Thanks for your detailed post. There are many angles to look at this complex probelm. Here I just mention two points as they come into my mind:
1) The extremist states will collapse of their own but the infidels may not have the time to wait.
Infact the declared policy of Pakistani Military is to nuke India in case of economic or political destabization in Pakistan even if it is not caused by India, on the grounds that any such destabilzation will benefit India.
Though I am heartened by the fact that Pakistani generals prefer good life and have built bunglows and mansions. Certainly they are not looking forward to nuclear war unless pressed severely.
2) The Jihad that Cella talks about includes what they call Slow Jihad ie peaceful pro-Islamic change leading to peaceful conquest (thru immigration and birth rates and conversion of Westerners). Infact the increased public profile and public appeasement of Islam by Western Govts following 9/11 fits the quite ancient pattern of Slow/Fast Jihad. Muslims have always used both to target a society ripe for conquest.
So your point that most people are not killers does not matter.

Jihad is already weak--
Nazis were not very strong either when they were brought in power in 1933.
Also a Pakistani example--As late as 1946 elections Muslim League could not get a majority in Punjab provicial assembly (undivided Punjab that is). Even more strangely it was Congress that was ruling in 95% Muslim province of NWFP in a coalition (not with Muslim League). Can you imagine it- the unruly Pashtuns had elected a Congress Govt (with official ideology of Ahimsa) This govt was by the way ruling till 14th August 1947.
All of it was ruined by the Hitlerian terroist campaign of Jinnah's Muslim League

I'm aware of "slow jihad," and it is a real worry, especially in the case of Europe. But there are also counter-trends. The big one is Globalization, and the "End of History." The children of today's jihadis are, or will be, absorbing global culture through their pores, and will be changed no matter what. (And global culture is increasingly modeled on American culture--I don't blame them for hating us!)

Also, the world's fastest-growing religion is.......Christianity. You'd never guess it in the decadent West, but the stuff happening in China is astonishing.

It is true that democratic elections can be hijacked like Hitler did. But it's becoming harder. The global economy punishes the backwards with far more force than it did in Hitler's time. And democracy of some sort has become the expectation. It's no accident that all the dictators hold fake-elections, and declare themselves legitimate because the got 99% of the vote.

But of course, us infidels may not have time to wait. My advice to the world is to teach the arhabi that terrorism gets them results they really hate...like, say, us invading Islamic countries and sponsoring elections and freedom. We've spent decades teaching them that terrorism gets them things they want, and then we are shocked when we are attacked. So stupid.

""The war has been prosecuted on the proposition that the two are indeed incompatible: that building democracy will weaken the Jihad." --Paul Cella. Not exactly. The proposition is that the jihad is already weak, because most people are not fanatic death-ninjas ready to die for some cause. They have mixed motives, and mostly want to just get on with their lives. And IF they have a situation where they have hope of getting on with their ordinary lives..."

I think this gets it right exactly - particularly the capitalized "IF". It really needs to be bolded and flashing as well, because it is the crux of the matter.

In most of the Middle East there simply is no hope for change. The police states are too strong and too efficient. Telling a Syrian that what his people really need to do is get rid of their despots and join the rest of the world is like telling him to build a time-machine.

No matter how weak Jihadism or Fundamentalism is, it CAN'T fall unless there is something worth having to replace it. Bashir Assad is not worth having, but he and his ilk are what the people of the Middle East are stuck with - forever!

Showing the world that we were ready, willing, and able to take down one of these assholes was a necessary first step to allow for some kind of change in the status quo in the Middle East.

It is virtually impossible to understand the course of history while you're in it, but from my perspective here in the present, I think it is a great tragedy that the Iraq war did not go better and that it has created so much division in the West. Had it either gone better, or if our resolve had not been shaken even in the face of such difficulties, the despots of the Middle East would truly be on the defensive. What a wonderful dream. Now, it seems, history has been put on hold.

I dunno, Mike. I think John's got a point: it's the mere existence of a neighboring state that's democratic that will ultimately bring down the local dictatorships. A democratic Iraq, even if it's ineptly run, is vastly superior to an autocratic Syria, and the Syrians know it. The Syrian regime is going to sweat bullets as the Syrian people's respect for the regime falls, even if all the people can do is vote with their feet.

