The threat is real. We can't wish it away.

Generally, things are going well in 2007. The common person, who had little to do with most of the world’s progress since time began, is a history-shaping factor now like never before. Democracy is ordinary people holding power. Capitalism is people, not government, making the economy hum. People with political and economic power don’t want war. They want peace. The common person would rather live and enjoy life.

The extremists who hate Western culture and idealize 632 CE Arabia don't fit this brighter picture. To them, life was rightside up in the 7th Century, when Islam was sweeping through the known world. Muslim extremists are willing to die and kill for their better world. The West had to wage bloody war to defeat Fascist extremism, and Cold War against Communism involved several wars over forty years. Now once again, extremists who value ideas over life know they will defeat a soft West.

We must stand up to Islamic extremism. After 9-11, America as a nation understood the need to defeat this new enemy. We chose to make our stand in Iraq for good reason. The civilized world condemned Saddam because of his brutal rule, his aggression against Iran and Kuwait, his use of WMD in warfare, and his refusal to allow UN inspectors access to Iraqi facilities. Saddam had the large oil reserves needed to finance his mischief, and ruled from an Iraq strategically located at the heart of the Arab world. If the West could liberate Iraq and help its Muslim population become prosperous, Iraq could help lead the Islamic world away from extremism.

Because of Saddam’s real threat, because we liberated Iraq from Saddam’s tyranny, Iraq seems the right place to take on Islamic extremism and replace it with popular rule underpinned by economic prosperity. In 2007, we are responding to a clash of civilizations that others launched against us. We have chosen to fight back in Iraq. If we lose in Iraq, we will have to battle Islamic extremism again in a location closer to home, at greater cost.

Do Western people see the urgency of our current fight, or do we wish the problem away? The two choices we face are to fight now, or to fight later at greater cost. Wishing the problem away, going back to life as we knew it before 9-11, is not a choice.

I think we wish terrorism away because we believe that most humans value life; most seek prosperity that gives children a better future. Just as these values prevail elsewhere, so too will they prevail in the Muslim world, given time. War is unnecessary.

Unfortunately, war is necessary. Those who believe terrorism can defeat the West aren't going away.