When President Bush sacked his economic advisers over the weekend, commentators were quick to draw a distinction between Mr. Bush’s foreign policy, which many describe as a success, and his economic policy, which the conventional wisdom says needs improvement.

Well, mark us down as dissenters in that false distinction. It’s hard to quantify, but one of the main reasons the economic recovery has been less than robust is the uncertainty that surrounds the war against the terrorists. The analysts call this political risk. There is the risk that a war in Iraq would cause a short-term shock to the oil market. There is the risk that the terrorists would retaliate by attacking American cities, damaging property and causing further losses in the insurance and tourism industries. There is the risk that this uncertainty will drag on with no clear resolution for months as the United Nations weapons inspectors play their cat and mouse game with Saddam Hussein. The doves cite all these things as a reason against fighting the terrorists. But if we retreat, the terrorists will no doubt see it as a sign of weakness. Their true goal is to kill or convert all the “infidels” and change America to a society governed by strict Islamic law. So it’s unlikely that any American concessions will stop the terrorist onslaught. Only destroying the terrorists and spreading democracy and freedom to the countries that breed them will make us safe.

Within the Bush administration, the main obstacle to a speedy victory has been the secretary of state, Colin Powell. When the deputy defense secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, counseled an attack on Iraq a year ago, Mr. Powell counseled delay. When the defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, counseled an attack on Iraq months ago, Mr. Powell urged the lengthy United Nations approach. The longer Mr. Bush hesitates in decisively winning the war against Iraq, Iran, and the rest of the Axis of Evil, the longer that the costs of war will weigh on Wall Street. It’d be fine with us if Mr. Bush wanted to send another high-level cabinet member packing. But at a certain point, the responsibility ceases to rest with aides and advisers and starts to fall to the commander in chief. It was another wartime president who finished off an earlier axis of evil, after all, who was fond of the phrase, “The buck stops here.”