As a country, we must not go down this road of global ethnic profiling — looking for Arabs under our beds the way we once looked for commies. If we do — if America, the world's beacon of pluralism and tolerance, goes down that road — we will take the rest of the world with us. We will sow the wind and we will reap the whirlwind.
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What ranks much higher for me is the terrible trend emerging in the world today: Sunnis attacking Shiite mosques in Iraq, and vice versa. Danish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, and violent Muslim protests, including Muslims killing Christians in Nigeria and then Christians killing Muslims. And today's Washington Post story about how some overzealous, security-obsessed U.S. consul in India has created a huge diplomatic flap — on the eve of Mr. Bush's first visit to India — by denying one of India's most respected scientists a visa to America on the grounds that his knowledge of chemistry might be a threat. The U.S. embassy in New Delhi has apologized.
My point is simple: the world is drifting dangerously toward a widespread religious and sectarian cleavage — the likes of which we have not seen for a long, long time. The only country with the power to stem this toxic trend is America.
People across the world still look to our example of pluralism, which is like no other. If we go Dark Ages, if we go down the road of pitchfork-wielding xenophobes, then the whole world will go Dark Ages.
There is a poison loose today, and America — America at its best — is the only antidote. That's why it is critical that we stand by our principles of free trade and welcome the world to do business in our land, as long as there is no security threat. If we start exporting fear instead of hope, we are going to import everyone else's fears right back. That is not a world you want for your kids.
Tom Friedman then:
The "real reason" for this war, which was never stated, was that after September 11 America needed to hit someone in the Arab-Muslim world.
Afghanistan wasn't enough because a terrorism bubble had built up over there - a bubble that posed a real threat to the open societies of the West and needed to be punctured.
This terrorism bubble said that ramming planes into the World Trade Centre was OK, having Muslim preachers say it was OK was OK, having state-run newspapers call people who did such things "martyrs" was OK, and allowing Muslim charities to raise money for such "martyrs" was OK.
Not only was all this seen as OK, there was a feeling among radical Muslims that suicide bombing would level the balance of power between the Arab world and the West, because America had gone soft and their activists were ready to die.
The only way to puncture that bubble was for American soldiers to go into the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, house to house, and make clear that Americans are ready to kill, and to die, to prevent their open society from being undermined by this terrorism bubble.
Smashing Saudi Arabia or Syria would have been fine. But America hit Saddam Hussein for one simple reason: because it could, and because he deserved it and because he was right in the heart of that world.
And don't believe the nonsense that this had no effect. Every neighbouring government - and 98 per cent of terrorism is about what governments let happen - got the message. If you talk to US soldiers in Iraq they will tell you this is what the war was about.