Wanna bet the Syrian, Iranian, and Saudi Arabian regimes start collapsing in about ten years?

Thanks Hale for an opportunity to expand on my thoughts (and to clarify).

Dictators stay in power. It’s what they do. It’s all they do. It’s their raison d'etre. Until very recently the only real threat to a dictator’s hold on power was internal, via a popular uprising or a military coup – hence the need for an effective police state and the occasional purging of some suspect generals, in well publicized show trials of course.

Then, along came 9/11 and George Bush, who concluded that the status quo in the Middle East had itself become a threat to the U.S. Down went the Taliban. According to every Middle East expert I have read, the Muslim world was absolutely shocked at how quickly and efficiently the U.S. had exerted its will in Afghanistan. It was, after all, “The Russian’s Vietnam”. Many smart pundits in the U.S. (well, if you regard people like Chris Matthews smart), were speculating that the whole reason for 9/11 was to draw us into Afghanistan where we would be chewed up like the Soviets.

Afghanistan was a war we had to fight, but Iraq, I’ll concede to Tom Friedman, was a war of choice. Once again the powers that be in the Middle East were shocked. They were shocked that we would actually make such a choice. First, the U.S. had shown the ability to effect change any where it damn well pleased, but now it was demonstrating the will to do so. This surprised many who had fallen for the line that the U.S. was soft and would avoid conflict at all cost.

History had provided a moment.

The dictators of the Middle East were at least as afraid of us as they were of their own people. This was a chance for us to force the pace of history. (Yes, I know I sound like an unabashed neocon when I say that, but then…I am one.)

That moment is gone, and it is a tragedy. I agree that the mere presence of a democracy in Iraq is anathema to the fascist bastards in the region, and I have no doubt that sometime in the next 20 years those dictatorships will begin to crumble. But because we lost that moment, a great many people in the Middle East have been condemned to more years of brutal dictatorship than they otherwise would have.

I'd agree with Mike that we missed an opportunity to lean on some despots while they were still shaken by Saddam being dragged out of his spider-hole.

But in the big picture, I tend to be with Hale. One of the strange things of our time is how many dictators have lost power, and often without bloody revolutions. I think they feel that the trend is against them, and they've lost the confidence needed to keep things clamped down. They no longer have many chums in the dictators club. (Reminds me of a song my Dad used to sing, "Those wedding bells are breaking up that old gang of mine.")

PS: Charlene and I are at this moment in a hotel in Simi Valley, close by the Reagan Library, so anything I write gets a Double-Word-Score. And we are eating KFC, in the spirit of Globalization, and drinking Italian wine (Lent is suspended when one is at the Reagan Library) in tribute to Western Civilization. Triple-Word-Score. Life is good.

I doubt that Syrians long for an Iraq-type democracy.
The key point (esp for us) isnt democracy but Jihad.
How many Mullahs has America killed so far?.
Even the shaky Assad regime defies USA.
In my opinion the key result of Iraq war could be the spread of Shia-Sunni war.
Globalization for Jihadists means that a Britist-bred Pakistani Muslim hates America for what's happening to Muslims throughout the world.

First you say that "I don't think there is...a thing called 'Islam,' so that one can say "Islam" is this or does that."

Then you say, "I agree that 'Mohamendanism is a Satanic perversion of Christianity'..."

Can you not see what hate is doing to your mind, let alone your soul? Frankly, it's that kind of bigoted nonsense that makes me reluctant to identify myself as a Christian.

For that matter, I can easily imagine a rabbi in, say, 1450 (or just about any other year in the Common Era), saying that "Christianity is a Satanic perversion of Judaism." And it would have been very hard to argue with him, given what God's chosen people have endured at the hands of those who claim to worship the rabbi from Nazareth.

(Except, of course, that no rabbi would have said it that way, because Judaism had and still has a much more sensible approach to the problem of evil than Christianity, and does not suffer from the foolish fascination with the bogeyman and the Augustinian perversion called "original sin" that plague Christianity to this day.)

