the masterminds, perpetrators or accessories of the Sep 11, 2001 terrorist attack or those who harbored said organizations or individuals with the purpose of averting future international terrorist attacks against the United States by those organizations, nations or individuals’.

This outlined the battlefield in which the grieved State must exert its right to legitimate defense against a series of conventional enemies (other nations) and non-conventional enemies (individuals and organizations). In other words, a new kind of war has emerged, where the typical military episodes will surely take place as in every war that confronts States and are already breaking out in Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. But the gross part of the action to be unleashed against non-conventional players who dare attack a Nation –Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda and related groups- will be based on activities linked to financial and political intelligence and police and command operations. That is to say, a protracted ‘gray’ or dirty war. Of course, the importance and development of this scenario depends on the West’s ability to avert the ‘mine land’ of Islamic extremism, which intends to take revenge for real and alleged insults that date back to centuries before the discovery of the Americas. The most immediate victims of terrorists are most Muslims who live from Magreb to the Philippines, whom they want to destroy and drag with them.

The tragic aspect of this XXI century war is that certain underlying elements tend to change it into a war of civilizations and one turn more in the protracted check game began in 711 AD for the West, when the Moors defeated the Visigoths in Guadalete and in 1095 AD, when Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade.

Bush may not have had the intention to evoke the latter when he used the term ‘crusade’. But it may be said that Bush might have wanted to put the top Muslim authorities in the crossroads of asserting the Jihad launched against the United States and the West by different terrorist groups and extremist clerics is illegal and against Islam. It sounds reasonable if we consider the existence of a war declaration against the United States –due to its bases in Saudi Arabia- issued by Osama bin Laden on August 23, 1996 and a Jihad proclaimed by the same personage against ‘Jews and Crusaders’ on February 23, 1998. Another thing is to balance the emotional burden of both terms within the politico-historical framework of Europe and Islam.

This was the only power on Earth capable of putting the whole European civilization at stake and only in the XVI century was Europe relieved thanks to the defeat of the Turkish on the gates of Vienna and the battle of Lepanto. From then on, things reverted slowly and since 1740 Ottomans, Persians and Egyptians have had to tolerate the humiliation of the Capitulations or unequal treaties system, which granted Christian states and nationals extra-territory privileges on Muslim land until well into the XX century. However, they were never brutally subjected as happened with China.

In the case of the Ottoman Empire, the Muslim power rises as such in 1840 with the signing of the London Treaty by the major European powers agreeing that their existence is essential part of the balance of power among them. Non-Christian nations –Muslims included- were excluded from the international community as they were not in line with European nations and so they were not subject to International Law or the Law of Peoples. The first exception was the Turkish Empire which was granted this privilege through the Paris Peace Accord in 1856, when it had already been dubbed the ‘sick man of Bosforo’. Far from changing power relations this fact underscores that Turkey is still ‘useful’ to the European world. We must also add the dismal consequences of the Peace Conference in Versailles, the tomb of the hopes for a lasting peace in the Euro-Asian continent for it is impossible to analyze the Jewish-Palestinian, Kurd, Balkan or Gulf war disputes without understanding these are direct consequences of the dismal treaties signed there.

This dichotomy leads Arnold Toynbee to compare both situations in 1928 and wonder whether the second would be the inevitable reaction of those falling back before dying or on the contrary whether the outbreaks would save Islam from modernity and the West. The answer is plain to see and today all Muslim nations, including Saudi Arabia, have either succumbed or fought against extremism.

At the end of World War I, the XX century Islam feels defeated and excluded from the modern world and takes two different stances toward the victorious West. Turkey and Iran –under Kemal Atatürk and Reza Sha respectively- opt for forced secularization as the path enabling them to join as active members a changing international scenario in which new major players may already be emerging such as the United States and Japan. Afghanistan and the Wahabi sect -to which the royal house of Saudi Arabia belongs- took the opposite road and become the bastions of the most orthodox and extremist Islam.

Meanwhile, in the XX century the West succeeds in concluding its process of secularization began with the Renascence and accelerated in the XVIII by the US and French Revolutions. After this, it loses some sensitivity to understand a worldview where religion absorbs all the aspects of the life whether it be through law, political and social organization and even daily details such as women’s clothes or using the right or left hand. The worldview and life conception that encompassed attitudes and concepts such as martyrdom, crusades, the ‘warriors of God’ (embodied by religious orders such as the Knights of the Temple ad Teutonic Knights in the West), institutions such as the Inquisition and the persecution of witches were left for history books.

Against this backdrop, the war against terrorism launched in September 11, 2001 emerges with the characteristic that the first wave of terrorists (individuals and organizations) and Nations harboring and encouraging them are extremist Islamic members. The blindness and hatred fueling them is such that they do not care or understand that in the name of universal values the NATO enters the Balkans to protect Muslims from the ‘ethnic cleansing’ launched against them and other ethnic groups in the region.

The first battlefield of the conflict is in Central Asia and the enemy to defeat is the Taliban regime controlling Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda organization. At the same time, the United States and Europe with millions of Muslim emigrants on the ground, and the governments of Africa, Near and Middle East, Central Asia and the Far East which have Islamic majorities and minorities, are facing serious dilemmas. Racial harmony, civility and national security are at stake in the first countries mentioned while the latter fear civil wars that may enrage the most radical Islamic groups or such as China and India which fear for their territorial integrity.

With Pakistan’s support, the United States turned Afghanistan into the major extremist Islamic hub in the ‘80s. The muhajedin of the orb trained and fought for a decade against the Soviet Union. Then they scattered across the world on behalf of their cause joined to Bin Laden or other groups and formed networks in over 60 countries. They defeated a superpower and think it is now time to defeat another.

The geopolitical background in Central Asia, the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea is extremely complex. The few constants of the game are ethnic, religious and local disputes prevailing in almost all countries in the region and whose root cannot longer be traced in time. Afghanistan has managed to break ties with all of its neighbors but Pakistan. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s support to the United States is uncertain in reality and risky as well due to the social volatility of his country. Besides Pakistan and India –both nuclear powers- are long-standing enemies struggling over Cashmere whose hatred dates back to the 1974 partition.

Of all possible allies Russia has more to offer –bases in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and even on the north of Afghanistan. These nations have been fighting for many years against a double scourge: fundamentalism and drugs coming from Afghanistan. Russia will be best at capitalizing on the support offered and the price looks reasonable to the West. By the way, it will revenge the defeat and benefit from the inevitable weariness of the US. The latter does not know the area and so it will depend on support from the region, negotiate with everybody and choose the best offer. But will they be really good?

The best mounted operation is not out of victims. And when this happens, how to prevent the conflict from spreading? Should the fundamentalist effervescence and the instability of moderate governments escalate, or some leader is murdered as happened with the Jordan King or the Egyptian President, will the legal Jihad begin before the first shooting? When will Israel –geographical successor of Medieval Francs- become another pillar of the conflict? Questions abound and the risk for a Holly War is high but the price of inaction is equal or greater