Opinion

Defense won’t win

Doubling-down on defense isn’t going to win the War on Terror. Yesterday’s scare in Times Square shows just how hopeless that strategy is — if a cooler can be a threat, not even the NYPD will be able to stop them all.

Yet the uptick in home-turf terror plots — with last Saturday’s bomb attempt just the latest — has many screaming for us to fund an infinite range of new security steps.

Faisal Shahzad hadn’t even been charged before the rear-mirror scrutiny began. How did he slip past security and board a flight to Dubai before finally being nabbed, just minutes before take-off? How did he get US citizenship?

After truck bombs at the World Trade Center in ’93 and in Oklahoma City (not to mention the airstrikes on 9/11), how can someone so easily drive into Manhattan and park a smoking car bomb smack in the heart of Times Square?

Fair questions, all. Answering them, and bolstering security accordingly, is a must — but not enough. As long as suicidal terrorists walk the planet, nothing can guarantee safety.

Have we forgotten our post-9/11 vow — to eradicate the cancer at its root?

Not to cut off tentacles, but to snuff out the terrorists’ core dream (a worldwide caliphate) — by wiping out all those who spread it. To defeat their strategy (to use terror tactics against a war-averse West) — by obliterating everyone who employs it. Would-be future disciples will get the hint.

Alas, President Obama and too many other Americans now shun offense, thinking the problem’s largely been solved, or can be solved on the cheap.

Rather than attack worldwide jihad full-throttle, we seek more and better defenses: High-tech databases, protocols and tracking systems to flag suspects among us. Security cameras on every corner. More alert bureaucrats (good luck, there).

Even everyday citizens are relied on to say something if they see something — which brings its own problems, as false threats shut down city blocks.

The financial tab for mushrooming homeland security, already well into the billions since 9/11, grows more astronomical by the day. Now Sen. Chuck Schumer wants Washington to buy New York a “Ring of Steel” surveillance network.

Meanwhile, “temporary” infringements on our freedoms, from shoe-removals to warrantless wiretaps, start to seem permanent, even under the civil-liberties-obsessed Obama team. Most dangerous, we keep hoping our “luck” — Shahzad’s faulty detonator — will hold out.

This is delusional. What happened to taking the fight to the enemy?

True, we’ve deposed the Taliban, walloped al Qaeda and dispatched Saddam. Drones are doing wonders in Pakistan. Crack special-ops and other US forces are no doubt making bad guys squirm the world over.

But Obama’s plan for Iraq and Afghanistan? Run away — ASAP. For Iran, the world’s No. 1 state sponsor of terror? Scold it (politely) as it goes nuclear.

In Pakistan, where Shahzad apparently trained, militant Islamists fester. North Waziristan is Martyrdom U for jihadi-wannabes, some of whom (like Shahzad) no doubt aspire to try out their new skills well outside the region.

Hezbollah terrorists are piling up long-range missiles. Yemen, the base of the radical cleric who inspired the Fort Hood jihadi and the Christmas Day bomber, is a new al Qaeda stronghold. Somalia, too, is crawling with Islamists.

Neither Osama’s boys nor the Taliban are completely defunct. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told the Senate a few months back that the bin Laden gang retains both “its intent to attack the homeland, preferably with a large-scale operation,” and its “capability to recruit, train and deploy operatives.” And it’s spawned numerous offshoots.

Let’s face it: We’ve got to step up our offense. Shahzad’s car bomb, though a dud, was nonetheless downright scary. Times Square is as much a symbol of New York — and America — as were the Twin Towers.

And while his bomb wouldn’t have caused 9/11-level carnage, it surely would have dealt a huge psychological blow, along with considerable physical damage and loss of life. Does anyone really believe more security cameras can stop attacks like this — each and every time?

True, a successful plot might get the nation angry enough to respond more aggressively. But we shouldn’t have to suffer a disaster in Times Square, or the like, before we act — 9/11 should have done the trick.

If we truly want to put an end to these repeated close calls, America needs to hasten the demise not just of al Qaeda and its offspring, but of Iran’s mad-mullah machine, Hezbollah, the Taliban — and every last jihadist in every last cave.

Yes, this is a difficult, long-term job. But that’s all the more reason to get more serious now.

The longer we allow terror to survive, the more likely — eventually — we won’t.

abrodsky@nypost.com