WASHINGTON - President Bush has called Iraq a crucial battleground in a decades-long struggle against Islamic terrorism...

For Bush, the lesson of history seems to be that patience is a virtue - patience for a long war against radical Islamist terrorism and patience for the war in Iraq.

The president has been urging patience since the earliest phase of the war on terrorism.

"We are planning a broad and sustained campaign to secure our country and eradicate the evil of terrorism," Bush told Americans four days after 9/11. "You will be asked for your patience, for the conflict will not be short..."

Some administration critics think the concept of a "war on terrorism" is equally murky.

They say the phrase puts too much emphasis on military action and overlooks the fact that Sunni and Shiite terrorists use the same tactics but are enemies, not allies.

"It shouldn't have been conceptualized as a war. Terrorism is not something you can make war against. Terrorism is a tactic, not a movement in itself," said Anatol Lieven, a strategist at the New America Foundation...

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