Yet neither President Bush nor Democratic leaders who will take over Congress in three weeks have embraced the panel's report since it was released last week. Bush set it aside in favor of his own review, but, faced with conflicting advice within the administration, the White House said yesterday that plans to announce a new Iraq strategy by Christmas would be delayed until January. Democrats remain undecided and kept their distance while trying to pressure Bush.

"I don't think I've ever seen politicians walk away from something faster," said Gordon Adams, who was a White House defense budget official under President Bill Clinton.

The dichotomy between the public's support for the plan and the Washington establishment's ambivalence illustrates the complex political environment as Bush searches for a new strategy in a war that has outlasted U.S. involvement in World War II. A war-weary public appears hungry for ideas that would represent a major change, but political leaders remain uncertain whether the plan's proposals would improve the situation.

The lukewarm reception to the report contrasts sharply with earlier expectations for a panel led by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.). In the weeks leading up to the report's release, many in Washington predicted that the Iraq Study Group would become the next Sept. 11 commission, its conclusions imbued with an aura of bipartisan authority. Instead, conservative Bush supporters labeled it a plan for surrender while liberals called it a sellout for not proposing a firm timetable for withdrawal.

"Part of the problem is the expectation was so high," said panel member Vernon E. Jordan Jr. "The expectation was proportionate to the seriousness of the issue and how greatly people were concerned about it. The problem is there is no absolute correct answer."

Conventional wisdom emerging from both parties holds that the report's real value is its assessment of the situation in Iraq, which it terms "grave and deteriorating," a judgment some said changed the debate in Washington by ending any lingering illusions or pretense.

The public's discontent with the war has grown even since last month's congressional elections, when voters tossed out Republican majorities in favor of Democrats critical of Bush's leadership in Iraq. Bush's approval rating now stands at 36 percent, down four points from before the elections and the second-worst of his presidency. The poll found the lowest-ever approval for his handling of Iraq, 28 percent.

Overall, 52 percent now say, the United States is losing the war, up from 34 percent last year. Three in 10 say the United States is making significant progress in restoring civil order; nearly half thought so in June. And 41 percent say Iraq is now in a civil war, up from 34 percent in August. Forty-five percent describe the situation as close to a civil war.

Although the public remains leery of immediate withdrawal, it has lost faith that the Bush administration has a clear solution for Iraq. Twenty-five percent think it does, down 13 points since September. Even Republicans are no longer convinced, with 49 percent saying the president has a clear plan, down 22 points since September. The solace for Bush is that just as few Americans say the Democrats have a clear plan.

The public is more open to the Iraq Study Group plan, with 46 percent for it and 22 percent against it. When asked about some of its specific recommendations, respondents are dramatically more supportive. Seventy-nine percent favor shifting U.S. troops from combat to support; 69 percent support withdrawing most combat forces by early 2008; 74 percent support reducing aid if Iraq fails to make progress toward national unity and civil order; and about six in 10 support talking with Syria and Iran to try to resolve the conflict.

Jeff Stein, a reporter for Congressional Quarterly, then put a similar question about Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia group. "Hezbollah. Uh, Hezbollah . . ." replied Mr Reyes. "Why do you ask me these questions at five o'clock? Can I answer in Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?" Go ahead, said Stein. "Well, I, uh . . ." said the congressman.

His apparent ignorance of basic facts have raised fresh questions over his suitability for the key intelligence post - as well as the judgment of Nancy Pelosi, the new Speaker of the House, who picked him for the job. She has already been criticised for trying to oust her deputy Steny Hoyer, in a poll among Democrat congressmen after the mid-term elections.

There was further controversy over her choice of Mr Reyes over the head of Jane Harman, who had been the committee's most senior Democrat but was said to have upset Ms Pelosi. At the time Mr Reyes said he had "very strong credentials" for the job - "credentials which could stand up to anybody".

Yesterday he said in a statement: "The CQ interview covered a wide range of topics other than the selected points published in the story. As a member of the intelligence committee since before 9/11, I'm acutely aware of al-Qaeda's desire to harm Americans. The committee will keep its eye on the ball, and focus on the pressing security and intelligence issues."

