Terrorism? Muslim extremism? American heroism?

It stands for all of those things and more. But it also stands as a symbol of confusion. Because five years later, Americans are divided and confused about how to define and how to deal with the threat of Muslim extremism that 9/11 represents.

A good measure of the blame for that should be laid at the feet of President Bush and his administration, people who have done a miserable job of defining and explaining the nature of the threat and plotting a clear path for containing or defeating it. Almost from the beginning, and particularly during the prelude to the misadventure in Iraq, the president's formulations have been overly simplistic or half-truths or flat-out wrong. Invariably, they have been premised on fear.

In the case of Iraq, he made an enemy of an Arab nation and regime that had nothing to do with 9/11. There could be no larger strategic blunder.

But, frankly, the question of how to ameliorate or defeat Muslim extremism is a complex social and political enigma that would have gravely challenged any president or administration. Part of this is due to the size of the issues involved. Another part is the cultural gulf that divides the Christian/secular West from Islam. That is why the "Clash of Civilizations" metaphor rings true, though by itself it does not get its arms around the problem.

Nor has the United States faced terrorism from abroad before. Americans have fought and won conventional wars. But they have not much experience combating the tactics of al-Qaida and the social, political and economic conditions that give rise to militant Islam.

Americans and their government have made progress climbing this steep learning curve. But they still have a long way to go.

In this context, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's speech last month to the American Legion was striking. "Today," she said, "five years after the attack on our nation, people still differ about what September 11th called us to do." Rice is right that this confusion continues.

"If you believe, as I do, and as President Bush does, that the root cause of September 11th was the violent expression of a global extremist ideology, an ideology that thrives on the oppression and despair of the Middle East, then we must seek to remove this source of terror by helping the people of that troubled region to transform their countries and to transform their lives."

That is a thoughtful summation of what the goal of U.S. policy should be. However, while the Bush administration has set the right goal, it has thoroughly botched its strategy and tactics, both at home and abroad.

Americans and their allies rightly agree that the war in Afghanistan was justified to topple the Taliban regime and to decapitate al-Qaida. The war in Iraq, on the other hand, was unjustified, because the charges about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction either were based on faulty intelligence or were outright fabrications.

The larger question in Iraq, though, is whether the United States should help the people of the Middle East to remove their "oppression and despair," in Secretary Rice's words, at gunpoint. It is both a philosophical and a practical question.

It is doubtful that democracy can or should be imposed by force, especially in the Middle East where the West has a sordid imperial history. That is where the neocons in the White House who drove this benighted adventure lost their way.

But even if you believe otherwise, and there are precedents in Germany and Japan after World War II for this point of view, you cannot impose democracy by force unless you have enough force to impose it. Here, too, the Bush strategists, particularly Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, failed, largely due to arrogance.

Further, you cannot preach the rule of law in Iraq while undermining it at home, as President Bush has done with his warrantless wiretapping and electronic data sweeps. There may be cultural differences between the West and Islam, but hypocrisy is hypocrisy the world around.

Undermine the ideals of the American Republic, as the Bush administration has done with extrajudicial treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and the torture of terrorist suspects, and you do irreparable damage to your case for freedom and justice in the Middle East.

So where does this leave the United States five years after 9/11? Americans have learned about the humiliation and frustrated hopes of people in the Islamic world and how those drive extremism. But by itself, the United States cannot rebuild the Islamic world in its own image, nor should it indulge the hubris to try.

The limits of American military power should be evident by now. What is not evident is what the United States could accomplish if it stayed true to its own ideals. Perhaps we have enough distance now from the fear with which 9/11 gripped us to act like Americans again, and to demand that our government do the same.