On “Fox News Sunday” this past Sunday, Juan Williams played devil’s advocate for the “peace” protestors, and managed to come off sounding almost as dumb as they do. He said that the Administration still hasn’t shown any connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda (making the implicit, and mistaken, assumption that this is necessary in order to justify regime change in Iraq as part of the “War on Terrorism”). Therefore, he concluded, it must be about…wait for it…ooooiiiiillllll.

Now, to be generous, let me just say that there are several steps missing in the logical sequence that would result in such a conclusion, but he was right about one thing.

The Administration in fact hasn’t made a good coherent case for why we’re taking out Saddam, in the context of the “War on Terrorism.” This is because we aren’t really engaged in a war on terrorism, which is only a tactic, any more than we’re engaged in a War on Boxcutters, or a War on Bellybombs, or a War on Shoebombs. We are, of course, waging a war on Islamic fundamentalism, and particularly that variety of it that continues to emanate from Saudi-controlled Arabia which, for short, we can designate Islamism.

I think that the Administration recognizes the reality, but fear that they can’t state it clearly, both because it would tip off our enemies as to the ultimate war aim, and because they may fear that they won’t get support from the public if it’s stated sufficiently baldly. That aim is to completely remake the Middle East, as I noted in my previous post, below.

I think that they’re wrong, and that the public will accept the premise that we are engaged in a struggle of ideology just as important, and just dangerous, in its own way, as the ones we faced against Nazism and Stalinism in the last century, and won. He has an opportunity in next week’s State of the Union address to start to expand on previous statements, and to make that case.

It will, unfortunately, require a little backtracking, because he has been so adamant since the WTC atrocity to say that our war is not against Islam. The reality is that it is, at least against a particular sect of it, and at some point we will not be able to fight it effectively if we don’t open declare it.

I would like to believe that the appeasement of the Saudis up to this point has been not just the product of entrenched Arabists in Foggy Bottom, and long-time Bush family connections with the House of Saud, but also a delaying tactic until we were ready to confront them head on. Once Iraqi oil is flowing freely, its proceeds going to build a democracy in Irag, rather than funding palaces, dungeons and WMD, the Saudis will no longer be able to threaten us as the swing oil producer. At that point, I hope that they will receive the appropriate ultimatum, which is to shut down the madrassas and democratize, or join Saddam.

There is a liberal democratic case to be made for this war, just as there was for the second world war, and the Cold War. It’s time for the Administration to start making it, forcefully, coherently and persuasively.

Which is just a long way of saying that Tom Friedman has made a start at helping them do so.