Earlier this year Stein flummoxed two Republicans on the committee, Jo Ann Davis and Terry Everett, with similar questions about the differences between Sunni and Shia. "One's in one location, another's in another location. No, to be honest with you, I don't know," replied Mr Everett.

Stein has also caught out Willie Hulon, chief of the FBI's new national security branch when he was asked to which branch of Islam were Iran and Hezbollah belonged. "Sunni" he replied. "Wrong," said Stein.

Stein has defended his use of such questions: "To me, its like asking about Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland - who's on what side? Its been five years since these Muslim extremists flew hijacked airliners into the World Trade Centre. Is it too much to ask that our intelligence overseers know who they are?" Indeed, Trent Lott, No 2 in the Republican Senate leadership, said recently: "It's hard for Americans, all of us, to understand what's wrong with these people . . . They all look the same to me."

The report from the Iraq Study Group expressed amazement that more was not being done to "understand the people who explode roadside bombs". Only six people in the US Embassy in Baghdad are fluent in Arabic, about two dozen of its 1,000 employees having some familiarity with the language.

The approach overlaps somewhat a course promoted by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz). But the Pentagon proposals add several features, including the confrontation with Sadr, a possible renewed offensive in the Sunni stronghold of Al Anbar province, a large Iraqi jobs program and a proposal for a long-term increase in the size of the military.

Such an option would appear to satisfy Bush's demand for a strategy focused on victory rather than disengagement. It would disregard key recommendations and warnings of the Iraq Study Group, however, and provide little comfort for those fearful of a long, open-ended U.S. commitment in the country. Only 12% of Americans support a troop increase, whereas 52% prefer a fixed timetable for withdrawal, a Los Angeles Times/ Bloomberg poll has found.

"I think it is worth trying," a defense official said. "But you can't have the rhetoric without the resources. This is a double down" - the gambling term for upping a bet.

Such a proposal, military officials and experts caution, would be a gamble. Any chance of success probably would require major changes in the Iraqi government, they said. U.S. Embassy officials would have to help usher into power a new coalition in Baghdad that was willing to confront the militias. And the strategy also would require more U.S. spending to increase the size of the U.S. military and for an Iraqi jobs program.

Defense officials interviewed for this article requested anonymity because the deliberations over the Pentagon's recommendations were continuing and had not been made public.

"You are dealing with an inherently difficult undertaking," said Stephen Biddle, a military analyst called to the White House this week to advise Bush. "That doesn't mean we should withdraw. But no one should go into this thinking if we double the size of the military, the result will be victory. Maybe, but maybe not. You are buying the opportunity to enter a lottery."

The wild card in the Pentagon planning is Robert M. Gates, due to be sworn in Monday as Defense secretary. Gates had breakfast Tuesday with Bush and will participate, along with outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in today's meetings.

Bush is collecting recommendations from his administration this week as he crafts his strategy for Iraq. But some defense officials say Gates may seek more time to weigh other options. And before endorsing an increase in combat forces, Gates may press commanders in Iraq for assurances that U.S. forces can hold off an escalation of the sectarian civil war.

"This is the big moment," said the defense official. "It is enormously important for the new secretary of Defense to revisit what the overall objective is ... and what is needed to achieve that."

Some military officers believe that Iraq has become a test of wills, and that the U.S. needs to show insurgents and sectarian militias that it is willing to stay and fight. "I've come to the realization we need to go in, in a big way," said an Army officer. "You have to have an increase in troops.... We have to convince the enemy we are serious and we are coming in harder."

The size of the troop increase the Pentagon will recommend is unclear. One officer suggested an increase of about 40,000 forces would be required, but other officials said such a number was unrealistic. There are about 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

The administration has spent about $495 billion for Iraq and terrorism-related efforts since 2001, including $70 billion so far in fiscal 2007. It is planning to request as much as an additional $150 billion to fund the war effort through the rest the budget year.

