laden should only be the starting point for our campaign. The United States should work to solidify the power of legitimate democratic governments and undermine the power of dictatorships and terrorist-friendly regimes throughout the Middle East and Asia. The former Soviet states that have embraced democracy deserve our support, as do other Islamic nations that have denounced the terrorists — and we must not forget our duty to Israel. But the governments of Iraq, Iran and others need to be undermined and removed from power, and once gone the United States needs to step in to ensure that the threat of Islamic fanaticism can never again arise.
If the United States can be successful in the first goal of defeating the mechanisms of terror, then our nation can use its economic power to further eliminate the threat. Governments that have supported terrorist cells in the region have kept Western businesses out of their nations. If the United States can remove these corrupt regimes from power, American and European businesses can shift some of their foreign investments into the region and stimulate the local economies. Once that has occurred their standard of living would improve and the West would no longer be a foreign evil, but a source of economic revival.
It is no longer feasible for the United States to retreat to the relative safety of the North American continent because sadly, that safety no longer exists. Our nation must now step up and assume its role as a global superpower to rid the world of this evil by extending our power outward.