I submit that the center of gravity is neither Iraq nor Afghanistan, but the people of the Islamic countries of the Middle East and Central Asia. Our tacit failure, seemingly agreed upon by both parties, is based upon our “…persistent unwillingness to make the sustained and patient effort needed to help the people of the Middle East overcome the crippling societal problems facing their governments and societies.”

Old Blue, I appreciate your comments and think you are generally correct here. My concern is that we don’t underestimate the corrosive effect of bad teaching. It seems to me we make a mistake trying to address “crippling societal problems” absent a way to redress the crippling moral indoctrination that goes by the name of Wahhabism. I claim no original insight in saying that all the good work we have done to reform the societal problems in Iraq may yet be undone. But it seems the influence of modernity and moderation has taken hold and will thrive, absent pernicious meddling by outsiders. That alone makes continued close contact and cooperation vital for both countries’ interests.

The real importance of Iraq (though President Bush currently gets scant credit for seeing it early on) is as an entry point to inoculate the Mid-East(and by extension the entire Muslim world) against extremism by introducing Western values–or at least the values we in our best moments aspire to. Yet wouldn’t it be the height of irony if in some distant day Iraqi society was more recognizably ‘American’ than our own?

But I digress. The real reason I wanted to respond was to second the suggestion that the “center of gravity” resides in the populations of the Islamic countries. I would suggest that Saudi Arabia represents a special problem, with its sponsorship of Wahhabist/Salafist teachings. A cover article in U.S. News the week after 9/11 identified as a critical factor the Saudi funding of radical Islamic madrassas worldwide–the breeding grounds of future terrorists, according to Colin Powell. I believe this problem persists largely unaddressed and remains entirely unresolved.