The problem with any sort of surge is that it would require an eventual drop-off in 2008, unless the president was willing to take the politically unpopular move of remobilizing the National Guard and sending reserve combat units back to Iraq.

But military officials are taking a close look at a proposal advanced by Frederick W. Kagan, a former West Point Military Academy historian, to combine a surge with a quick buildup of the Marines and the Army. That could allow new units to take the place of the brigades sent to Iraq to augment the current force.

"It is essential for the president to couple any recommendation of a significant surge in Iraq with the announcement that he will increase permanently the size of the Army and the Marines," Kagan said.

Kagan, who plans to release a preliminary report on his proposal Thursday, said he had discussed his ideas with people in the government. Although the military has had trouble meeting recruiting goals, Kagan said Army officials believed they could recruit at least an extra 20,000 soldiers a year. The Army missed its recruiting targets in 2005 but met this year's goal.

The troop-increase strategy faces substantial hurdles. Although both Democrats and Republicans have voiced support for increasing the overall size of the ground forces, key Democratic leaders are opposed to sending additional forces to Iraq.

Military leaders are also aware that the public has grown impatient. With a majority of the country favoring a timetable for withdrawal, a strategy to increase the number of troops in Iraq would have to include a plan to buy the military more time.

An increase in U.S. forces is not universally popular in the military. Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East, has long argued that increasing the size of the force would be counterproductive, angering the very people the U.S. was trying to help.

Outside the Pentagon, in other corners of government, officials are skeptical that an increase in military power will end sectarian violence. James Dobbins, a former U.S. diplomat and advisor to the Iraq Study Group, said many Iraqis believed that U.S. forces put them in danger, rather than improving security.

"The American troop presence is wildly unpopular in Iraq," Dobbins said. "Any effort to double our bet will lead to ever more catastrophic results."

Some officers argue that the U.S. needs to show substantial progress in decreasing the violence and instability in Iraq before the 2008 presidential election. But other officers and analysts note that a comprehensive counterinsurgency plan will take years, not months, to work.

"You do not want to withdraw your troops until you achieve your mission," said Andrew Krepinevich, a counterinsurgency expert and director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "We are going to be in Iraq for a long, long time. It is going to be decades before Iraq can be left to its own devices without descending into a civil war."

In a meeting with reporters in Baghdad on Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, commander of day-to-day operations in Iraq, renewed his call for a New Deal-style public works program to help put Iraqi fighters to work.

"If people get work, honest work, they don't have to join militias in order to provide for their families," Chiarelli said.

Military officers believe a confrontation with Sadr is inevitable. Bob Killebrew, a retired colonel and defense strategist, said the U.S. military had four to six months to take on Sadr, whose Al Mahdi militia is growing faster than the Iraqi army.

"We have to deal somehow with the militias, and Sadr in particular; he is rapidly becoming the armed power in Iraq," Killebrew said. "Our conventional forces, not advisors, will have to team with the Iraqi army and neutralize the Mahdi army and the other militias. If we don't do that, everything else we are talking about is hot air."

Killebrew does not believe a substantial increase in the U.S. combat force is necessary and generally favors the approach of the Iraq Study Group, arguing that the realistic strategic options are limited to advising the Iraqis or withdrawing altogether.

A number of counterinsurgency experts and retired military officers say the military should not be too quick to dismiss the group's proposals.

Kalev Sepp, an instructor at the Naval Postgraduate School, said that the U.S. had demonstrated that many commanders simply did not understand how to mount effective, long-term counterinsurgency strategies.

Increasing the size of the force, Sepp said, will mean that U.S. forces continue to focus on killing insurgents, not training Iraqis. "That kind of approach is still tied to the idea that attrition, of just killing enough of our opponents, is going to get us to success," Sepp said.

But inside the Pentagon, the study group's overall proposals are widely seen as a withdrawal plan - and a recipe for massive ethnic cleansing in Iraq. Some officers believe that because the U.S. invasion unleashed the ethnic strains, the blood spilled from larger-scale civil war would be on America's hands.

