Don't pop champagne corks too quickly. It's a long, long road ahead. Eventually, Islamism is going to fail because it's a cookoo ideology based on a cookoo heresy, but it ain't going to be this easy. Especially if our government insists on getting involved.

It seems no stronger now than Soviet communism did in the late 80s/early 90s. The problem is that foilks see 9-11 as Islam on the rise rather than the final desparate lashing out of a dying Islamicist fantasy.

I think you underestimate the satisfaction of

living in the Koranic cocoon.



True, the gap between Islam and modernism

is widening every day, as it has for 300 years.

But I see no sign that Muslims see it as us

rising above them, and until they do, nothing

fundamental is going to change.

That's a butterfly you see popping out in Iran.

The Palestinians are moving Westward? What did I miss overnight? The only westward movement I detect is the desire to push the Israelis into the Med.



If the Palestinians got their way, or even a full state in a two-state solution, the resulting nation would not be western in outlook, belief system or function. It would have a thin veneer of some western trappings but would otherwise be a true oriental (note the small 'o') state. Yasser Arafat or his successor would be a pasha. That part of the world has about four thousand years experience with such forms of government, and I see no reason to think that a "Palestine" would be run any differently.



Regards,

Declare Palestine a state today and Arafat would be the enemy, not the Israelis.