Topic: Quality Punditry
(What are "political devotions"? Click here.)
In his recent FrontPage Magazine piece, Defeating Global Jihad: Reagan Showed the Way, Robert Spencer, an author and director of Jihad Watch, ponders how Ronald Reagan might have fought World War IV:
"How do you tell a Communist?" Reagan asked in 1987. "Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin." How do you tell a jihadist? Well, a contemporary Reagan might say, it's someone who reads the Qur'an and Sunnah. How do you tell an anti-jihadist? It's someone who understands how these Islamic texts are used to recruit and motivate terrorists -- and who is willing to call upon self-proclaimed moderate Muslims to face this fact and initiate an honest, definitive and thoroughgoing reform. And if they will not? Then at least they should know that the lines have been drawn, and that the lovers of freedom are not going to stand for more mayhem wrought by those who would enclose non-Muslims and women behind a wall of oppression.
If Islam is no part of the problem, such reform cannot be part of the solution. By vilifying and attempting to marginalize those who dare tell the truth about Islamic radicalism as Reagan did about Communism, today's intelligentsia provides ample cover to radical Islamic terrorists, allowing them to operate under the radar screen of media scrutiny and even law enforcement.
Freedom is under attack by the warriors of jihad; the battle lines do indeed resemble those of the Cold War. "There are very useful analogies to be drawn between communism and Islam," says Ibn Warraq. "Communism has been defeated, at least for the moment; Islamism has not, and unless a reformed, tolerant, liberal kind of Islam emerges soon, perhaps the final battle will be between Islam and Western democracy."
This is the war we're in now. If only we had a Reagan to fight it.
Posted by Tim
at 12:16 AM EDT