"If you still think you can keep it together," said the defense official, "you have to stay after it."

The Baker-Hamilton report is being touted as the most serious review yet and a blueprint for American policy in the Middle East. It is not, and it must not be taken as such, because above all it is immersed in immorality. It is immoral not just in the Machiavellian sense of ends justifying the means, but it is immoral in its ends and in its distortion of reality, and it portrays those ends as realistic, logical and inevitable.

If the United States decides to implement the Baker agenda for the Middle East, it will mean the end of the U.S. morally, ideologically and politically, and it will put it in a much weaker position militarily. This 21st century will be a century of American shame, humiliation, retreat and decline. Baker looks at Iraq through the exaggerated prism al-Qaeda and the other Islamic fascists, Sunni Baath murderers and those who enjoy nothing more than killing American soldiers massacring helpless women and children who want nothing more than a normal life in a free society that respects their human rights.

The Baker report portrays Iraq as a hell created by the American invasion, and that can be redeemed only if the U.S. leaves Iraq and reverses all that the Iraqi peoples have achieved in terms of democracy, a constitutional state and civil society. The principles of freedom, human rights, self determination, government by the people, non-intervention in the legitimate democratic processes of others, the global battle against murderous evil terrorism and despotism, etc. - essentially the heart of the American Constitution, the U.N. Charter and international law - mean nothing to Baker and his pro-junta group.

And what does Baker tell the Kurds? Sorry guys, we don't know what morality, alliance, friendship, honesty, etc. means. These are words that have no references in our dictionary of politics.

Annan's understanding that for Iraqis, the streets were safer under the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, is an indication of the tenor of his judgment. It is contained in the sentence, "the situation is worse than during the Lebanese civil war.

A way out may still be possible, if a conference to reconcile the opposing parties can be held on neutral ground and a comprehensive solution can be agreed to along with regional powers Iran and Syria. If Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish politicians were prepared for it, and if the U.S.-led alliance could rapidly bring itself to take part. But the leaders of these three powers still grasp at whatever shred of sovereignty they think they hold in their hands, and which they seek to defend and expand against the others by all means possible. Meanwhile, the U.S. government is not yet ready to grasp the disaster of its intervention.

A solution that follows the Bosnian example requires an overwhelming power that could enforce it on the spot. But this doesn't automatically guarantee stability. The numerous fronts of Iraq's civil war long ago became autonomous. The remainder of the U.S.-led alliance is incapable of taking up such responsibility, and the U.S. Government no longer wants it. Washington would rather settle for the panic-solution of dismembering Iraq; on dividing it up and fleeing ... which will inevitably lead to a deepening of the violence.

The Iraq report is a document of fear. Fear is sometimes a good counselor. For example, at the end of the 1960's when fear of a larger war in Vietnam prevailed, Washington entered into discussions with China and settled areas of dispute with Europe. Today Iraq is the possible crucible of a larger war. To prevent such a war through wise diplomacy is the goal of the Baker-Hamilton-Commission. At the center of their thinking stands an Iraqi parallel to the Dayton Accords RealVideo. In 1995 that accord made possible a settlement for an ethnically and religiously split Bosnia and outlined the roles of foreign and close-to-home powers in the conflict. With Dayton, Europe terminated a civil war, which had awoken fears similar to those we see today.

But fear can also be a bad counselor. The United States paid a heavy toll for diffusing the situation in Vietnam, by acquiring a reputation for having started a war and then "cutting and running." Exactly the same thing could happen now in Iraq. The philosophy of Dayton or Vietnam can only be applied to a limited degree there. Vietnam was about a civil war and the role of the nuclear powers, not about religion or ethic strife. Dayton was concerned with the latter, but not the nuclear powers. Iraq concerns all of these put together.

