George W. Bush is on to something when he argues that the United States and Israel face a common enemy in the Middle East. However, insight is not the same as good news; if Bush is correct, then the United States can look ahead to years, if not decades, of conflict in the area.

In his Saturday radio address, the president linked the two suicide bombings, in Baghdad and Jerusalem, taking scores of lives on Aug. 19.

Both acts were committed, he said, by terrorists animated by a "malicious view of the world."

Bush's words are hard to argue with, but it's also clear that the bombers see the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel as their chief enemy; those are, after all, the three nations that are occupying territory they inhabit. But wait a second, one might say, the terrorists blew up the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. Yes, but that's the brutal logic of insurgency: Insurgents aim to make occupation impossible, by any means necessary. And so humanitarian workers are often "collateral damage."

That was also the case on Sept. 17, 1948, when a Swedish diplomat, Count Folke Bernadotte, on assignment from the UN as a Middle East mediator, was murdered in Jerusalem by Israeli militants. Back then, the British were the colonizing power; independence-minded Jews viewed the British and other foreigners as enemies to be expelled. Their strategy worked.

Today, Anglo-Americans find themselves similarly targeted in Iraq. The coalition once blamed the Iraqi resistance on "Saddam loyalists." But the problem with that argument was that Saddam Hussein never commanded much loyalty. Iraqi army units mostly broke and ran in the 1991 war; they melted away again in 2003. By contrast, the resistance English speakers are facing today in Iraq is oftentimes suicidally brazen.

So now the coalition blames Islamic zealots filtering in from other countries. But that's only part of the story. In the words of Chinese leader Mao Zedong, who knew something about revolutionary war, guerillas are the fish that swim in the sea of the overall population. Which is to say, the hunter-killers lurking in Iraqi back alleys wouldn't last if they lacked support from the native population. Yet Bush & Co. are reluctant to draw that conclusion, because doing so would suggest that the rationale behind "regime change" -- that the Iraqis were eager to be liberated by Westerners -- was misguided all along.

As one Iraqi in Basra, a Shia city far south of the "Sunni Triangle," told The Independent, a British newspaper, earlier this month: "We are very happy that Saddam Hussein is gone. But sometimes we say at least Saddam Hussein is a Muslim, but the British are foreigners. We cannot accept them. They must know they cannot stay here for 40 years. If they try, we will kick them out." Last weekend, three British soldiers were killed in Basra.

In fact, the opposition to the Americans in Iraq looks broad-based -- a lot like the opposition to the Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza. In those two zones, the once mostly secular Arab population has been radicalized and Islamicized by 36 years of Israeli rule. And now, few believe there's a Palestinian majority yearning for peace with Israel; the occupied territories are a 3-million-person factory for the creation of suicide bombers.

Bush says that America will "persevere" in Iraq, population 24 million. But the Israelis have been "persevering" in an area that's a fraction of the size and population for 36 years now -- and we see the violent and tragic results of their perseverance every few days.

In other words, if we are as persevering as the Israelis, and if the Iraqis are as persevering as the Palestinians, then the Anglo-Americans could be fighting in Iraq for 36 years themselves. Are Yanks and Brits ready for a military commitment to 2039 and beyond?

Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair touted the Iraq operation as fast and easy; now they speak grimly and glumly of "staying the course."

But the people who will be expected to bear the burden of fighting and bleeding in Iraq might look to the Israeli experience and ask themselves: Do we really want to be fighting Arabs on their home turf for decades to come?