But, just as we know that the vicious acts of some Christians towards Jews did not and do not define Christianity, the vicious acts of some Moslems do not define Islam. And I think it obvious that much of the violence you are discussing is political violence that has hijacked Islamic beliefs, just as much of the motivation behind the Crusades was political violence that hijacked Christian beliefs.

For God's sake, John, try a bit of charity, that "reverent agnosticism towards the complexity of the soul" that Chesterton recommended. Otherwise you're nothing but a clanging cymbal, full of sound and fury that signifies nothing except a reflection of the very attitudes you claim to oppose.

Dave
You are jumping on one sentence as uncharitable, when in fact the whole thrust of the post is charitable towards Moslems. I'm arguing against Bisaal's anti-Moslem ideas. I'm arguing that Moslems are people much like other people. I think jihadism is a monstrous evil, but one that is hurting Moslems as much as anyone. (Exactly like communism was a monstrous evil, but was never the expression of the actual people of communist countries, despite the way they were depicted as "our enemies.")

That's why I'm thrilled at the idea of bringing democracy to various Moslem countries. It's not that I'm unaware of the real problems and pathologies that exist in many Moslem cultures, but I think they will be mostly overshadowed by our common humanity. And why I tend to slash angrily at the fake-liberals who hate the idea of liberating those people and letting them vote for their own futures.

As for "satanic perversion of Christianity," if Christianity is true then that is a logical inference. But if you follow my blog, you'll see it is not a subject that I'm interested in. I never write about Islam as a religion. And since I say here that the same thing is true of communism and naziism, I'm clearly not indulging in some sort of anti-Moslem rant. You are hitting at a strawman. I've never implied that "vicious acts of some Moslems... define Islam." (I did say that Islam glorifies violence, and I suppose that could be considered anti-Islamic. But I'd say it's a simple fact. Jihad is a big deal in Islam. But my point was that most Moslems are NOT fanatic killers.)

You are arguing in the same way you have many times since around 2003, taking one item that sounds bad, and pouncing on it with a "gotcha." You never take a position of your own and argue it, or take an actual position of mine and dissect it with facts and logic. After a while even a dull fellow like me realizes that this is lame, and is in fact a confession of weakness. You are living in fear.

You give out vague pieties about "the complexity of the soul," but you have never displayed the slightest interest in the souls in question. At least never in your blog. I often blog about the nuts-and-bolts details of working with places like Iraq. (Here's an example from a few days ago.) And if I were unattached I'd probably be in Iraq right now. You never seem to notice anything much outside your circle. "Hatred" isn't doing anything to my soul; I actually care about Moslem people--Not in some woo-woo all-men-are-brothers way, but with the tough-minded respect that comes from being secure in my own beliefs. Charlene and I are talking about riding that Baghdad train, and may well do so in a few years. (And if I could make myself young again I'd probably enlist and do my Christian duty to help police the rough neighborhood that is Earth. And not pass on the other side of the road like the fake-pacifists.)

You are a writer, and a very good one, as I well know. So why can't you write? You should be stumping me. You should be roadrunner to my ineffectual Wile E. Coyote. But writing comes from belief. Someone said, in a business book I read, that "having a point of view adds 50 points to your IQ." It's the simple truth.

This isn't really a personal criticism; I think the same thing is true of the majority of those of our generation who label themselves "liberal" or "progressive." Everyone grew up just assuming we had beliefs, convictions, solid foundations.......when in fact belief had been seeping away for centuries, and we were the ones who happened to be at the point where the engine started to sputter. We were just coasting with an empty gas tank. And some of us re-commited to the underlying beliefs of our culture, and are called conservatives. And some of us are still clinging to the flabby big-government-liberalism that was dominant in our youth, while not really believing in it enough to make a principled case for it. Those are the "liberals." I've been blogging since 2001, and annoyed many people, but never once have I gotten a principled counter-argument from a liberal. Not once.

"Reverent agnosticism" can be a virtue when beliefs clash. But right now it's just another one of ten-thousand fig leaves for nihilism.

