What we need is a united vision.

The war with terror is still on and every new anniversary of the September attacks approaches is a reminder of how fierce this war is and how deep and cruel the evil inside that terror is.

We in Iraq need no special occasions to remind us of that; the front is still on fire and the daily confrontation leaves no place for doubt in our minds about the aggressive nature of terrorism against everything that opposes its ideology even when the opposition is represented by an Arab or Muslim trend whether Sunni, Shia or any other variation, let alone the Christians, Jews, Buddhists or non-religious people.
This aggressive ideology does not aim at achieving limited tactical objectives like many conventional wars are but it presents its goals as an attempt to impose one doctrine on the entire world as it considers everyone who does not abide by this doctrine an infidel who deserves no less than death as punishment.

What concerns me here while we are amid this continuous confrontation on the first front of war on terror is the world's position from this war. When I say Iraq is the first front in this war, I mean what I say and it's not a personal opinion but it's what the leaders of al-Qaeda have said and it's what the acts and intentions of terror-supporting regimes have proven through rejecting the democratic change in Iraq and siding with al-Qaeda to make Iraq fail by all means they have. Such regimes have been providing terrorism with financial, logistic and media aid showing clearly that their goal is one which is not allowing a plural democratic power from emerging in the middle east since that is also a common threat to both, totalitarian regimes and the ideology of terrorism.

Looking at how many free countries deal with this war disappoints me, their failure to form a united front to deal with the challenge and hesitation in addressing the magnitude of the threat has reflected negatively on us who have chosen freedom and pluralism and rejected totalitarianism and extremism.
This failure to agree on a common policy is one of the main pretexts used by the enemy in making wrong judgments and even helps terrorists pretend they are right by exploiting the fact that the west itself is not in agreement over confronting them and that the war on terror is merely waged by a few "Zionist-backed crusaders".
This gives the terrorists the advantage as they watch our differences grow and countries break away from the alliance or act reluctantly; the terrorists view each of these as a sign for victory and an indication that it's a matter of time until the global alliance against them collapses.

What we need now is a united world vision in this regard, a vision that can be implemented through a road map that we all approve and agree within which on adopting the strategy of preemptive war with all its political, military, economic and cultural means.

On the other hand lack of coordination and consensus in looking at and dealing with terror and terror-supporters can only lead to more losses and more victims on our side, some of us in this world need to make up their mind now, realize the seriousness of the threat and stop being inept is playing the global role that history assigned to the free and powerful west.

I wonder what's stopping many countries in Europe from doing what they have to do despite the clear intentions of the enemy and the fact that this enemy made clear its hostility to everything and everyone different, and we see this hostility translate into indiscriminate slaughter that doesn't even care about knowing the religious, political or social orientation of its victims like we saw in September 11 or Madrid or Egypt or London or Jordan and like we see every single day in Iraq.

Terrorism did not target governments or armies as much as it targeted civilian life in the form of markets, trains, hospitals, worship places and even crowds of children and old crippled people.

Then why is the delay and why is the reluctance in taking a firm position and standing united to face the threat?

I think the short-sightedness of some countries, especially in Europe, comes from the following points:

The world in general thinks the threat is currently directed at the United States only for political reasons related to America's stance regarding the issues of the Arab and Muslim world especially the Arab-Israeli conflict. This in my opinion is utterly shallow, such politicians who reiterate this theory are like parrots imitating the totalitarian regimes in the region that use conspiracy theories and feed hatred to their people trying to convince the people that the problem lays within the west and use this to repress aspirations for reform.

It also looks clear that many countries think they can stay away from harm by running away from the confrontation but lessons from history, near history that is, prove that this strategy carries no cure for the disease.

The Soviet Union for example was an avid supporter of Arab countries and assisted them during various chapters of their long conflict with Israel; the Soviets provided Arabs with weapons, money, political support and even technically fought on their side at some points but what did the Soviets, and later the Russians, get in return for those favors?
All I can see is thousands of jihadists roaming through what remained of the Soviet Union spreading death and fear and murdering Russian civilians even inside Moscow itself in the hope they can impose a Salafi regime in that part of the world… all the time Moscow spent sucking up for Arab dictators couldn't spare the Russian blood.

The same with the Europeans who kept pampering Iran for so long and in return the Mullah's reward them by developing missiles that can strike deep into the heart of Europe! And it seems the next reward from Iran will be supplying these missiles with more impressive fireworks.

As you can see It's not only the direction of the threat that the world fails to see but it's also the size of this threat, many think America is exaggerating it to help pass its plans for the world while in fact I see that America is only looking farther than the rest of these countries, maybe it was September 11 that made America see and believe that the threat is actually growing with time and that one day in the future it will have to deal with terrorists armed with much more deadly weapons that they have now.

This is going to happen sooner or later and we already see the feverish pursuit of some countries for acquiring weapons of mass destruction and there is no clearer way to declare such intentions than to declare one's intentions of wiping this or that country off the map.

It might be true that the threat at this point is not big enough and might not equate for a possible serious harm but the case will not remain so for a long time if we did not stand firm to contain it and put an end to its growth.

The other thing I see in some countries' attitudes is frankly a form of parasitism, cowardice and irresponsible dependence by trying to through the entire load on the shoulders of America in a mean, yet stupid, policy to avoid paying the price on the short term. They forget that by doing so they are not really saving lives and treasure but only delaying the payment for some time but the price then will be much bigger.

If only they could look deeper they would see that a sooner victory in the Middle East and helping this region evolve into a democratic and prosperous one means a better market and a lesser threat and even less immigration from the south/east to the north/west and that sacrifices made today will make the world a better place for future generations whom we can spare from paying for our mistakes.