This is why all sides to the Iraq conflict are afraid. The Sunnis fear being a minority in a country dominated by a Shiite majority. The Shiites, who are in the minority in the Muslim world, fear that Sunni-terrorism could spark the intervention if Iraq's Arab neighbors against the Shiites. Those neighbors [chiefly Saudi Arabia] fear a Shiite Atom bomb in Tehran. Tehran in turn fears the long-term effect of a nuclear-armed Sunni Pakistan. In Europe and the U.S., fear is growing of a new religious conflict, of the spread of Islamist terrorism and of a Middle East arms race. In addition, the Americans fear being chased out like they were in Vietnam. They fear that President Bush will lose face vis-a-vis an increasingly more powerful Beijing.

In Dayton, the concern was to clean up a Europe that had passed the historical phase of being divided by ideology. With the European Union it already possessed a new political and intellectual compass. The situation in Iraq is about the definition of a new order, for which no uniform principles exist. There, the situation resembles Europe in 1627 - a few years into the Thirty Years War RealVideo. Missing in the Middle East now - as it was then in Europe - is the framework of international law, to calm religious passions and anxieties that are transnational. The threefold conflict between Shiite and Sunni, Israel and the Islamic World, and the Christian and Islamic worlds don't lead one to expect that such a framework could be formulated overnight. Particularly when the parties in question appear to be moving toward nuclear armament.

To be sure, lessons from Vietnam and Bosnia still belong to the repertoire of future diplomats. But we can say that the Paris Peace Agreement on Vietnam first came about when a massive U.S. military escalation brought Hanoi to the conference table. And the Dayton Accord only gained credibility when NATO - through military force - brought Slobodan Milosevic to recognize the deal four years after the fact.

It may become necessary to militarily safeguard the diplomatic process for a possible Iraq Accord by using force against disloyal parties. In this regard, the signal that the United States sends with its new course is of critical importance. George W. Bush toppled Saddam because the dictator sought to meet the terms of the U.N. ceasefire to his liking rather than to the letter. America's failed intervention in favor of the U.N. is bad enough. But if Washington now gives the impression that it's trying to sneak out of a situation that it created, then the prospect of an Iraqi-style Dayton agreement will be nil. A change of course that nurtures the illusion that one is laying aside the military option to follow the logic of a political dialogue alone could turn a simmering Iraq into the firestorm. This is an eventuality that all sides have a right to fear.

A reexamination of Baker's history shows that in 1990, following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the "master dealmaker" from Texas decided to convince late Syrian President Hafez Assad to join the coalition against Iraq.

Therefore, he ignored the Syrian dictator's terror activity, showered him with international legitimacy, hinted to American aid to Syria, and granted him a free hand in Lebanon.

In response to Baker's "pragmatism," Assad did nothing against Iraq, yet completed the takeover of Lebanon, killed thousands of Lebanese, crushed a Christian anti-Syrian government, and brought to power a pro-Syria puppet regime in Beirut. The Baker legacy has a significant role in Lebanon's breakdown.

Starting in the 1980s and up until Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, Baker viewed him as a "constructive leader" worthy of American support, and referred to him by saying that "the enemy of my enemy (Iran) is an ally."

Therefore, Baker ignored the belligerence displayed by the butcher of Baghdad towards Iran (the 1980 invasion) and towards the Shiites in Iraq, granted it loan guarantees worth USD five billion and Export-Import Bank credit, approved the transfer of sensitive technologies and classified intelligence information to Baghdad, and made it clear to Saddam in April 1990 that an invasion of Kuwait would be an internal Arab affair.

In response to Baker's "green light," Saddam invaded Kuwait in August 1990 and threatened to take over Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Gulf states. Under the auspices of Baker's "realism," Saddam brutally suppressed a Shiite uprising and rehabilitated the capabilities that were destroyed in 1991.

Baker failed to understand that "my enemy's enemy" could also be "my enemy." The bitter results of his misunderstanding are being felt in the region to this day.

From the end of the 1980s and up until the invasion of Kuwait, Baker focused on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and viewed Yasser Arafat as a vital partner in the peace process.

Therefore, he ignored Arafat's and the PLO's treacherous terror record, nurtured ties with them, attempted to break former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, and prevented loan guarantees to the tune of USD 10 billion meant for absorbing Soviet Jews.