If "it's not a subject you're interested in," why would you say something as silly as that? You sound exactly like John Hagee spouting his filth about the Roman Catholic church.

I avoid using the word belief as much as possible in religious dialogue, because I think it is a shortcut for a true spiritual life. Belief is "airy head knowledge," to use Robert Barclay's term, vs. the "saving heart knowledge" of direct experience of God and its expression in one's life. Belief is too often a way of sticking things into categories that close off the possibility of spiritual growth. One no longer has to think about things that challenge the "eternal verities" because they've been put in a box labeled "satanic" or "nihilist" or "heretical" or some similar term. And remember that Jesus himself pointed out that one's beliefs would do one no good at all in the end--it's how one treated the poor and the oppressed that mattered, for in them we find the Christ.

To paraphrase George Fox, you can talk all you want about what God says, or Christ, or the apostles, or the Church, or the Pope, or whoever, but what can you yourself say? You can debate all you want about what makes a valid sacrament, or whether Christianity is true, but are you a child of the Light, and do you walk in the Light? How does your life speak?

That's not to hold myself out as a paragon of faith, for I have far to go, but don't judge me lukewarm just because I don't rant about evildoers or compose long screeds about what's wrong with the world. I'm still in the process of discerning the right use of my talent with words, and one thing that is obvious to me is that, in the past, I used it not to build bridges but to erect walls, just as you do in this blog. I'm done with that. It is not the way of Jesus. For now, my path lies in a different direction, and my wordsmithing serves merely as the basis for tithing and teaching face-to-face. That will change, but I can't say when--except that our email exchanges are helping, and I thank you for that opportunity.

Finally, the problem with your attitude towards religion, in my opinion, is that you think you, or some authority you accept, can define God and God's action in the world once for all for all people. AFAIC, that's ridiculous. Any God that could be so limited would not be God. God speaks in many and varied tongues--that, IMO, is the whole point of the kenosis the NT speaks of. In his infinite condescension, he reaches people in ways that their lives permit them to hear. In Quaker terms, everyone has "that of God" in them, which if they but listen to it will save them. This is what John meant when he said that the light that enlightens all men was coming into the world.

How does one judge whether someone has heard or not? The fruits of the Spirit, foremost among them charity and love of one's neighbor, the "other." Tear down the walls!

Well you sure don't look charitable, combing my blog till you find something you can attack without the need for engaging any issues or taking any position. You look like a scrub.

But the fruits of the spirit can be hard to discern, so I'll not pursue this.

However, do you actually believe that the Church thinks it can define God? Surely you know better than that! A bit of Newman I was just reading...

"....These and similar passages [on the Ascension] refer us to the rites of the Jewish law. They contain notice of the type, but what is the Antitype? We can give no precise account of it. For consider; why was it that Christ ascended on high? With what object? What is His work? What is the meaning of His interceding for us in heaven? We know that, whatever He does, it is the gracious reality of the Mosaic figure. The High Priest entering with the atoning blood into the Holiest, was a representation of Christ's gracious deed in our behalf. But what is that deed? We know what the shadow is; what is the substance? The death of Christ answers to the Jewish rite of Atonement; how does He vouchsafe to fulfil the rite of Intercession?

Instead of explaining, Scripture does but continue to answer us in the language of the type; even to the last it veils His deed under the ancient figure. Shall we therefore explain away its language as merely figurative, which (as the word is now commonly understood) is next to saying it has no meaning at all? Far from it. Clouds and darkness are round about Him. We are not given to see into the secret shrine in which God dwells. Before Him stand the Seraphim, veiling their faces. Christ is within the veil. We must not search curiously what is His present office, what is meant by His pleading, His sacrifice, and by His perpetual intercession for us. And, since we do not know, we will studiously keep to the figure given us in Scripture: we will not attempt to interpret it, or change the wording of it, being wise above what is written. We will not neglect it, because we do not understand it. We will hold it as a Mystery, or (what was anciently called) a Truth Sacramental; that is, a high invisible grace lodged in an outward form, a precious possession to be piously and thankfully guarded for the sake of the heavenly reality contained in it..."