Let's declare peace on terror: we can't find WMDs. Maybe we should be looking for WWJD in Iraq.

AS THE PRESIDENT ISSUES ASSURANCES THAT CONDITIONS in Iraq are not as bad as media reports suggest, the body count only climbs higher and the parade of depravity emanating from Abu Ghraib continues. While bloody outbursts of violence are now commonplace in Iraq, perhaps the most sinister--and depressing--of recent developments has been the shift of the bloodshed and chaos to other nations in the region. After a flurry of killings and attacks, Saudi Arabia is looking less like a dependable, oil-rich ally and more like the fertile crescent of Islamic terrorism.

The current turn of events offers an unparalleled opportunity for historical I-told-you-so-ism, but Iraq is no longer the biggest worry confronting the United States. While the terrorists currently have set their sights on toppling the Saudi royal family, Western nations remain profoundly vulnerable to terror attacks.

The U.S. may continue to rely on the military option to protect America's shores, but terrorism is a tactic, not an army or a nation. You cannot wage war on a tactic, nor would most of the young men willingly dying for Al Qaeda likely be intimidated by U.S. military might. The terrorists' goal is to draw the United States into a spiral of violence that degrades the idea of America and alienates likely moderate allies in the Islamic world. To rely on force is to hand them the victory they seek.

Preventing terrorism over the long term requires peace and patience, commodities that have grown increasingly scarce and, for that, only the more precious. One anti-terrorist proposal meant to prevent future generations of hate from germinating is not getting the attention it deserves. Texas Representative Jim Turner proposes a 10-year, $200 billion "Marshall Plan for the Mideast" aimed at improving education systems and sponsoring economic development. His peaceful and patient plan might mean less indoctrination and more opportunity to young people all over the world.

There's no denying that $200 billion is a lot of money, but it represents an annual commitment that is only a fraction of what the Iraqi invasion, occupation, and reconstruction have already cost. Can't we be at least as generous to peacemaking as we are to warmaking?

Time and time again, Jesus calls us to mercy, to compassion, to nonviolence. He even warns that those who live by the sword will perish by the sword. These repeated admonitions against violence are not mere spiritual platitudes we are meant to mouth at appropriate moments. There is political wisdom within this scripture if only we are willing to hear it.

In the 1970s, the U.S. supported the Shah of Iran as he put the hammer down on Islamic fundamentalism. In July 1979, Jimmy Carter began secretly supporting the Afghan resistance in a policy that had the intended effect of drawing the Soviet Union into its own Vietnam. Successive administrations went further in arming and training and inadvertently helping to radicalize elements of what would become Al Qaeda. Under Reagan and Bush I, both Iran and Iraq were supported, sometimes simultaneously. Under Bush II, the U.S. has found itself in a full-scale war and now a messy occupation.

OVER THE YEARS THESE DISJOINTED, SHORT-TERM-ORIENTED policies OK'd state-sponsored violence by the U.S. or its agents. These policies had been intended to secure America's access to Mideast oil and to firewall Islamic fundamentalism, but over the long term they have resulted in a ,lumber of catastrophic reversals and strategic, cultural, and diplomatic blow-backs against the U.S. and its interests.

The sometimes brutal interventions America has sanctioned or undertaken in the Mideast have brought it only to new violence and ever-more complex cultural and political confrontations to defuse. Despite the cynical seduction and abandonment of allies, the cunning manipulation of enemies, and the unspeakable loss of innocent lives over more than three decades, "our" oil in the Mideast seems more vulnerable than ever and the calamity of a clash between Western and Islamic civilizations has only been accelerated.

Nonviolence is not a nice idea, it is an eminently practical component of any rational foreign policy, particularly in a fair-minded comparison to its alternative. George Bush has described Jesus as the "political philosopher" who has had the most influence on him. How I wish that were true.

KEVIN CLARKE, senior editor at U.S. CATHOLIC and managing editor of online products at Claretian Publications.