The war on terrorism is over, but the war against global jihadism***  is just now being defined—by Peter Wehner, deputy assistant to President Bush and “director of the White House’s Office of Strategic Initiatives.”

Wehner’s article, in which he cites writers and thinkers such as Lawrence Wright and Fouad Ajami as well as articles in the popular press (WaPo, New Republic, Foreign Affairs, etc.), is late, late, late. This push to clarify what the hell the United States is engaged in around the world is late, late, late.

Still: better late than never. I suppose [emphasis added]

President Bush has said that the war against global jihadism is more than a military conflict; it is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century. We are still in the early years of the struggle. The civilized world will either rise to the challenge and prevail against this latest form of barbarism, or grief and death will visit us and other innocents on a massive scale.

Given the stakes involved in this war and how little is known, even now, about what is at the core of this conflict, it is worth reviewing in some detail the nature of our enemy - including disaggregating who they are (Shia and Sunni extremists), what they believe and why they believe it, and the implications of that for America and the West. …

Read the whole thing. Wehner concludes:

It is the fate of the West, and in particular the United States, to have to deal with the combined threat of Shia and Sunni extremists. And for all the differences that exist between them — and they are significant — they share some common features.

Their brand of radicalism is theocratic, totalitarian, illiberal, expansionist, violent, and deeply anti-Semitic and anti-American. As President Bush has said, both Shia and Sunni militants want to impose their dark vision on the Middle East. And as we have seen with Shia-dominated Iran’s support of the Sunni terrorist group Hamas, they can find common ground when they confront what they believe is a common enemy. [did you note what he wrote here? Hamas, which is Sunni, is backed by Iran, which is Shia. --ed.]

The war against global jihadism will be long, and we will experience success and setbacks along the way. The temptation of the West will be to grow impatient and, in the face of this long struggle, to grow weary. Some will demand a quick victory and, absent that, they will want to withdraw from the battle. But this is a war from which we cannot withdraw. As we saw on September 11th, there are no safe harbors in which to hide. Our enemies have declared war on us, and their hatreds cannot be sated. We will either defeat them, or they will come after us with the unsheathed sword.

All of us would prefer years of repose to years of conflict. But history will not allow it. And so it once again rests with this remarkable republic to do what we have done in the past: our duty.

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*** I note with satisfaction that the Bush administration seems to be adopting David Kilcullen’s terminology.  “Global jihadism” and “disaggregation” are both concepts that he has established.

We all know that Dubya failed his world-knowledge tests in the run-up to his presidency. (Obviously, his Yale non-studying habit stayed with him well into adulthood.)

Also, the other day, Harvard sociology professor Orlando Patterson, filling in on the NYT’s op-ed page, recounted the story of how he was called on to help educate another president:

In the summer of 1975, I was asked by Robert Goldman, President Ford’s in-house intellectual, to participate in a discussion on ethnicity at the White House, one of a series put on for the edification of the president.

America was then going through the so-called ethnic revival. Talk about the recovery of threatened ethnic heritage was everywhere, the beginnings of what later evolved into the multicultural and identity movement. Politicians had been quick to grasp the movement’s potential, and it would become a controversial issue in the subsequent presidential election.

I gathered from our conversation that the unusual nature of Ford’s ascent to the presidency had prevented the normal electoral process of learning that transformed local politicians into potential statesmen, and that the discussions were a crash course substitute.

Okay, we’ve established, more or less, that politicians don’t need to do all that boring reading when they can get the world’s biggest brains to spoon-feed them what they need to know.

But did you know that Brangelina put themselves through the same paces?

On Dec. 9, several of Columbia University’s top climate scientists gathered at their colleague Jeffrey Sachs’ townhouse on West 85th Street to help a new student catch up on the latest research on climate change. Of course, no mere undergraduate could command four hours of the professors’ attention on this unseasonably warm Saturday afternoon. Don’t be ridiculous. No, this session was for Professor Sachs’ good pal, Brad Pitt, who was looking to expand his philanthropic profile beyond adopting Third World children with Angelina Jolie, another Sachs protégé.

According to Paul Wachter, of the New York Observer, this is a good thing, because empty-headed celebrities are otherwise, you know, empty-headed. And having had a one-on-one with a real honest-to-goodness intellectual might rub off on Pitt. Next time he’s asked about climate change,

he might have something truly meaningful to say.

Un-huh.

On the other hand, he probably will not make a fool of himself the way Tom Cruise did.

Which is probably more to the point…

Those of you who have a heart won’t like what he has to say,*** but Spengler thinks things are going America’s way…for now:

For the past three years I have argued that the inner logic of ethnic decline would shape the United States’ Iraq policy, rather than the messianic social engineering that temporarily turned the Bush administration’s brains into pulled pork. Civil war and partition, de facto or de jure, would turn Iraq’s potential for violence inward. … Unpleasant as this might be for Iraq, it would be good for US interests,

[T]he facts on the ground speak for themselves. A full-dress civil war in Iraq and an incipient civil war between Fatah and Hamas in Palestine promise a period of bloodshed of indefinite duration - and America’s strategic position will be stronger as a result, provided that it can neutralize Iran.

Read the whole thing if you dare.

Bonus highlight—Spengler addresses the ridiculous but very popular idea (I wrote about it most recently here and here) that the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem is the key to “everything”:

Contrary to what almost everyone has maintained for years - that the solution to the problems of the Middle East lies in the resolution of the Israel-Palestinian problem - the present civil war in Palestine proves that no one cares about the Israel-Palestinian problem. The so-called Palestinian issue has been subsumed into the broader problem of containing Persian imperialism, and the Palestinians have been left to fend for themselves, rather like the Kurds - but without the Kurds’ language, 3,000-year history, and success in creating institutions of self-rule.

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*** I urge you to read Spengler’s columns anyway. He is as erudite as he is reptilian—and I mean that in the best possible way.

He has been advocating war (as the time-honored means to bring about peace) for years:

It is unpopular these days to draw attention to the merits of violence, particularly the sort that inevitably entails “collateral damage”, that is, the slaughter of innocents. Progress supposedly brings us non-violent conflict resolution. Au contraire. The faster the world changes, the more people find themselves left behind, and the more people are left behind, the more diehards are willing to fight to the death. Real nations, as opposed to romantic visions of nations, have no room for irredentists and other rejectionists. They need the sort of people who show up on time, pay dues to a respectable political party and get along (if grudgingly) with the neighbors.

Is it a coincidence that Angelina “Our Lady of Namibia” Jolie started a catfight with Madonna on the eve of the unveiling of this portrait?

This photo provided by Chelsea Galleria shows a painting “Blessed Art Thou,” by North Carolina artist Kate Kretz that features actress Angelina Jolie and her three children hovering in the heavens above a Wal-Mart. (AP/Chelsea Galleria, Kate Kretz)

 

I report. You decide.