Our purpose vis à vis the Moslem world

In a discussion yesterday of the possibility that terrorists could launch cruise missile attacks on the continental United States from ships at sea, and of the fact that immigration restrictions or even expulsion of all Moslems from the U.S. would not allay such a threat, I laid out my basic view of the Iraq/Moslem challenge:

I oppose as much as anyone the crusading democratist rhetoric employed by the U.S. But underneath that utopian rhetoric there is a realistic, national-security purpose. Now it’s quite possible that the whole thing may not be do-able, and that we may ultimately have to withdraw from Iraq without having permanently secured the country, or perhaps put our forces in a retracted position somewhere in the Middle East where we threaten to strike again at Iraq or any other country where Saddam or bin Laden re-gain power. But, one way or another, our purpose, as I see it, is not to spread a democratist empire but to destroy and prevent the arising of regimes that could assist in precisely the kind of attack on our shores that Mr. Sutherland and I both fear.

And in pursuit of that purpose, I am open to a consideration of every reasonable proposal, ranging from modernizing and democratizing the Moslem world, to crushing and demoralizing the Moslem world, to isolating and forming a cordon sanitaire around the Moslem world.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 11, 2003 11:22 AM | Send