PRESIDENT BUSH acknowledged that ultimate victory in the war on terrorism was likely to prove elusive yesterday as he conceded that the United States had struggled in Afghanistan as well as Iraq.
“I don’t think you can win it,” Mr Bush said. “But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world.”
He said that the US “must never yield, must never show weakness” in hounding al-Qaeda. And he said that critics would better understand his decision to go to war when they saw a free, peaceful, democratic state emerge in Iraq.
But he admitted that that goal remained a distant one and that Islamic extremists would see the writing on the wall only “when we succeed in Iraq and Afghanistan”.
The emollient tone and modest aims, delivered before the Republican convention in New York, were a far cry from the confident predictions with which he launched the war on terrorism.
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In his address to Congress after the September 11 attacks, Mr Bush declared that terrorists who “sacrificed human life to serve their radical visions” would follow the path of Fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism, “all the way to where it ends, in history’s unmarked grave of discarded lies”.
His comments, in an interview with NBC television, came as he prepared to use his acceptance speech on Thursday to offer a vigourous defence of the war on terrorism.
Speakers on the opening day praised Mr Bush for putting Saddam Hussein behind bars. But Republicans are also aware that the President has fallen short of other goals. Osama bin Laden remains at large, Afghanistan appears a long way from peace and America’s standing in the world has plummeted since September 11, thanks in large part to Mr Bush’s aggressive conduct of foreign policy.
In the absence of clean victories on which to campaign, Mr Bush is having to recast his achievements in the war on terrorism, insisting that he had made the right strategic decisions for the safety of the US while acknowledging that there had been mistakes.
But Democrats were quick to pounce. John Edwards, the Democratic vice-presidential contender, said: “After months of listening to the Republicans base their campaign on their singular ability to win the war on terror, the President now says we can’t win the War on Terror. This is no time to declare retreat.”