"Nothing America could have done would have provided al-Qaida and its new generation of cloned groups a better recruitment device than our unprovoked invasion of an oil-rich Arab country," Richard A. Clarke writes in "Against All Enemies."

Did we invade Iraq unprovoked and without merit? No, there is no more felicitous canard than the only reason we invaded Iraq was for weapons of mass destruction.

It is troubling that we still do not know what happened to the unaccounted for weapons of mass destruction. However with time, we will find out whether these chemical and biological weapons were previously destroyed, became unstable and denigrated to the point of being useless, were transported to Syria, given to terrorists, are hidden still in Iraq or whatever happened.

The fact is, Saddam Hussein was given an ultimatum with a deadline to account for these weapons, and he did not comply. In fact, Hussein was given several ultimatums and failed to comply with all of them. Hussein’s noncompliance grew to the point that the United Nations resolutions no longer meant anything, and the U N. was becoming a ridiculous debating society. The United Nations had already proven itself a failure in Rwanda and Serbia where they once again allowed holocausts resulting in deaths in the 100 of thousands. And the U.N. is still the central authority responsible for Palestine following the British withdrawal in 1948. How are they doing?

Clearly, Iraq is in one of the most explosive parts of the world. And headed by Saddam Hussein, Iraq was one of the most serious threats to America’s safety, and the safety of Iraq’s neighboring countries. Saddam’s failure to comply with one more U.N. resolution to come clean on weapons of mass destruction was beyond the last straw. This does not even take into consideration Saddam’s firing on American planes who were there to enforce the No Fly zone.

The fabrication that Saddam Hussein was not linked to terrorists is equally ludicrous. Hussein gave the surviving families of Hamas suicide bombers $10,000. Hussein, while not connected with the religious Islamic fundamentalists because of his secularism, had the express desire to create as much harm to the U.S. as possible. Iraq was ideal as a possible terrorist base and eventually, if not a currently, an alliance to fundamentalist Islamic jihad groups. After all, Hussein tried to assassinate an American President. There was obviously nothing that Hussein was not capable of doing.

Yet, someone who ought to know better about that part of the world – Former President Jimmy Carter -- has once again weighed in on the question of Iraq.

Carter said, "There was no reason for us to become involved in Iraq recently. That was a war based on lies and misinterpretations from London and from Washington, claiming falsely that Saddam Hussein was responsible for [the] 9/11 attacks, claiming falsely that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And I think that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair probably knew that many of the allegations were based on uncertain intelligence ... a decision was made to go to war [then people said] 'Let's find a reason to do so'."

Those arguments move us past the question of internationalizing American foreign policy and shift it into the premise that Iraq was an unnecessary war with no geopolitical benefit to the United States.

On the face of it, this argument is flatly contradictory to the facts on the ground. First of all, since the removal of Saddam Hussein from power, our enemies Iran, Syria and Libya are all acting with less hostility. In the case of Libya and Iran they are eliminating and diminishing their nuclear threat.

In addition, there is a good chance with our help that Iraq will form a pluralistic democratic government that recognizes to some extent minority rights. It has already drawn up a temporary constitution that requires at least 25 percent of the elected representatives to be women. This is unparalleled in the region and would be a great defeat to the fundamentalist jihad. They have said so themselves.

Democracy would also inevitably spread in the region. Just as West Germany next to East Germany was the best example of Communism’s failure so, Iraq could be the best example of Islamic fundamentalist’s failures.

We are, after all, in a clash of civilizations. This is why Iraq is not divorced from the fighting of terrorists. Iraq is at the center of the fight against terrorism.

There are those who would have us take the European approach. However, Europe is finding out that fighting terrorism is not a police action. European citizens will learn that Islamic terrorists are not just interested in destroying America. They are interested in destroying our kind of civilization, which includes them.

Ronald Brownstein writes in his column concerning Tom Bentley’s (director of Demos, a London-based think tank close to the Labor government) observations on Europe:

… European governments critical of Bush's strategy for combating terror. Those who maintain Bush has relied too much on military force … will have to show they can protect their countries with alternatives that place greater emphasis on alliances, law enforcement, diplomacy and encouraging social progress in the Islamic world.

The prediction here is that it will not work, because it has not worked in the past. To quote John Kerry quoting Bill Clinton, "Stop digging."