In addition, he convinced President Bush to threaten a veto of any pro-Israel bill, pressed for freezing settlement activity and an Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 borders, and blamed Israel for the absence of peace with its neighbors.

In response to Baker's gestures, the PLO provided Saddam with vital information for the Kuwait invasion, PLO units in Iraq invaded Kuwait, and the organization remained loyal to Saddam, Bin Laden, and other anti-American groups active to this day.

In 2006, Baker views the two terror states, Syria and particularly Iran, as countries that may calm the situation in Iraq. In order to advance this objective, he is willing to enhance their strategic maneuvering space.

The adoption of his recommendations would advance the Iranian nuclear effort, turn Saudi Arabia and Gulf states to Teheran's hostages, free Assad from the noose of international pressure tightening around his neck, endanger the regimes in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, and force Israel to act unilaterally in order to remove the lethal Iranian threat.

Baker's failures stem from, among other things, baseless assumptions that terror leaders also prefer a "deal" over ideology, that the Palestinian issue is at the heart of Middle Eastern violence and the root of anti-American terror, that peaceful coexistence can be reached with determined terrorists, that the Israeli conflict is over the size of Israel rather than its very existence, and that the US can pay with Israeli concessions for improving its relations with the Muslim and Arab world.

Yet as Baker's record shows, false assumptions lead to wrong conclusions, which only fan the flames of terror while gravely undermining American interests and the national security of regional countries.

Baker's determination to strike a "deal" at any price leads to the sacrifice of long-term interests on the altar of short-term illusions. Yet James Baker is determined to learn from history by repeating strategic mistakes rather than avoiding them.

Will American and Israeli leaders adopt Baker's "pragmatism" and "realism," or would they be wise enough to learn from his failures?


Yoram Ettinger, an expert on Middle Easern and American affairs, is a former Israeli consul general in Texas and worked in the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C.

The argument against this high-level engagement is centred on the threat that Iran and Syria pose to US interests. There is no hiding that both states have had a difficult relationship with Washington and have even been mentioned in various (un)official remarks as potential targets for "regime change".

The irony of the situation is that US interests are better served by engaging "rogue" states than by isolating them. Iran and Syria will have tangible incentives to work with the international community in Iraq if they are recognised as legitimate stakeholders.

They have already initiated moves to normalise tripartite relations at a meeting in Tehran. Rather than seeing this as a threat, Washington could build on this momentum.

The constructive engagement of Iran and Syria will advance US interests much more readily and tangibly than ideological confrontation.

The obvious results of engagement are a stable region and an uninterrupted flow of oil to the global economy. It is in the interests of the US, not to mention its allies, to reverse the steady rise of oil prices. A reversal of policy in relation to Iran and Syria will go a long way to achieving that.

The conventional response in Washington to the prospects of restoring relations with Tehran and Damascus has been a knee-jerk rejection, pointing to the authoritarian and undemocratic nature of these states.

The notion of "promoting democracy" has been an enduring mantra in US policy towards the Middle East. This has often been cited as the obvious barrier to normalisation of relations with Iran and Syria. But this logic has a major flaw. It has not stopped Washington dealing with other undemocratic regimes in the region and beyond.

Promoting democracy may be an exciting sound bite for the Western media, but the reality of US policy has given democracy a bad name in the Middle East. If a democratic Middle East is in the interests of the US, Washington's policies towards the region have damaged them.

Washington's perspective suffers from tunnel vision. It fails to see the links that bind Middle East issues into a tight network of interests, expectations and reciprocity.

Washington has so far chosen to deal with each issue in isolation, none satisfactorily. The failure to appreciate the importance of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute for the whole region, for example, is an area that needs urgent redress.

Tony Blair has publicly acknowledged this. Now it is George Bush's turn to bite the bullet and say what others outside Washington have been saying.

But this will require freeing US policy-making from its ideological straitjacket and giving prominence to tangible US interests.

Shahram Akbarzadeh is director of the Centre for Muslim Minorities and Islam Policy Studies at Monash University.

