That sketch of our thinking was issued a year ago in Smartertimes.com, the Web site that was put up by our managing editor during the preparations for picking up the flag of The New York Sun. It is the paragraph we found ourselves thinking of on the eve of this solemn anniversary, as our city, our country, and the free world ponder how to redeem the lives of the thousands who perished on September 11.

From the moment it became clear that the event was a terrorist attack on America, it has been clear to us that the right move was to take the war to our enemies. “America has plenty of enemy nations with which to do battle,” Smartertimes.com noted at the time. It mentioned first Iraq and the other countries on the State Department’s list of sponsors of terrorism: Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, Cuba, Libya. It went on to mention “Afghanistan, where Osama Bin Laden is in refuge. And Saudi Arabia, which has obstructed the American investigation into the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Dharan. And Yemen, which has obstructed the American investigation into the bombing of the USS Cole.”

What needs to be said a year later is that the offensive has still yet to begin in full force. It is true that America sprang to action at Afghanistan, aiding the Afghan people in ousting the Taliban regime. It was an impressive

victory that should not be minimized. But every one of the seven dictators that ruled the seven countries that were on the State Department’s terrorist list on September 11, 2001, are still in power today.

So far as we can learn, their behavior has not changed, an observation we hedge only slightly against the possibility that there is a measure of secret cooperation with America. If anything, however, the public record suggests these regimes are a year further along in their efforts to develop biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons, to manufacture and stockpile these weapons, and to develop systems to deliver them to their intended targets in America and Israel.

In the case of Syria, this is clear from a series of satellite photographs that is available at http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/syria/al-safir.htm. The photo above is an overview of the Al Safir chemical weapons plant. July 2002 photographs show that an underground facility was built at the site between 1995 and 2002, possibly to house SCUD-D missiles.

As for Iran, it was only Friday that state-run television there announced the successful test of the Fateh 110-A surface-to-surface missile. Meanwhile, 600 Russian experts are at work on an $800 million nuclear reactor at Bushehr, Iran, that is expected to be completed by the beginning of 2004, according to reports in the Russian press. Iran, which sits on massive petroleum reserves, doesn’t have any peaceful use for nuclear power. At Libya, Colonel Gadhafi is apparently making his own attempt to get an atom bomb, using Iraqi funding and expertise. So Prime Minister Sharon has been telling visitors, among them Senator Torricelli.

All of which only underscores the risks of America dawdling before launching an offensive. To be sure, deliberation is not entirely bereft of benefits. It can be a cover for the training and equipping of troops, manufacturing of munitions, and prepositioning the necessary materiel. But a full year has passed, and as the tyrants at Tripoli and Tehran assemble their own arsenals, they must be starting to interpret the American hesitation as impotence.

No doubt this is how many of them interpret America’s own democratic debate. They may be counting on the Congress to delay the assault — or even block it outright. And given some of the rhetoric on the left today, it is possible to imagine the enemy thinking America could yet swing onto a course of appeasement. As this solemn anniversary approached, the American flag, as we report on page three today, was being trampled by Palestinian Arabs at Gaza. We are reminded, however, that a similar patch occurred in advance of America’s entry into both World War I and World War II. Yet in both struggles — and in the Cold War — the democratic debate only strengthened the will that America summoned and validated its decisions for all time. We have no doubt that at such time as President Bush declares the time has come to take this war to the enemy’s ground, the country will be nothing other than united behind him and prepared to invest its last full measure of devotion.