Next stop Iraq? Remarks of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a recent discussion held at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. (Terror Watch).(Brief Article)(Transcript)

President Bush declared shortly after September 11 that the United States would make no distinction between terrorists and the regimes that sponsor them. He said," If you harbor terrorists, you are a terrorist; if you finance terrorists, you are a terrorist." His colleagues across the Atlantic conveyed a similar message. "Surrender terrorism, or surrender power," said the prime minister of Britain.

"The Taliban regime of Afghanistan is only the beginning," the President declared. He promised not to stop with the unseating of Mullah Omar and his henchmen, nor with the elimination of Osama bin Laden. He promised to march onward to the other breeding grounds of terror. Some regimes will have to be toppled, some punished and deterred, but all must be made to understand the simple message: surrender terrorism or surrender power.

This message is crucial to victory in the current war, because without the support of sovereign states, the entire scaffolding of international terrorism will collapse. The countless terrorist cells that are being discovered or will be discovered across Europe and America, while dangerous in themselves, are no more than grapes on the vine of terror. Uproot the vines, and those grapes will disappear.

One victory for terrorism, any victory, emboldens the entire terror network. A defeat in any part of the network, likewise, makes terrorists everywhere run for cover. In Afghanistan we were told that thousands of Islamic militants would stream in to help the Taliban wage war against the West. Instead, the fury of the forces aligned with America and Britain has created a mass flood of Taliban and al-Qaeda forces fleeing the country. Victory breeds victory for either side in the war on terror. When we win, they contract. When we lose, they grow stronger.

Stopping terrorism doesn't necessarily require ending conflict. For example, Muammar Qaddafi thinks the U.S. is the Great Satan. And for years he backed up that conviction with terrorism against the U.S. and Western targets. And then one day, President Reagan bombed Libya, and Qaddafi was nearly killed. For the last 15 ...