World War IV

Here is a worthwhile speech given by James R. Woolsey, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (with an introduction by Congressman Bob Barr) at the Restoration Weekend on November 16, 2002. The entire transcript is worth a read but I'll excerpt the concluding remarks:

I don’t believe this terror war is ever really going to go away until we change the face of the Middle East. Now, that is a tall order. But, it’s not as tall an order as what we have already done. In 1917, Europe was largely monarchies, empires, and autocracies. Today, outside Belarus and Ukraine, it is largely democratic, even including Russia.

These changes that have taken place over the course of the last 85 years are a remarkable achievement. The ones that still have to be undertaken in a part of the world that has historically not had democracy, which has reacted angrily against intrusions from the outside, particularly the Arab Middle East, presents a huge challenge.

But, I would say this. Both to the terrorists and to the pathological predators such as Saddam Hussein and to the autocrats as well, the barbarics, the Saudi royal family. They have to realize that now for the fourth time in 100 years, we’ve been awakened and this country is on the march. We didn’t choose this fight, but we’re in it. And being on the march, there’s only one way we’re going to be able to win it. It’s the way we won World War I fighting for Wilson’s 14 points. The way we won World War II fighting for Churchill’s and Roosevelt’s Atlantic Charter and the way we won World War III fighting for the noble ideas I think best expressed by President Reagan, but also very importantly at the beginning by President Truman, that this was not a war of us against them. It was not a war of countries. It was a war of freedom against tyranny. We have to convince the people of the Middle East that we are on their side, as we convinced Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel and Andrei Sakharov that we were on their side.

This will take time. It will be difficult. But I think we need to say to both the terrorists and the dictators and also to the autocrats who from time to time are friendly with us, that we know, we understand we are going to make you nervous.

We want you to be nervous. We want you to realize now for the fourth time in 100 years, this country is on the march and we are on the side of those whom you most fear, your own people.