Barak: War on terrorism is World War III

According to former prime minister Ehud Barak, the war on terrorism is World War III, and a highly-coordinated international effort is needed to defeat rogue regimes and halt the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. “This war is going to be a marathon, not a sprint, with success and setbacks. It may take a generation. But we must destroy world terror or be destroyed by it,” said Barak on Sunday at a conference on global terrorism organized by Netanya College’s International Center for Strategic Dialogue in New York. According to former president of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, the center’s chairman of the international executive, the international community should fight terrorism through the United Nations and recognize that civilian deaths resulting from military action in Iraq “could result in spreading this evil even further, making it even more virulent.” Gorbachev, who sent a written address to the conference in lieu of his presence, wrote that the current war on terrorism doesn’t rank as a third world war. “We should not reduce world politics to just fighting terrorism,” he noted. The International Center for Strategic Dialogue was set up three months ago to formulate recommendations for world leaders in their fight against global terrorism. Its inaugural conference brought together a disparate group, but their words revealed how far apart they are in both their definition of terrorism and, by extension, what they believe is needed to halt it. Full Story