Today brought the terrible news that among the 195 killed and 295 wounded in terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, five Americans were murdered, including two Chabad rabbis and one of their wives, and a man from Virginia and his 13-year-old daughter on a yoga retreat. This blatant targeting of Americans and Jews in the wake of Americans’ election of the most liberal President-elect in U.S. history, with the enthusiastic support of most of the American Jewish community, should lay should lay to rest any misguided notion that George Bush or U.S. foreign policy are to blame for terrorists’ evil behavior.

Not surprisingly, terrorists’ hatred for America, its allies, and the freedom we embrace has not been appeased by our choice of a liberal leader, any more than it is caused by imperfect U.S. foreign policy.

The time is a good one to revisit the words of our President, George W. Bush, to the Knesset on the occasion of Israel’s 60th anniversary. Whether or not you believe that history will look more favorably on his leadership - particularly as regards terrorism and rogue regimes - than the world’s present mood would suggest, it is important to recognize that his assessment of terrorists’ motives and of their hatred of free people is sound.

So, too, it is worthwhile to reconsider President-elect Obama’s accusation during his campaign that President Bush, in making this historic speech, was fear mongering.

In a little over a month, international terrorism, particularly that targeting Americans, will be President Obama’s problem. Facile left-wing arguments that dismiss its gravity (”You are more likely to die in a car accident,” etc.) do not take into account the exponential growth in terrorist attacks over the past three decades, their diabolically calculated nature, or the way rogue states and terror networks exploit the intersection between violence and media to bully the most powerful nations on earth to cede to their demands.

As a patriotic American I support President-elect Obama and mean no disrespect to him when I write that he would be wise to adopt a more realistic perspective and take the matter of terrorism with the utmost seriousness. Islamist terrorists are out there and they are going to target Americans no matter who is in power here, or what our foreign policy is. Yesterday on Fox News’s talk desk, commentator Philip Klein of The American Spectator suggested that President-elect Obama demonstrate his recognition that terrorism is a serious threat to Americans as well as his intention to forcefully attack it from a position of offense and not defense by holding a press conference with his national security team.

There is no question in my mind that, in a fight against ideological fanatics and cowards, the U.S. and free people will prevail. But yet to be determined is how many innocent lives will be lost and ruined before terrorist ideology and its architects and foot soldiers are defeated. As Rudy Giuliani articulated cogently during his campaign–it is either offense or defense, and until the U.S. and the rest of the free world grasps the need to go consistently and unapologetically on offense (no more sentimental notions about the terrorists in Guantanamo, or melodramatic moaning about an imaginary loss of civil liberties because the Department of Homeland Security is listening to terrorists’ phone calls, etc.) this butchery will continue.

How long and how badly the free world bleeds will depend in large measure upon the decisions of our leaders. Let us hope Mr. Obama has the strength, wisdom, and pragmatism to confront terrorism and the moral relativism that nourishes it. Because if he does not, we will suffer tremendous and unnecessary losses before the right leader emerges to set the free world on a path to victory in the great ideological struggle of our time.

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