By definition, the war on terror was always a misnomer. You can’t fight a war against a military tactic without identifying the people and the ideology behind it. But that’s exactly what the United States and Britain embarked upon after 9/11. Then-President George Bush said before Congress, “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there.”

As we have written from the very beginning, it should have begun with radical Islam,headed by Iran—the world’s leading state sponsor of international terrorism. But because of politically correct paralysis and reluctance to offend an entire religious movement, the U.S. government opted for a fuzzy definition.

To be fair, though, President Bush did identify Iran as one of three nations in the “axis of evil.” He also told Congress that the war would not end “until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”

Unbelievably, these words are now seen as bluster—cowboy diplomacy, Bush’s many critics charge. Today, the force of appeasement in the United States and Britain is so strong that even the term “war on terror” is considered inappropriate and unnecessarily offensive.

Britain retired the phrase first, within six months of Tony Blair’s resignation. The UK director of public prosecutions, Ken Macdonald, said in December 2007, “We resist the language of warfare, and I think the government has moved on this. It no longer uses this sort of language.” Fanatical terrorists, he said, were not enemy combatants in a war, but rather members of a “death cult.” The 7/7 London bombers, he said, were not soldiers. “They were fantasists, narcissists, murderers and criminals and need to be responded to in that way.”

Forget the war on terror—track down the narcissists!

On this side of the Atlantic, eager to shed the “cowboyism” of its predecessor, the new U.S. administration unloaded the “war on terror” strategy even faster than Gordon Brown. On the day of his inauguration, President Obama promised that the United States would “seek a new way forward” with the Muslim world. His interview with Al Arabiya days later conveyed a similar message: the Muslim world—including Iran—could expect a friendlier, softer approach from the United States.

Last week, in his videotaped New Year’s greeting to Iran, President Obama envisioned a “new day” for American-Iranian relations. He spoke of a “common humanity” that bound the United States to Iran, whose leaders, by the way, deny the Holocaust and seek the destruction of Israel and America.

Obama’s reference to “the Islamic Republic,” as opposed to the Iranian people—which is how President Bush addressed their nation—gives the mullahs legitimacy and indicates a willingness to negotiate directly with the clerical dictatorship.

Judging by Iran’s response, however, the overture has been an embarrassing failure. In his speech last week, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad simply ignored the U.S. president’s remarks. He said world powers had now been persuaded that they could not block Iran’s nuclear progress.

Last Saturday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said President Obama had “insulted” Iran from the beginning and that there would be no changes in U.S.-Iranian relations unless the president made “real changes.” Obama’s supporters “chant the slogan of change, but no change is seen in practice,” he said as his supporters chanted “Death to America.”

“Have you released Iranian assets?” Khamenei asked. “Have you lifted oppressive sanctions? Have you given up mudslinging and making accusations against the great Iranian nation and its officials? Have you given up your unconditional support for the Zionist regime? Even the language remains unchanged.”

In fact, the language has been dramatically revised. For the past month, President Obama has carefully avoided using the term war on terror. And just three days after Khamenei’s rebuff, new verbiage became official. On Tuesday, White House officials and the president’s speechwriters received a memo saying the “global war on terror” should be replaced with “overseas contingency operation.”

Forget the war on terror—prepare for overseas operations that may or may not happen. It doesn’t exactly light a fire in your bones.

As for the enemy’s reaction, as J.G. Thayer points out here, “The Obama administration thinks the best way to fight terrorists is to change the way we talk about them—and for most Islamic terrorists, English isn’t their native language” (emphasis mine).

For the English-speakers who shape policy and opinion on both sides of the Atlantic, there seems to be little or no interest in investigating such monumental ideological shifts in foreign policy. At Barack Obama’s press conference on Tuesday, there was not one question about Iran’s rapid pursuit of nuclear weapons or the newly labeled Overseas Contingency Operations. The president, however, did say this:

When it comes to Iran, you know, we did a video, sending a message to the Iranian people and the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran. And some people said, “Well, they did not immediately say that we’re eliminating nuclear weapons and stop funding terrorism.” Well, we didn’t expect that. We expect that we’re going to make steady progress on this front.

President Obama is a big believer in the “philosophy of persistence.” But a persistent, patient philosophy of repeatedly extending an olive branch to Iran plays right into the hands of the mullahs. All they need in order to make steady progress on their front is just a little more time.