Today is the publication date of World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism by Norman Podhoretz. As he states in his acknowledgements, the book updates, adapts, reworks, and integrates several of his Commentary essays into new material. I am a long-time admirer of his work and accordingly invited him to explain what he is up to in his new book. He kindly responded:
There have been dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of books about the many issues aroused by 9/11 and George W. Bush’s response to it. But World War IV differs from them all in two major respects. For one thing, it is — at least so far as I know — the first serious attempt to set 9/11 itself, the campaigns that have followed it in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the war of ideas it has provoked at home, into the context of the role the United States has played in the world since 1941. Seen in this light, the struggle against the forces of Islamofascism into which 9/11 plunged us reveals itself as the direct successor to the wars against the totalitarian challenges to our civilization posed by Nazism in World War II and Communism in World War III (as the cold war becomes in this scheme of things). Secondly, against critics both on the Left and the Right, World War IV offers what is probably the most full-throated statement yet published of the case for the Bush Doctrine, whose effort to make the Middle East safe for America by making it safe for democracy represents the only viable strategy for fighting and winning World War IV.
Emphasis, me.
Response to said emphasized: “That’s because nobody ‘serious’ ever equated our war of choice in Iraq to America in 1941, you meathead.”
Oh, and why the fuck haven’t we caught Osama yet?