Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Bernard Lewis on Islam and the West

Hugh Hewitt has a long post today, with a couple long excerpts from an interview of Bernard Lewis. It covers the "clash of civilizations," giving great historical insight, as well as a look at Iranian President Ahmadinejad. Here's a sample of the historical perspective of the Islamic Jihadists:

And just as the Muslim world was ruled by a succession of caliphs, so the world of the infidels and more particularly the Christian world, which was the main rival, was ruled by a succession of powers, first the Byzantine emperors, then the Holy Roman emperors, then the Western European empires, and — I'm quoting Osama bin Laden: "In this final phase, the world of the infidels was divided between two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United Sates."

We think of the defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union as a Western victory in the Cold War, and some of us credit President Reagan more particularly with that victory. For Osama bin Laden and his followers, this was a Muslim victory in the jihad. And if one looks at what actually happened, this is not an implausible interpretation. It was, after all, the Taliban in Afghanistan that drove the Red Army to defeat and collapse. And, as he put it, "We have now dealt successfully with the more deadly, the more dangerous of the two infidel powers. Dealing with the soft, pampered, and degenerate Americans will be easy."

Bin Laden may turn out to be right, if the leftist, anti-war, politically correct, multicultural lobbyists have their way.

Be sure to read Hugh's whole post. Then be sure to read the whole interview with Bernard Lewis. It's chilling, sobering. And it's vital to helping serious people re-steel their resolve to fight this war against Islamic Jihadism to total, absolute victory.

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