Bad news for those who thought the war was over when the US destroyed the Taliban, and gave themselves permission to go back to sleep. In a clear-eyed column, Jeff Jacoby looks at the bigger picture and says that Baghdad is just the second phase of a necessary process: After Iraq: killing all the terror regimes. (Hat tip: Amy.)

Washington might begin by reversing its long and perverse courtship of Damascus. Instead of treating the Syrian regime as a partner in combating terrorism, we ought to be bluntly spelling out the facts of the Syrians’ murderous record. Twenty years ago they were involved in the terror campaign against Americans in Lebanon, a Syrian-occupied satellite. Today they openly support Hezbollah and shelter units of Al Qaeda. ”The Syrian regime must join the Iranians and the Iraqis on the heap of failed Middle Eastern lies,” says Ledeen. International terrorism will remain a menace until it does.

The terror regimes supply the meat and drink of international terror, and for that reason they must be overturned. But that isn’t all they provide.

As it did in the Cold War and the war against Hitler, the United States is fighting not just a military enemy but an ideological one. Moscow commanded armies of soldiers and armies of true believers. Communism was both a seductive economic creed and a doctrine of totalitarian control. Islamism - radical, violent Islam - offers the terror masters and their legions much the same thing. Though outwardly a religious movement, it is as totalitarian as communism was and no less bent on conquest.