A Grand Alliance; Let's Hope: That Bush can transform himself into a unifying global leader. Others have done so.

Byline: Zbigniew Brzezinski (Brzezinski, a former U.S. national-security adviser, is author most recently of "The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership.")

Before President Bush steps to the podium to deliver his second Inaugural Address, he should ask himself: what did Roosevelt, Churchill and Truman have in common? What was it that made them towering historical figures?

Though learned volumes have been written about each of these great men, the answer can be quite brief: they projected an inspiring sense of historical direction and confidence and, when faced with a historic challenge, they reached out even to political opponents to forge a joint commitment to a common cause. Unlike their enemies, they did not engage in fearmongering, nor in cheap sloganeering. And that is what elevated them into the democratic leaders of the free world.

Today, as during the last century, the world again needs America, but America also needs the world. The world will not be more peaceful or prosperous, and certainly not more democratic, if America isolates itself and turns its back on those--especially its traditional European allies--with whom it shares truly fundamental democratic values. Nor will America be more secure if it transforms itself into a lonely fortress in a hostile world.

Yet a paradox haunts America: it is more powerful by far than any other state in the world, but its official rhetoric since 9/11 is that of a fear-driven nation. Though other states have also been victimized, none have politically elevated occasional terrorism into a national obsession. The grave strategic risk is that America's declaration of a vague "global war against terrorism" as its principal mission may unite sundry fanatical religious, political and ethnic groupings--potentially even much of Islam--in active hatred of an isolated America.

President George W. Bush is alert to this danger. As he put it on Aug. 4, "We actually misnamed the war on terror. It ought to be the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies..." And he is absolutely right. But it also follows that this struggle must be pursued, not only militarily but politically as well, by a grand alliance of democratic states.

A central strategic priority flows from the above: only a ...