American foreign policy needs to change its tone and attitude, open up, and reach out. The Bush administration’s arrogant bunker mentality has been counterproductive at home and abroad. My administration will recognize that the United States’ main fight today does not pit us against the world but pits the world against the terrorists. At the same time, my administration will never surrender any of our sovereignty, which is why I was the first presidential candidate to oppose ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty, which would endanger both our national security and our economic interests.

A more successful U.S. foreign policy needs to better explain Islamic jihadism to the American people. Given how Americans have thrived on diversity — religious, ethnic, racial — it takes an enormous leap of imagination to understand what Islamic terrorists are about, that they really do want to kill every last one of us and destroy civilization as we know it. If they are willing to kill their own children by letting them detonate suicide bombs, then they will also be willing to kill our children for their misguided cause. The Bush administration has never adequately explained the theology and ideology behind Islamic terrorism or convinced us of its ruthless fanaticism.

The first rule of war is “know your enemy,” and most Americans do not know theirs. To grasp the magnitude of the threat, we first have to understand what makes Islamic terrorists tick. Very few Americans are familiar with the writings of Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian radical executed in 1966, or the Muslim Brotherhood, whose call to active jihad influenced Osama bin Laden and the rise of al Qaeda. Qutb raged against the decadence and sin he saw around him and sought to restore the “pure” Islam of the seventh century through a theocratic caliphate without national borders. He saw nothing decadent or sinful in murdering in order to achieve that end. America’s culture of life stands in stark contrast to the jihadists’ culture of death.

The United States’ biggest challenge in the Arab and Muslim worlds is the lack of a viable moderate alternative to radicalism. On the one hand, there are radical Islamists willing to fight dictators with terrorist tactics that moderates are too humane to use. On the other, there are repressive regimes that stay in power by force and through the suppression of basic human rights — many of which we support by buying oil, such as the Saudi government, or with foreign aid, such as the Egyptian government, our second-largest recipient of aid.

Mike Huckabee said that, and more.

A naive fool calling himself a Republican is no less dangerous than a Democrat. Point-by-point:

• Bush has not ”pitted ourselves against the world” or tried to dominate the world. This is leftist nonsense. The Bush administration, with Britain and 17 other countries, liberated Iraq. It liberated Afghanistan. It scared Libya into giving up its nukes. It negotiated an end to the Sudanese civil war. It worked with five other nations to pressure North Korea into ending its nuclear program (we’ll have to see how that turns out.)
• Bush, more than any single human being, recognizes that terrorists are our enemy. For Huckabee to suggest that Bush thinks our enemy is “the world” is appallingly stupid.
• “The Bush administration has never adequately explained the theology and ideology behind Islamic terrorism or convinced us of its ruthless fanaticism.” Gawd, where has Huckabee been the last seven years? Weight Watchers?
• “The United States’ biggest challenge in the Arab and Muslim worlds is the lack of a viable moderate alternative to radicalism.” Iraq, dummy, Iraq! By helping the Iraqis establish a democracy in a region where none has existed, Bush took the long view. By draining the swamp where terror breeds, the world will be safer. Alas, safer for idiots like Huck.