While President Bush has spent the summer insisting that “the American people are safer,” it seems that America and the world are still free falling down the rabbit hole of terror.

Juan Cole, a professor of history with an expertise in Middle Eastern history and Shiite Islam at the University of Michigan, has roundly condemned the war that President Bush has been waging on terror. Writing on the series of bombs that, on Thursday, October 7th, rocked the Sheraton Hotel in Baghdad, a meeting of radical Sunni Muslims in the Pakistani city of Multan, and the Hilton Hotel — packed with Israelis — in the Egyptian resort town of Taba, Juan Cole asserts:

If we analyze these violent, destabilizing attacks, one thing becomes abundantly clear: The Bush administration is losing the war on terror. If, 3 years after September 11, Ayman al-Zawahiri can arrange for al-Qaeda to blow up yet another building, this time in Egypt, killing scores, that is a sign of failure. If an al-Qaeda-aligned group like the Army of the Prophet’s Companions is permitted by the Pakistani state to gather freely in Multan, to blow up Shiite mosques, and to incur a violent Shiite counter-strike, that is a sign of failure. If radical Sunni groups, or ex-Baathists aligned with them, are able at will to fire Katyusha rockets into the Baghdad Sheraton at a time when the US has militarily occupied Iraq, that is a sign of failure.

If a certain brand of belligerent and pig-headed optimism is failing to see us through, perhaps, Mr. Bush, it is time for a change of strategy.  

Mimi Hanaoka