Hugh Hewitt interviewed General Abizaid, who clearly understands the enemy.

HH: What is their vision, the enemy’s vision of the world?

JA: Well certainly, if you look at al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, all you have to do is go on to one of their website. But you see it is to drive out the United States from the region, overthrow the regional powers, take over the Sunni Arab world first, and then the Muslim world, and install a Sharia type of government that would look very much like the government that they installed under the Taliban, when the Taliban ran Afghanistan. And if you want to know what that looks like, it’s executions in the soccer stadium, no rights for women anywhere, Sharia law strictly enforced, no music, you name it. And the people in the region really don’t want that kind of a future for themselves, or for their kids.

HH: And the vision of the Iranian revolutionary regime?

JA: Well, the Iranian revolutionary regime has a different sort of a notion, but it’s one that’s primarily a world in which Iranian influence and power call the shots in the Middle East, and done so under the current Shiia revolutionary precepts that you see played out in Tehran, which again, is very, very restrictive. Not as restrictive as what Osama bin Laden brings, but certainly more restrictive than the people like. When you ask Iranians whether or not they approve of this government, they’d just as soon get onto some other kind of government that’s more liberal.

He also had some advice we can only hope the public hears and heeds:

JA: I can only say that as I…when I go home and spend time where my headquarters is in Tampa, or when I spend time where I’m from on the West Coast, it’s hard to really notice that there’s much of a war going on, thinking that there’s a World War II level of effort going on in the middle of the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Horn of Africa, is hard for most people to appreciate. I think it’s important that people understand the dangers of not contesting this area. If we let the extremists get embedded, if we let the extremists gain ground, if we let the extremists have time and resources, then I believe they’ll eventually insinuate their way into the mainstream. They could then gain territory, gain time, gain weapons of mass destruction. And over time, they’d move us to the war that we’re all, the big war that we’re all trying to avoid. So I can only tell you that what we’re doing out here is very, very important for our security. We were actually fighting these people well before 9/11, and it takes a little bit of time and effort, but people need to educate themselves about why we’re fighting who we’re fighting, and what it means if we back away from them.

Emphasis mine.