If you have kept up with the news, including that which I excerpted in
this thread, then you know that there is a growing backlash against bombers/terrorists in the Islamic world. At least among educated thinking moslems as opposed to the street rabble egged on by uneducated radical mullahs.
This situation along with our involvement in Iraq, can appropriately be analyzed with a poker analogy, along with a comparison to the Cold War. How do you lose in poker? We all know that playing too loose, i.e. playing too many hands and going too far with them, is the major reason. And another reason is playing in games too big for one's bankroll.
Now look at how the Cold War was "won". We ratcheted up the arms race at the cost of huge deficit spending. The USSR responded in kind. But they were underbankrolled, and their already shaky economic system buckled under the financial pressure. We thus increased the stakes to a level where they were destined to go broke.
Now with our war on terrorism, which we have taken not just to Al-Queda's main base in Afghanistan, but also to Iraq, we have also increased the stakes and most importantly, induced our enemies to go too far with their hand. Now they have attacked Moslem civilians in both Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and prompted a backlash that will doom them, especially if their flow of financial backing is also imperilled, which seems likely. So our enemies will be forced to drop down in stakes and most likely won't be able to rebuild their roll, either financially or most importantly in good will in the Islamic world.
Our raise in Iraq was the correct poker strategy applied to real world military/political strategy.
The only question is whether we will be too weak tight sitting on the largest stack to stay at the table and gamble until our opponents are bust.