"It is noteworthy that the Texas-based Strategic Forecasting Co. published on the same day (August 12, 2002) a report that concluded "the Bush administration is not abandoning its strategy of war with Iraq because it sees a successful campaign against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as a prime way to shatter the psychological advantage within the Islamist movement and demonstrate U.S. power."

 "The usually well-sourced Stratfor explains that from the 1973 oil embargo, through the defeat of Russia in Afghanistan, Saddam's 1991 survival, the U.S. defeat in Somalia to Sept. 11, the centuries-old Islamic sense of impotence has been reversed. In explaining the Bush war aims, they elaborate, Mr. Bush intends to defeat the Islamist sense of their inevitable triumph -- to defeat their psychology of manifest destiny ... "

 I concluded my column from August 14, 2002: "The future the signs suggest we are facing is a violent and perhaps prolonged struggle to defeat the will of an aroused and myriad people. As Winston Churchill warned shortly before World War II, we are moving into a time of "measureless peril."

 And, of course, that is exactly where we are today -- in the midst of measureless peril. But as lethal and confounding as the terrorist fighters and their allies currently are in Iraq, our greater peril lies within ourselves.

 We have the strength -- military, economic, cultural, diplomatic (dare I include the strength of our religious faith, also?) -- to persist around the world unto victory -- for generations if necessary.

 But all this potential capacity for victory can only be brought into full being by a sustained act of collective will. It is heartbreaking, though no longer perplexing, that the president's political and media opposition want the president's defeat more than America's victory. But that is the price we must pay for living in a free country. (Sedition laws almost surely would be found unconstitutional, currently -- although things may change after the next terrorist attack in America.)

 But even the president's opponents are not our greatest peril at the moment. The greatest immediate potential danger is a slackening of presidential resolve. President Bush must not hesitate to take all actions with as much force as needed to more fully impose our will in Iraq.

  He should not listen to his political advisers -- but to his own sound instincts. If he does his bold best in Iraq, the election will take care of itself. America, with the president in the saddle, must re-emerge as the strong horse in the Middle East that bin Laden so fears.