That's what the Japanese thought at the time. No one in the United States did. The Japanese were right in thinking their sneak attack determined the ultimate outcome of the war in the Pacific. They were wrong in thinking they would be the ultimate winners.

What Americans learned nearly four years later, in 1945, when Japan surrendered after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6 and then on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, was that they, not the Japanese, had won the war in the Pacific.

During that interim of 44 months, the war raged back and forth, island to island, all over the Pacific. Many times, it looked as though the Japanese would, indeed, emerge victorious.

History's Hindsight

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That war was over when Japan attacked America. It was not won until Japan surrendered. Yet no one – neither Americans nor Japanese – could have predicted that with certainty on Dec. 7, 1941.

It wasn't until they could look back with the hindsight of history that they knew that war was over the moment the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor that Sunday morning.

During that interim of 11 months, many bitter battles were fought – won and lost, lost and won. The outcome was still in the balance during much of that year. Had Hitler started a little sooner on his atomic bomb, it could have been an entirely different ending.

Throughout the war in Europe and in the Pacific, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his administration, his generals and his admirals were supported loyally. Also, intended or not, aid and comfort were given to the enemy – and denied to American troops in battle – by bitter second-guessers.

Much the same is going on today in the War on Terror.

The differences between this war and World War II are enormous. In World War II, the duration was relatively shorter. American casualties then were horrendously greater – 1,079,162 – compared with a relatively few thousand, so far, in the War on Terror.

Far Longer, More Costly

The greatest difference is that this current war is almost assuredly going to last not months, not years, but decades. Before it is all over and done, the casualty toll of the War on Terror may well dwarf that of World War II.

Nor is this a war between sovereign nation-states. It is primarily a titanic struggle between ideologies, involving competing religions, cultures and, from time to time, complicit smaller nation-states. Hanging over it all is the ugly genie-out-of-the-bottle – weapons of unimaginable mass destruction, in the hands of fanatics who actually believe they have everything to win by losing.

Had Bush not done that, the War on Terror would still have been over, but in the opposite direction. What he did then will have made all the difference.

This war – whether the current battlefield is in Afghanistan, or in Iraq, or in Lebanon, or in Iran, or in North Korea, or in the homeland of the United States – is a long, bloody way from being won by either side.

But it will eventually be won by the civilization that Bush has stepped forward to defend and to lead.

Winding Road Ahead

The way will be at times frustrating, at times reassuring, at times horrifying, at times ennobling.

There will be times when it seems there is no way out but cowardice and surrender.

There will be times when it appears to be all over but the celebrating.

There will be no shortage of second-guessers, political opportunists, near-sighted trimmers.

The defeatists at home and the terrorists abroad will continue to recognize, and make common cause with, their natural allies. There will be even more of this, not less.

There will be errors in judgment in Congress, in the White House, in the Pentagon and on the battlefield, right down to the squad level, to individual soldiers, sailors and airmen – just as there was during World War II. That is part of what war is, has always been, and always will be. Only the alternative is worse – defeat.

At the End Lies Victory

Bush will leave the scene and be replaced, sometimes by lesser men or women, other times by perhaps even greater.

This war will go on whether Americans like it or care to be involved in it. The terrorists will see to that.

Their fellow-traveling defeatists here at home haven't figured this out yet, but in time even they, too, will. This is what happened also in World War II.

In the end, America – and what it stands for and what Bush has called America to fight for – will emerge the victor. The world will be the better. Freedom – the result of proper exercise of liberty – will be advanced.

For centuries to come, historians will be able to look back with hindsight and say the War on Terror was over on the day George W. Bush grabbed that bullhorn and climbed atop the twisted and crumbled evidence of what Sept. 11, 2001, meant to the civilized world.

Time to Make History

There were elections in 2002 and 2004, and the American people gave Bush and his Republicans their votes of confidence. It would be a right and proper thing if on Nov. 7 this year the electorate stood up again for the best that is America.

Regardless of the outcomes of the 2006 elections, there will be others, and others, followed by many others. Americans do not universally make the right choices at the polls. Neither do they always make the wrong choices. History shows, however, that most of the time they get it right.

It's history-making time in America this year – not yet history-writing time. That comes later, in the fullness of time.

What will be written then will depend on what history is being made today.

John L. Perry, a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer who served on White House staffs of two presidents, is a regular columnist for NewsMax.com.

Read John Perry's columns here.

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