The Battle Ahead.(Brief Article)

In the coming months, years and perhaps decades, America's global war against terrorism will demand radical thinking on how to fight an enemy whose goal is to instill fear and confusion, whose armies are militia networks strewn across the globe and whose war finances are untraceable bundles of cash. The American people must accept at the outset that capturing or killing one individual will not rid them or the world of the scourge. Osama bin Laden, in fact, is no longer just a man. He has been transformed into an idea, and in some parts of the world a cult hero. As President George W. Bush suggested in his speech last Thursday, bin Laden heads a movement that cannot be silenced by simply silencing its leader.

To fight this scourge effectively, the Bush administration will need to construct a policy whose crucial ingredient is sustainability. The political core abroad should be an alliance, prominently including Islamic states, which fights the enemy with surgical military measures and covert actions based on human and electronic intelligence collected by the United States and its allies.

The centerpiece of any such alliance is Turkey, a NATO ally and the Muslim world's only lasting democracy. Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country, and Pakistan, keeper of Islam's nuclear weapons and possible line to the Taliban, are also crucial. The oil-rich Arab states from which much of the wealth emanates that fuels extremist movements must join in, unconditionally. Finally, much as America did in 1941 when it joined with communists to fight the more urgent threat posed by Hitler and the Axis powers, the United States may be able on a limited basis to work with Iran and perhaps other historically hostile states--as long as they move, however reluctantly, to halt their own support for terrorism.

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan can play key roles in containing the fallout from any assault on the Taliban. Saudi oil wealth has long backed a diverse collection of radical Muslim agendas. President Bush should ask the Saudis to stop flows of financing from misguided fundamentalist sheiks. He should also ask the United Arab Emirates, home to the region's largest black market in cash transfers, to shut down illegal fund-raising activities for holy wars that could spill over onto its soil.

In Pakistan, it is essential that the government move promptly to reduce the support for domestic Muslim radicals by inviting America to ...