The Guide’s three authors (one of them a Muslim) have an eccentric view of what are “most dangerous threats in this war.” They are to be found not in the ideology of jihad but “in the successful propagation of anger and fear directed at unfamiliar cultures and people” among us Americans. The problem is not with the Muslims who perpetrate terrorist crimes but in the bias against Muslims that is supposedly rampant in today’s America. Anti-terrorist measures therefore must not focus on religion or national origin, as “this creates an impression of unjust, religious, and/or national origin-based targeting.” The refusal of the Muslim diaspora to cooperate with our law enforcement agencies is explained by the immigrants’ mistrust of “unjust legislation from the highest levels of government and the American public’s acceptance of racial profiling.” Far from developing a counter-terrorism initiative, the guide helps terrorists in the United States avoid arrest. By funding the “Guide” Soros has confirmed yet again that he is a visionary who sees immigration as an essential tool of revolutionary change. His metaphysical concept of Muslims’ victimhood based on their exclusion from the society demands the change of the society, not of the Muslim mindset. That is the meaning of his claim that the War on Terror “creates innocent victims and that helps the terrorists.” By encouraging the emergence of a subculture of hostile aliens within America, he promotes the growth of an alternative social and political structure of which the potential for further growth of Islamic terrorism is but one consequence.

In Great Britain this pathology has reached a fully mature form. The Mayor of London Ken Livingstone reacted to the bomb attacks on his city of July 7, 2005, by blaming Britain’s participation in the war in Iraq for the outrage. Two months later he compared an outspoken Muslim scholar who backs suicide bombings, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, to the late Pope John XXIII, because both believed that their faiths “must engage with the world.” While giving evidence to a House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry into the terrorist attacks in London, Livingston said that Sheik Qaradawi is “very similar to the position of Pope John XXIII. An absolutely sane Islamist . . . Of all the Muslim thinkers in the world today he is the most positive force for change.”

Al-Qaradawi’s “absolute sanity” is reflected in his reference to suicide bombings as “martyrdom operations”: indeed, no true “Islamist” could do otherwise. Far from being a moderate, however, the sheikh is a mainstream member of the Muslim Brotherhood. His Ikhwani affiliations led to his imprisonment in Egypt in 1949, then in 1954-1956, and again in 1962. And yet in 2004 he came to Britain’s capital and spoke at the “European Council of Fatwa and Research” in London’s City Hall, hosted by none other than the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone.

The assumptions behind the “New America Foundation Conference on Terrorism, Security and America’s Purpose” and the activities of people like Soros and Livingstone have contributed to the fact that we are losing the war on terrorism. Bin Laden’s network may have been damaged and disrupted since 2001 and his cause may in many places be in the hands of self-starters and amateurs, but he could never have dreamed that the world, more than four years after 9-11, would look so favorable to his objectives.

A new strategy is needed to make it less so, the one that may give America and the West a clear edge in this war. It can never be “won” in the sense of eliminating the phenomenon of terrorism altogether, but it can be successfully pursued to the point where America (and the rest of the West, i.e. Europe, if it follows) can be made significantly safer than they are today by adopting measures—predominantly defensive measures—that would reduce the danger to as near zero as possible. The victory will come, to put it in simply, not by conquering Mecca for America but by disengaging America from Mecca and by excluding Mecca from America; not by eliminating the risk but by managing it wisely, resolutely, and permanently.

It is essential to define and understand the enemy. Are Muslim terrorists—the only variety that seriously threatens the United States and the Western world—true or false to the tenets of their faith? That they are indeed a minority of all one-billion-plus Muslims in the world is not disputable, but do they belong to the doctrinal and moral mainstream of their creed? The answer has to be based on the facts of Islam’s history and dogma, and not on an a priori judgment imposed by the inviolable blinkers of political correctitude. The straightjacket has to be discarded because it yields false results and because it serves an agenda inimical to the survival of our culture and civilization. It is essential to establish whether, and to what extent, the sacred texts of Islam, its record of interaction with other societies, and the behavior of its founder, Muhammad, provide the clue to the ambitions and methods of modern terrorists. The notion that terrorism is an aberration of Islam’s “peace” and “tolerance,” and not a predictable consequence of the ideology of Jihad, reflects an elite consensus that is ideological in nature and dogmatic in application. That consensus needs to be tested against evidence, not against the alleged norms of acceptable public discourse imposed by those who do not know Islam, or else do not want us to know the truth about it.

Better informed about the adversary, we may proceed with the second task: to develop more effective homeland defenses. Much has been done already but not nearly enough, because the focus has been on the institutional failures of the intelligence community and government agencies rather than the culture that makes failure inevitable. The impact of ongoing Muslim migratory influx onto the developed world is inseparable from the phenomenon of Islam itself, and in particular from Islam’s impact on its adherents as a political ideology and as a program of practical action. Controlling the borders should be only the first step in neutralizing this impact. The application of clearly defined criteria related to terrorism in deciding who will be admitted into the country, and in determining who should be allowed to stay from among those who are already here, is essential. To put it bluntly, carefully evaluating the profile of all prospective visitors to America and systematically re-examining the behavior of resident aliens and the bona-fides of naturalized citizens, is an essential ingredient of a serious anti-terrorist strategy. To that end Islamic activism needs to be treated as an eminently political, rather than “religious” activity. Swift and irreversible deportation needs to become a routine tool for dealing with the offenders.

An effective defense against terrorism demands a re-think of our foreign and military policies. American soldiers should patrol the border with Mexico, not the streets of Falluja. In an ever more globalized world that will also gradually become less Westernized, the United States may remain single most powerful actor economically, technologically, and militarily for many years, even decades. The shape and nature of international alignments are in a state of flux, however. Continued attempts by an America that will grow progressively weaker vis-à-vis its global competitors to continue projecting its power offensively—especially in the Middle East—will have the same reward reaped by the Soviet Union after Afghanistan. Pursuing the path of “benevolent global hegemony” is certain to take us the same way. That would be the greatest favor the terrorists could hope for.

Rediscovering who we are is the essential prerequisite for all of the above. The victory in the war on terror ultimately has to be won in the domain of morals and culture. It can be won only by an America (and Britain, and France, and Italy . . . ) that has regained its awareness of its moral, spiritual, and civilizational roots.