An American president widely considered to be inarticulate and insular has managed to generate and shape the most important strategic debate about America's role in the world since the Cold War era. He has drawn the rest of the globe into that debate on his own terms. But his responsibility does not end with those two surprising, significant accomplishments.

President Bush should ensure that the debate he has launched about how nations can protect themselves against terrorism and weapons of mass destruction remains serious, clear and above partisan politics. He owes that to the nation, the world and himself.

That obligation also applies to his opponents, whether they be Democratic rivals, antiwar activists or Bush haters. I hear from all three groups, who tend to be as unwilling to give Bush any credit for anything as hard-bitten Clinton bashers were to cut the 42nd president any slack. Few of the Bush critics I encounter bother to examine in detail the case that this president has made on the failure of deterrence and on the dangers posed by the continued existence of the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. Nor do they propose alternative programs of action to end the reign of terror and suffering in Iraq.

Bush and his national security planners have fastened on a couple of common-sense notions about national survival after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and gone on to describe those notions in dramatic -- at times overly dramatic -- terms.

Shorthand talk of military preemption and the preservation of U.S. domination as a national security strategy produces catchy headlines. Those notions have also dressed up several major Bush speeches. In practice, they are likely to be less radical and sweeping than they sound initially.

Bush, Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld have performed a valuable intellectual service by getting the world to focus on the impossibility of deterring the kind of madmen who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks and on the hazards that missiles and biological, chemical and nuclear weapons now pose even to the American military colossus. They have correctly diagnosed the devastating consequences of American inaction toward such changes.

But the antidotes they suggest have confused and rattled friends and foes abroad and left Americans uncertain about the scope and intensity of U.S. military engagement in foreign trouble spots. These senior officials and others need to be lucid, unflinchingly honest and comprehensive as they portray the evolving American global strategy.

A strategy of preemption does not imply that America will suddenly launch military strikes whenever and wherever with no warning, several senior military and intelligence officials who helped shape the emerging doctrine tell me. For one thing, covert action will be a major element of preemption in the war on terrorism.

So will consultation and clear warnings to other countries. "We will tell a country that we have spotted a terrorist threat and they must fix it now. If they don't, then we will fix it, without asking again. We are finding most of them get the message and act," said one official.

Prudent contingency planning would provide any administration with the tools to act in self-defense to remove an identifiable threat to American lives before it is launched. What is needed now is thoughtful discussion of the limits of this option and identification of variants on the theme. This will help round the Bush concepts into workable policies. Knee-jerk rejection of preemption won't.

A considered search for alternatives could produce a rare commodity in Washington: an argument worth having. But the importance and integrity of that argument are being undermined on the campaign trail, where Bush and Vice President Cheney are tempted to turn their well-considered case for military action against Iraq into a battering ram to smash Democratic candidates for Congress.

The threat that the Iraqi regime presents to global stability and the lives of Americans is real. It should not be reduced to a vehicle for partisan rhetoric and short-term political gain, or used as a shield against discussing unpleasant economic news.

But it is just as political, and as unworthy, to ignore or minimize that case. Democrats who shifted overnight from wanting prolonged debate about Iraq in Congress to rushing to shut that debate off so they could talk about "their" issues demonstrated that they too are willing to put electoral considerations first.

It is possible in this campaign to talk informatively and clearly about Iraq, America's role in the world, social justice and the domestic economy all at the same time. These are not issues that belong to the Democrats or the Republicans. These are issues that belong to the American people.