What it takes: if we are to win the War on Terror, we must do far more.

IN the first week of October, President Bush used, for the first time, the term "Islamofascism" to describe the enemy we're facing. In itself, this was a watershed in the War on Terror, but if we want to emerge victorious, we must go beyond rhetoric and directly confront the enemy's ideology, infrastructures, and sponsors.

We have done very little of that to date. To be sure, we have taken on al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and assorted terrorists, liberated Afghanistan and Iraq, and achieved considerable success in preventing terrorist acts at home. But we have not dealt with the true malignancy at work here. Simply put, it is not Osama bin Laden who is the problem, but the ideology and infrastructure of extremism that produced him and his ilk. And unlike him, this murderous ideology is not hiding somewhere in a cave, but is spreading rapidly and looks likely to become the dominant idiom in Islam.

Thirty years ago there was but one state (Saudi Arabia) living under extreme sharia, but today there are half a dozen countries fully or partially governed by that extreme politico-legal system--and several others heading that way. Since 9/11 alone, radical Islamist rule has been consolidated in northern Nigeria, and Bangladesh undermined as a secular democracy by Islamist elements in its own government. In Turkey, Ataturk's secular legacy is being methodically dismantled by Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic regime.

In the West itself, Islamic extremism has made huge strides and dominates the burgeoning Muslim diaspora communities in many European cities. Under Islamist control, they are being transformed into separatist anti-societies that reject Western civilization and its norms. Many are increasingly willing to engage in violence against their fellow citizens. Fully 13 percent of British Muslims, according to a 2004 Home Office survey, approve of terrorism and 1 percent--a staggering 16,000 people--"engaged in terrorist activity at home or abroad, or supported such activity." Earlier German studies indicate that a quarter of Muslim school students are ready to use violence in behalf of Islam.

Confronted with this onslaught against its most fundamental values, the West has by and large refused to face the reality of this new totalitarian challenge and has instead taken to spouting politically correct platitudes. In the process, we have stubbornly refused to understand the two most salient characteristics of this existential threat to our civilization and the religion of Islam beyond. First, Islamism does not concern religion, but rather sedition and incitement to violence and murder. Second, it is almost always state-sponsored. Unless we grasp these simple facts about the threat we face and act accordingly, there is little hope we will make much lasting progress in the War on Terror.

Even a perfunctory look at the core beliefs of Islamism--as expressed in the writings of its leading ideologues--is enough to realize that it is our liberal civilization and its norms of freedom, democracy, secularism, and human rights that are the main enemy and target of the Islamofascists. It is these values Islamist sermons in mosques around the world urge Muslims to conduct jihad against and destroy. And those of us who believe in these values, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, ipso facto become apostates, deviants, and infidels, a category of subhumans whose blood can readily be spilled.

More disturbing still is that Islamist ideology would not have been possible without state sponsorship--first and foremost, by our "strategic allies," Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. It is America's strange blind spot about the nefarious role played by these "allies" that presents the greatest threat to dealing with the terrorist challenge.

The basic facts of Saudi sponsorship of radical Islam are too well known to require much rehearsal here. According to Riyadh's own admission, the kingdom has spent an average of no less than $2.5 billion per year for the past three decades to support "Islamic activities." This has allowed it to build and control 210 Islamic centers, 1,500 mosques, 2,000 schools, and 200 colleges in non-Muslim countries alone. As a result, there is hardly a Western city today that does not have an Islamist-controlled institution of one kind or another spewing hatred against the West and Muslims who refuse to submit to radical Islam. It is this infrastructure of extremist mosques, madrassas, "charities," and foundations that was and continues to be the real incubator of fanaticism worldwide and a foe vastly more potent than al-Qaeda.

While many in Washington now admit the nefarious role played by Riyadh in the past, they seem to believe that, as the kingdom has itself become the target of the terrorist monster it created, it has changed its tune. This is a delusion. The conflict between al-Qaeda's Wahhabis and Saudi Arabia's Wahhabis is more akin to a fight between Mafia clans over turf and spoils than a struggle between ideological rivals. There is no evidence whatsoever that the Saudis have stopped pursuing their subversive Islamist agenda through the dozens of fronts active around the world. Nor is it at all likely that they will do so unless they are forced. The House of Saud may be fabulously rich and seem all-powerful, but, stripped to its core, it is little more than a clan of corrupt potentates whose sole source of political legitimacy is the reactionary and obscurantist Wahhabi creed.

Washington exhibits much the same shortsightedness with respect to our other "strategic ally" in the region, Pakistan. After the London bombings--four years after Islamabad switched sides from being a patron of the Taliban and al-Qaeda to becoming an American ally--President Musharraf admitted that he had, in effect, done nothing to curtail the pervasive jihadist networks and madrassa hate-factories in his country. He has now made new promises to do that, but there is no reason to believe that it will happen. Indeed, the man charged with carrying out the task, minister of religious affairs Ijaz ul-Haq, recently denied any link between the madrassas and terrorism.

In the meantime, Pakistan remains the premier breeding ground of terrorists; the area bordering Afghanistan continues to be run by Islamists; re-energized Taliban remnants come and go as they please across the frontier; jihadist training camps are in business again in the tribal areas; and our hardwon gains in Afghanistan are at risk. The reason all of this is going on is far from coincidental. We need to realize that there is a deeply synergistic relationship between the Pakistani military and the Islamists, while Musharraf's "alliance" with us is, at best, a marriage of convenience and, at worst, one based on false pretense and duplicity. Musharraf is part of the problem, not the solution.

What, then, is to be done? The very first thing to do is admit that our policies vis-a-vis Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have been misguided and counterproductive. We might then ask ourselves a simple question: If democracy is good for Iraq, why is it not good for Pakistan and Saudi Arabia? The obvious answer requires that our relations and assistance to these states be made contingent on specific and meaningful steps toward democracy by the current regimes and active U.S. support for democratic alternatives. We should be fully prepared to view these regimes as adversaries. The status quo is simply unacceptable.

At the tactical level, we must immediately start treating Islamists and their networks as those guilty of criminal sedition and incitement to murder ought to be treated. We have abundant proof, for instance, that many Wahhabi international foundations and "charities" have been involved in abetting terrorism. If the Saudis refuse to close them down, we should do so unilaterally by designating them terrorist entities.

The West could also protect itself by enunciating laws that treat inciting violence under the guise of religion as a criminal offense and start putting the Islamists in jail. There are hopeful signs that this may indeed be happening in the United Kingdom, Australia, the Netherlands, and elsewhere. The United States should follow suit by reconsidering its own sedition laws.

The Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot once remarked that it is but a step from fanaticism to barbarism. Our best shot at preventing Islamist barbarism is doing everything possible to make sure that there are fewer and fewer fanatics tempted to take that small step. We can make a good start toward that end by going to the source of the Islamist malignancy and by putting some of the fanatics in jail before they have the opportunity to become mass murderers.

Mr. Alexiev is vice president for research at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C.