On September 11, 2001, war was declared on the United States of America and - with the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon - on scores of other nations whose nationals were also subjected to pre-meditated mass-murder.

President George W. Bush properly responded by unleashing the power of the world's only superpower and that of its friends on the perpetrators and those who abetted and supported them and their ilk.

If the response was clear, the exact nature of the enemy has not always been. The Bush administration dubbed it the "War on Terror," a characterization that virtually everyone else (this author included) has adopted. But terror is a technique, an instrument of warfare. It has to be wielded by someone in order to be a threat. And, to be effective, military and other responses to that threat have to be aimed not at the technique but at those who employ it to advance their political or other goals.

In fact, Bush and his national security team have gone to great lengths to avoid saying the obvious: The principal enemy in this war are Islamists - radical, intolerant and virulently anti-Western militants who assert that the teachings of Muhammad provide a religious justification for their predations. Indeed, they contend that jihad, or holy war, is their moral obligation.

For Islamists, the notion that the Muslim faith is a "religion of peace" - as President Bush often insists - is an abomination. They are convinced that Islam is, by its very nature, a militant religion. Indeed, they consider the preeminent target of their jihadism to be those who claim to follow Muhammad yet are peaceable, law-abiding, tolerant of other faiths and otherwise willing to assimilate into non-Muslim societies.

A microcosm of this phenomenon can be found in the Palestinian front in this war. Islamists of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hizbullah are determined to dominate and, if necessary, to liquidate those Palestinians who are willing to live in peace with Israel. To be sure, they are also determined to destroy the Jewish state. And, like their counterparts elsewhere, they seek in due course to transform other non-Islamic nations into Islamist "republics" (like Iran's).

Lest there be any doubt, however, what these militants would impose on the rest of the world, they would first inflict upon others they consider apostates from the Muslim faith.

SHOULD WE fail to understand this reality, success in the present conflict is likely to elude us. Our natural allies are the billion-plus, non-jihadist Muslims around the globe. They have at least as much at stake as do what Muhammad called "people of the book" (Jews and Christians) and adherents of other religions. Treating all Muslims as our enemies would be every bit as serious a mistake as treating them all as believers in a religion of peace.

There is cause for concern that a lack of clarity on this point has already cost us dearly on the several fronts in the "War on Terror." For example, we in the West have for too long ignored the seminal role Saudi Arabia has played in underwriting and otherwise enabling Islamist terrorism.

We have pretended that secular leaders such as Saddam Hussein of Iraq and the Assads of Syria could not make common cause at our expense with religious extremists. People in Washington and Jerusalem who should know better have deluded themselves into believing that Palestinian Islamists would actually permanently abandon their jihad against Israel and become partners for peace. And we have invested in regimes from Pakistan to Yemen whose governments are, at best, one bullet away from unabashed control by Islamists; at worst, the Islamists are already effectively calling the shots.

Now, Islamists from around the world are reportedly slipping into Iraq from Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia intent upon killing coalition personnel. They clearly hope to repeat the success their brothers previously enjoyed in driving the United States out of Lebanon and Somalia.

They might, thereby, be able to impose upon the Iraqi people a new form of despotism, denying them the chance to practice a tolerant form of Islam, enjoy political freedom and peaceably pursue economic opportunity.

To make matters worse, Islamist organizations and those who sympathize with, apologize for and/or support them are gaining access to and obtaining legitimacy from, of all people, some in the Bush administration.

In the surely vain hope of securing votes and campaign contributions from the American-Arab and American-Muslim communities, the White House has made the same mistake domestically that it has internationally - namely, failing to discern the critical differences between tolerant Muslims and the jihadists.

As a result, the latter and their friends have repeatedly been afforded access to the president and many of his senior subordinates. To the extent that the US administration has missed the opportunity at home to empower moderate Muslims to oppose the Islamists, it has weakened a natural and much-needed ally. Worse yet, repeated meetings with White House, cabinet-level and top FBI officials have also had the absurd, not to say dangerous, effect of enabling Islamist sympathizers to claim to speak for all of their co-religionists.

Despite these ominous developments, it would be a mistake to believe that all is lost. With President Bush's leadership, the resolve of the American people and help from like-minded allies in Israel and elsewhere, much can be done to: address reverses and consolidate gains in Afghanistan, Iraq and other fronts in this war; correct our unwise reliance upon dubious allies, and end the influence operation being mounted by terrorist-sympathizers inside the United States.

The first and essential step, though, is to be clear about whom we are fighting. In the War on Terror, our principal foes are Islamists and those who assist their murderous, jihadist agenda. Their ambitions must be resisted with every means at our disposal, including where appropriate via military action, intelligence operations and economic and financial means.

The single most important tool, however, may well be to make a vastly more concerted, worldwide effort to equip, empower and enable moderate Muslims to resist and defeat our common enemy.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is the founder and president of the Center for Security Policy (CSP) in Washington, D.C., and a columnist for The Washington Times. CSP compiles and disseminates breaking news and analytic articles on homeland security, the so-called peace movement, arms control and American foreign policy around the world, region by region.

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