you guys need to stop that. the terrorist blame game goes further back than clinton. and there's enough blame to go around for the iraq war too.
as far as the terrorist winning...that's not going to happen. the muslim community in general was moving towards a less conservative and less extremist position before 9/11 and iraq. unfortunately that created an opening for islamic extremists because they were seen as group that wasn't going to cow tow to the western "crusade" when it seemed like all the bush admin wanted to do was impose western style democracy on the rest of the muslim community. the way we handled the perceived attack on islam was handled very badly and adressed much later than it should've been. we've learned some hard lessons since march 2003.
if we can find a way to exit the ME without crumbling the deck, (i think) the muslim community could self police and eventually force out the extremists. they were headed that direction but the process has been damaged. it will take a long time for things to get back to where they were pre-iraq and pre-9/11. in retrospect i think we did just the right thing in afghanistan, but failed to complete that more important task before muddying the waters with unnecessary action in iraq.