In the wake of the first Gulf War and its consequences, the world's sole superpower strengthened itself and become nearly invincible. There is no match for its technology; due to the brain drain it causes around the world, labor is readily available to it; the Soviet Union has been done in by its war in Afghanistan; Europe has been well-contained since the Serbians were made an example of by NATO; China still follows an isolationist policy to avoid confrontation; India has been tamed into a strategy partnership; the Muslim block in general and Pakistan in particular are well reined in ... so where is the problem? Why has the Bush Administration made so many apparently irrational decisions, such as venturing directly into Afghanistan and nearly alone into Iraq, and encouraging Israel to flex its military muscles in Lebanon? Why use the hammer when better results could be achieved by the velvet glove?

Let us examine the U.N.'s role over the past decade. The conflicts simmering with such explosive potential are in the Middle East, Kashmir, Chechnya and Iran. In all of these cases, there is a common denominator: Muslims are victimized by the blatant military might of a belligerent. The latest addition to the list, which falls outside this common thread, is North Korea.

But in all of these conflicts, at least five nuclear powers are directly involved: the U.S., Russia, India, Israel, Pakistan and the emerging Nuclear Power of North Korea. How can this unipolar world be balanced, with five nuclear weapons states having a direct stake in their regions? In addition, American interests are threatened by China. Beijing's capacity to provide global leadership is gradually increasing, it has a booming economy, and it has managed to avoid armed conflict for over three decades.

Thinking people everywhere have been racking their brains wondering why the United States, which is apparently invincible, repeatedly creates new problems for itself. This is why most surveys in Europe and Asia go against American actions in the Middle East.

Europeans and Asians generally disapprove of U.S. intervention in the Persian Gulf or Afghanistan. One American intervention created al-Qaeda, another the resilient Iraqi resistance, and the latest - conducted by its outpost Israel, has strengthened an even more determined Hezbullah. In the meanwhile, Iran and North Korea flouting American pressure without any sign of giving in. The United Nations in its capacity of resolving international disputes according to its charter has been an abyssal failure since the transformation of a bipolar world into a unipolar one.

If President Bush wants the United States to remain on top and to make this world a safe, prosperous place for future generations, he must begin to consider America's center of gravity.

For two centuries, America's center of gravity had always been its sense of security, the feeling of invincibility gained from knowing that no outside power had the capacity, the means or the will to reach U.S. soil. This sense of security was further strengthened in the later 1980s after the collapse of Soviet Union, and even plans for a "Star Wars" missile shield were shelved.

But then the "New World Order" unfolded according to Huntington's Clash of Civilizations and Osama bin Laden became a kind of phantom. Now any conflict or terrorist activity is credited to the shadowy group, and the entire world is caught up in a war between the U.S. and al-Qaeda. And where is al-Qaeda? It is nowhere and everywhere.

And how does the U.S. perceive its war against al-Qaeda? It sees it as a fight between the United States and everyone, everywhere in the world. Any regime or individual that disagrees with American notions is lumped together with al-Qaeda. How long will the U.S. continue to chase shadows - and what good has this policy done for the center of gravity of American citizens? What has it done for their sense of security? Now all Americans doubt fellow Americans, and the world is forced to listen to the daily to warnings Washington issues its citizens not to visit this country, to leave that region or avoid going out in public in some nation.

What the U.S. is doing to itself, no military power could do. Americans no longer feel safe in their isolated, far-flung, once-invincible continent, because the Bush Administration itself is eroding the sense of security of average American citizens. It needs to address this issue and remember what happened after the League of Nations collapsed - we had another world war.

By flouting America's foreign policy, North Korea's nuclear test has dented the concept of a unipolar world. Over 35,000 American troops in South Korea are now within artillery range of a nuclear North Korea, and over 70,000 American troops are stationed in Japan are within striking range of approaching nuclear-tipped North Korean missiles.

The Bush Administration's unjust policies have made the world in general, and United States in particular, a much more dangerous place. This is an issue that should be of great concern to American citizens well before the next U.S. elections.