It’s over. No more G.W.O.T. Instead we have the new, improved G.S.A.V.E - which is, of course, the ‘global struggle against violent extremism’.

According to The New York Times:

In recent speeches and news conferences, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the nation’s senior military officer have spoken of “a global struggle against violent extremism” rather than “the global war on terror,” which had been the catchphrase of choice. Administration officials say that phrase may have outlived its usefulness, because it focused attention solely, and incorrectly, on the military campaign.

The newer approach, designed, perhaps, to comfort an increasingly sceptical American public, takes on a broader approach, defining extemism specifically as the target:

Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the National Press Club on Monday that he had “objected to the use of the term ‘war on terrorism’ before, because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution.” He said the threat instead should be defined as violent extremists, with the recognition that “terror is the method they use.”

“It is more than just a military war on terror,” Steven J. Hadley, the national security adviser, said in a telephone interview. “It’s broader than that. It’s a global struggle against extremism. We need to dispute both the gloomy vision and offer a positive alternative.”

The idea of rebranding the war had been posited earlier by our very own Boris Johnson in July 14th’s The Spectator (back issues require subscription)

…if we use the vocabulary of war, it gives the maniacs all the more excuse to wage war on us. When Bush said, ‘If you are not with us, you are against us,’ and then invaded Iraq on charges that were frankly trumped-up, he co-opted tens of millions of Muslims into the camp of his enemies, even though they might loathe Saddam. They had nowhere else to go.

To keep talking of war plays on militant Muslim paranoia, and, incidentally, since it is a key point of Islamic theology that the suicide bomber may not be called a martyr, and therefore entitled to his ration of virgins/raisins, unless he dies in ‘war’, we are by our own vocabulary offering these people an incitement to murder and a laissez-passer to paradise.

What brought about this change of heart? The easiest guess is that the Americans realise that they can’t kill terrorists as fast as the madrassas can produce them and so face being in Iraq for a very long - and very expensive - time. Iraq is proving that when one side doesn’t care at all who dies and the other side does care at least a bit the side that doesn’t care has a much better kill-to-killed ratio.

If the future of the middle-east lies in the hands of moderate Muslims those moderates should not feel they are on the receiving end of a war they didn’t start. Good that the Americans are seeing this.