Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Taking the war to Europe

Mark Steyn:

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Madrid and London -- along with other events such as the murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh -- are, in essence, the opening shots of a European civil war. You can laugh at that if you wish, but the Islamists' most oft-stated goal is not infidel withdrawal from Iraq but the re-establishment of a Muslim caliphate living under sharia that extends to Europe, and there's a lot to be said for taking these chaps at their word and then seeing whether their behavior is consistent with that.

Furthermore, there's a lot more of the world that lives under sharia than there was, say, 30 years ago: Pakistan adopted it in 1977, Iran in 1979, Sudan in 1984. Fifty years ago, Nigeria lived under English common law; now, half of it's in the grip of Islamic law. So, as a political project, radical Islam has made some headway, and continues to do so almost every day of the week: Since the beginning of the year, for example, some 10 percent of southern Thailand's Buddhist population has abandoned their homes -- a far bigger disruption than the tsunami, yet all but unreported in the Western press. And whatever one's opinion of the various local conflicts around the world -- Muslims vs. Buddhists in Thailand, Muslims vs. Hindus in Kashmir, Muslims vs. Jews in the Holy Land, Muslims vs. Russians in Chechnya, Muslims vs. Christians in Africa -- the fact is the jihad has held out a long time against very tough enemies. If you're not shy about taking on the Israelis and Russians, why wouldn't you fancy your chances against the Belgians and Spaniards?

If the jihad has its war aims, maybe we should start thinking about ours. What would victory look like? As fascism and communism were in their day, Islamism is now the ideology of choice for the world's grievance-mongers. That means we have to destroy the ideology, or at least its potency -- not Islam per se, but at the very minimum the malign strain of Wahhabism, which thanks to Saudi oil money has been transformed from a fetish of isolated desert derelicts into the most influential radicalizing force in contemporary Islam, from Indonesia to Yorkshire to Virginia. Europeans who aren't prepared to roll back Wahhabism had better be prepared to live with it, or under it.

We have to destroy the fantasy. The jihadis can fantisize about a new caliphate but they do not have the means to implement it. The ones who cannot be persuaded have to be destroyed. In Europe and the UK that could start by cutting off welfare payments to the jihadis.

Iraq is making a serious mistake by adopting Islamic law. This will only lead to repression of Saddam proportions. It will also lead to failure as a society. When Muslims ask why they are so far behind the rest of the world, they should not blame the US or the west. They should start with Sharia law. There is nothing more likely to guarantee their failure as a society and a country. Look at what it did for the Taliban and for Iran. Why would anyone want to live like that, crating a hell on earth for the chance of paradise just does not seem like something a just god would support.