Change 1.

When the Colonel was in The Green Machine, "Change 1," "Change 2," etc., used to be a way of alerting the addressees of military correspondence to changes to previously announced decisions. Now, we think the correct term of art is "Radical Improvement upon Previous Inspired Plan of Action No. 1 [RIPIPA No. 1]," etc.

President Bush should issue his very own Presidential RIPIPA No. 1 so as to redirect U.S. policy toward Islam vaguely in the direction of sanity and national survial.

After 9/11, it was wise for the president to follow a basic principle of infantry operations that applies when a situation suddenly goes all to hell, namely, "Do something, do anything, even if it is the wrong thing." If Mr. Bush had arranged for 10 tons of No. 2 pencils to be air dropped by B-52s into Kabul, something good would have come out of it. This would have been viewed as something hugely sinister requiring vast amounts of imamical RAM space and processor time to interpret.

Heck, whether to take a shower after sex is a problem situation that actually requires a fatwa from Muslim holy men, but this is something they've at least had time to deal with since the intermittent availability of indoor plumbing in advanced Muslim societies.

Interpreting the sudden availability of No. 2 pencils would have been a huge new development in the interpretation of the sharia.

Huge!

As it was, opting to sending troops smack dab into the middle ages of the crazies in the Middle East and taking out a Level 5 Demon sent a wonderful message about U.S. capabilities. This scared the bejeezus out of Kaddafi -- the colonel in a diaphanous gown over in Libya (and no kin to the Colonel, thank you very much) -- and even gave the Iranians pause . . . until they figured out we weren't serious. (A serious policy toward state-sponsored terror would have been to put Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia in a world of hurt, wouldn't it have? And not have dragged North Korea, about whose abominations we {and the Chinese} intend to actually do zip, into the equation?)

Given that anything Mr. Bush could have done was the Right Thing, there's simply no shame at all in making a slight (180 degree) course correction and backing off this commitment somehow to democratize Iraq and turn the Sadr Militia into polite and trustworthy school crossing guards.

These folks point the way toward a better and more ballsy effective raison de faire:

Diana West:

We need to see the border as a cultural line also, a defining line of freedom against proponents of Shariah, which, I cannot emphasize enough, poses a direct threat to our founding principles of liberty and equality.^[1]

Lawrence Auster:

The fundamental premises of the civilizationist strategy are: (1) Islam—and not just the chimera of “radical Islam”—is totally incompatible with Western culture, and, if its power continues to spread, represents a mortal danger to it. (2) We do not have the ability to defend ourselves from Islam by changing its internal doctrines and beliefs, as President Bush and the neoconservatives seek to do via democratization. (3) We do have the ability to defend ourselves from Islam by stripping it of its external opportunities to extend its influence over us.^[2]

Notes
^[1] "Fighting Shariah." By Diana West, Washington Times, 8/25/06 (Part two. Part one of her article here.).
^[2] "A sensible Islam policy." By Lawrence Auster, View from the Right, 8/30/06 (referencing Ms. West).