The terrorist bombings in Istanbul last month underscore the change in strategy that al-Qaida has taken over the past year. While a shift in targets has reaped terror and despair from Morocco to Indonesia, it has also created the opportunity for the Bush administration to chart a long-term path to victory in the war on terrorism.

A year ago in Kenya, al-Qaida militants attacked an Israeli-owned hotel, killing 15 Kenyans and Israelis. Since then, like-minded militants have killed more than 150 Arab, Turkish, American and other foreign nationals. Militants bombed residential compounds for foreigners in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A Spanish social club, a Jewish community center, a restaurant and the Belgian Consulate were attacked in Morocco. Other targets included the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, and the U.N. compound in Baghdad. And it was a group associated with al-Qaida that took credit for the bombing of two synagogues, the British consulate, and a foreign bank in Istanbul.

What is the common denominator to these geographically scattered attacks? What is the answer to this war?

The link is the link. Islamist militants seek to poison the cordial relations between moderate Muslims and their Western counterparts. Islamists divide the world into two: the abode of Islam and the abode of war. They struggle to replace heretic Muslim regimes with an Islamic state ruled by Islamic law. At present, the greatest threat to such an objective is the creation of mutually beneficial cross-cultural and cross-national relationships between the West and the Muslim World.

Islamists consider such relationships offensive thrusts by the "Jewish and Crusader" alliance (led by George W. Bush) that is at war against Islam. Hotels, residential compounds, international institutions, consulates and symbols of Jewish-Muslim coexistence are all building blocks between different peoples who seek a future that involves the peaceful and beneficial exchange of goods and ideas.

Al-Qaida's attacks of this past year send messages to two different audiences. To the "Crusaders and Jews," the screaming message is to stay away; forging political, economic and social relationships in the Muslim world is to risk death. To Muslims, these attacks are a clutching hand from the grave that is meant to spoil and infect. Al-Qaida's adherents are nihilists that seek to pull down Muslim forces of modernization, secularism and political and economic development.

The May 2003 attacks in Saudi Arabia and Morocco were watershed events. Unlike the Sept. 11 attacks, which were condemned publicly but understood privately in a Robin Hood sort of way, the May attacks were popularly considered unjust in the Muslim world. Those attacks, like the ones that have followed, harmed innocent Muslims whose only crime was where they chose to live.

In a war of attrition that militant Islamists plan to fight over a period of generations, al-Qaida's followers have chosen to forsake popular feelings today to destroy the cross-world bridges to tomorrow. If such attacks are successful -- and the West stops building relationships in the Muslim world -- then U.S. military force will become America's primary representative in the Muslim world. Such a scenario can only have a horrific ending.

While this new strategy that alienates Muslim majorities has created a new peril for foreigners in the Muslim world, it also has created a new opportunity to win the war on terrorism. The United States, Europe and our allies must become committed bridge builders.

Like our enemies, we must approach this effort as a long-term struggle. The Middle East Partnership Initiative, a relatively new presidential initiative, is the right beginning. MEPI, launched in December 2002, is a program operated by the State Department that seeks to build Arab-American partnerships that advance political, economic, and educational reform as well as women's empowerment in the Arab World. The executive and legislative branches of our government must replicate, support and build upon MEPI programs like the "Arabic-language Early Reading Program" that seeks to create 5,000 school libraries across the Middle East over the next year and the "Trade Institution Building Program" that funds workshops to promote Gulf countries' intra-regional trade and investment climates. Though such programs will not yield overnight security, they are the key to creating long-term relationships of mutual benefit.

That Middle East's silent majority is disgusted by both al-Qaida's attacks and the U.S. occupation of Iraq. They need to see that Americans are committed to building bridges that lead to tangible benefits, while al-Qaida only wants to destroy such links. MEPI programs, trade agreements, academic and professional exchange programs, and other opportunities for specific technical training are the bridges that will allow young men and women to cross what Queen Rania of Jordan refers to as the "hope gap," rather than plunge into the abyss. Significantly, the Bush administration must also remember that a bridge implies two-way traffic and a respectful dialogue.

To win the war on terrorism, the Bush administration must go beyond a military strategy and take the fight to places beyond the battlefield. President Bush spoke of new fronts in this war opening up "where the terrorists think they can strike." With our Arab and European allies, Americans must open new fronts in grade schools, universities, conference rooms, factories, public halls and courtrooms across the Muslim world.

Al-Qaida seeks to make this war a clash of civilizations. We must make it a clash for civilizations.