Iraq: the undeclared war against Islam.

Mr. J.R. Nyquist invariably has a half-mile head start on the rest of us in restating the obvious and his latest piece is no exception.

The Colonel strongly supports the U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan because it pleases him to have a strong military presence smack dab in the middle of that pestilential area of the world as a vivid reminder of the power of The Great Satan, even if our satanic hordes are on a short leash in the present moment.

Once a war starts – we are at war, remember? -- the finish line rarely ends up where the combatants thought it might, except, of course, if you're fighting in Finland. There is even a Churchillian imprimatur for this stellar insight of ours.

We do not care to bust Pres. Bush's chops for his Excellent Eastern Adventure as it was, and is, A Step in the Right Direction^TM, even if it is more of a lurch than a Pas de Chat. It scared the bejeezuz out of a lot of people who needed to be scared (finnnnnallllly) and is deficient at this point only for its not involving a healthy mid-course correction and massacring 50,000 of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and assorted other toads.

Mr. Bush seems to have his father's genetic taste for half measures and the implications of his own policies, pointed out below by Mr. Nyquist, are likely to be lost on Bush the Younger, however much we appreciate his visceral dedication to the defense of America's interests. Even now he seems to be backpedaling from his (almost accurate) formulation "Islamofacists." (As you know, Dear Reader, we favor "Fuligo septica jihadi barbatus.")

Man of the cloth.

We especially like what Mr. Nyquist has written because we happen to believe that a great deal of the excessiveness of Muslim hatred of the West is founded in just this issue of the threat of female equality. The Muslim hatred of the West is not religious in any way. What is "religious" in appearance is actually "political." And underneath that is rank, raw Muslim male rage at losing the whip hand (sic) over women. And justifiable shame at being quite unable to match the West in science, technology, and hip hop:

The Left will not support the emancipation of Muslim women. . . . The Left ignores the brutality of Islamic law, its oppression of women and its incompatibility with basic freedoms. . . .

On its side, the administration is sufficiently intimidated by the Muslims and the Left to allow Muslims to make democracy their own way. But what will they make, in the end? One needs only refer to the statement of [former Centcom commander, General Anthony Zinni], who said the president’s advisors “didn’t understand the region and were going to create havoc there.” And havoc is what we have. How can democracy evolve among people whose traditions are authoritarian? “The patriarchal culture of that region,” wrote [Stephen Vincent, the first American journalist killed in Iraq], “is so irrational, so debilitating, so self-destructive – and so morally objectionable – that one senses it is no longer politically or historically sustainable.” And yet, there is no clear path from patriarchy and Islam to equality and democracy. If America made feminism the centerpiece of its Middle East Policy, the entire region would mobilize against President Bush – and that is what we have to look forward to. Regional democratization means feminism and feminism means the eradication of Islam. And so, you see, the democratic project in Iraq is an undeclared war against Islam. Only President Bush doesn’t realize the implications of his own policy.

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. . . [T[here is nothing for a massive invasion of the entire Middle East, on an unprecedented scale, to force an end to a medieval culture incapable of true modernization. At the same time, Islam isn’t likely to leave the West alone. One must remember the promise of Islam, that Europe will be exterminated and Islam will be triumphant. It is not the expression or feeling of all Muslims, but it is the teaching of the region’s leading celebrities.

"The Long Struggle Continues." By J. R. Nyquist, 8/18/06 (emphasis added).