Although he looked good in his flight suit on deck, I cringed when the beaming Commander in Chief proudly proclaimed last May 1st that major combat operations in Iraq had successfully come to an end. Did President Bush not realize that a hit and run terrorist war was surely bound to follow the full-scale combat phase? Was he not at least warned by his military advisors that it would probably prove more difficult to fight, and far bloodier in the long run? Did he really believe that there were no significant opposition forces left among the millions of Arab Iraqi Muslims-and their infiltrating foreign allies-that were fiercely determined and able to tackle remaining American and British "occupying" forces, at virtually any cost?

It almost makes you believe some of the more outlandish conspiracy theories, but I'll save that for another column.

One thing seems crystal clear: many Americans, from the top on down, still do not seem to really get it. Untold millions of Muslims, especially Arab ones, hate the reigning superpower and its Western allies with a passion that is apparently nearly impossible to fathom. This has as much to do with the muscular nation's very existence and status as with anything it says or does, given that America's main religious, social and political values are not Islamic. In other words, nothing less than a mass conversion to the faith of Muhammad (which many Mideast Muslims expect to occur) will satisfy those Arabs who publicly, or at least privately, cheered as the Twin Towers came tumbling down.

Even though I have lived and worked in this turbulent region for 23 years, I still find it painful at times to listen to the anti-American animus that comes out of the mouths of most of my Muslim acquaintances. I agree with some of their critiques and complaints about my native homeland, and disagree with others. Either way, I shudder at the arrogant and hateful tone that their comments are normally wrapped in.

However, the boiling issue of the day is not how individual Arab Muslims, or even multinational terrorist groups, feel about "the Great Satan." After all, the United States wields a far bigger military stick than any other empire in history.

The real problem is that America's self-declared Muslim enemies are supported by various countries that are utterly determined to severely reduce US power and influence around the globe. These enemy states obviously include Iran and North Korea-both on the edge of possessing the Big Bang Bomb. Chilling, if somewhat circumstantial, evidence also exists that elements of the Chinese Communist hierarchy are sending more than well wishes to support Osama and Saddam as they step up their anti-American campaign in Iraq.

This is the primary reason why I questioned the White House policy on Iraq in columns I wrote earlier this year. It seemed to me that the Bush administration was taking an extremely risky gamble in tossing the dice toward Baghdad. I feared that American officials were concentrating on the roaring mouse while letting the real rats roam free.

Despite some media and congressional contentions that Israel was the hidden hand behind the pending war (after all, them Jews supposedly got the whole wide world in their hands), I noted that Israeli leaders did not even consider Saddam in the top five threats facing their volatile neighborhood. They certainly viewed the vicious dictator and his evil regime as well worthy of overthrow, but not if that operation would so preoccupy official Washington that it could not, or would not, deal with far more dangerous terrorist facilitators around the earth.

Long before the short spring operation got underway, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon frequently spelled out which countries were most worrisome to his government and security officials. Topping the charts then and now is the Mother of All Terrorist Loving States, Iran. Sharon has personally insured that his western counterparts are aware of the substantial evidence gathered by Israel's security services indicating that the oil-rich country's radical Shiite rulers pose the greatest threat to the present world order.

Next on his active threat list comes far away North Korea, the main supplier of missile technology and hardware to Israel's close-by enemies. In third place is Syria, with its huge, Soviet and North Korean supplied-and largely Saudi funded-arsenal of surface to surface missiles that can dump deadly nerve agents on every part of the world's only (and tiny) Jewish State.

Forth place goes to Libya. While international statesman and the media have been busy applauding Muammar Kadaffi's belated admission that his terrorist agents blew up a Pan Am jet over Scotland 16 years ago, Sharon has been constantly warning that the North African desert country, with reams of foreign support, is working overtime on its WMD program, including long-range missiles. The aim, he says, is to eventually attack Israel and threaten much of Europe.

Fifth, Sixth and Seventh places go to three wined and dined American allies: Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The first two live right next door to Israel. Both Arab states have managed to amass frightening arsenals of advanced weaponry; the best that money can buy. Of course, most of their warplanes, missiles, tanks, ad nauseam, have come directly from Uncle Sam.

The Seventh Deadliest Threat in Sharon's estimation is the Muslim world's only current known possessor of nuclear bombs. That the average Pakistani is no deep lover of Zion, or of America for that matter, is not exactly classified information.

While the mouse is still shocking, awing, or at least embarrassing some by roaring with increasing ferocity several months after his purported defeat, the rats are busy preparing for the much larger battle ahead. Western leaders and citizens will ignore this unpleasant fact at their own peril.

American voters might be justified in punishing their elected leaders for not adequately spelling out the high cost and intensity of the battle that began in Afghanistan and then spread to Iraq. But let them not fall prey to those pre-primary voices that are claiming the war against Islamic terrorist groups and their state sponsors can somehow be avoided.

Maybe it was a serious mistake to focus so much energy on the Gulf War-weakened Iraqi mouse, as I suspected, especially since this was likely to give America's other enemies a central address to stage their fight. Israel too has made some significant errors in its anti-jihad battle. But Iraq is not part of a war of our choosing, as was Vietnam. With American casualties inevitably mounting, the ultimate consequences of turning tail to run now would surely be horrendously grave for the peace of this volatile region and the wider world