I think he’s calling their bluff. No Muslim regime in the world would be able to meet his criteria - assuming that ALL of the items listed must be agreed to in order to earn the moderate appelation. Even Turkey, with a secular government, falls short of his standard. Ditto for Malaysia. If I’m correct, Mr. Pipes deserves our unqualified support. It’s a brilliant move on his part. I’ll be interested to see how CAIR and their leftist sympathizers spin their rejection of this standard, which will almost certainly follow shortly.

By the way, just to put the shoe on the other foot in Middle Eastern terms, Israel meets all of the above criteria - even though it can be somewhat restrictive of non-Jewish religions. The territories controlled by Arafat and his mafia are another story altogether, however.

Why is anyone interested in Pipes anyway? I don’t find his writing particularly insightful. He is probably softening his position out of necessity. Neocons are on defense. In fact Michael Ledeen’s (Monday?) column was entitled, yep, “We’re on defense.”

The war in Iraq is a misreable failure and even “average” citizens are now using the term “neocon” in conversation. Where are all the usual suspects? Where is Wolfowitz, Cheney, Pearl and the like? They’re trying to capitalize on our exceedingly low (Television induced?) attention spans. -“look the economy is growing!” -“look the ‘conservative’ administration has passed a big government Medicare bill!”

Israel is feeling the pressure too. Sharon is considering reducing (Gaza?) settlements and 395 Million in U.S. loan guarantees to Israel have been axed. So what’s up? Has there been a neocon change of heart? No way. Neocons will lay low and pretend that the administration is even marginally concerned with the weflare of the American public. They hope the net result will be Bush’s reelection. Then they will further pursue their globalcapitalist exploits.

I intend to start calling a spade a spade in the Near East. We all know that there already IS a “Palestinian state,” Jordan. Let’s start saying so. Let’s start saying, when someone talks about the creation of a Palestinian state, “Whatever happened to Jordan? That disappear or something?” Let’s start saying that the West Bank, the ENTIRE city of Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights are a permanent, integral part of Israel which can never again be sundered from her. Period. Paul Craig Roberts (whom I revere, by the way, differences such as the following notwithstanding) refers in his latest piece up on Vdare.com ( * ) to “Israel’s territorial ambitions.” Let’s insist on referring instead, as truth requires, to “the Palestinians’ territorial ambitions”: having gotten their country, Jordan, they’re still not satisfied but want the Jews’ country too, Israel. There’s something to be said for simply repeating the truth over and over again, as often as the occasion requires. After all, look how far the other side has come merely by doing exactly the same, but with lies.

( * ) As Peter Brimelow often points out, www.Vdare.com limits its editorial mission very strictly to the immigration debacle and directly related issues and, though it carries the columns of pundits who write about non-immigration matters as well, and those from various points of view, it absolutely declines to take editorial postitions thereon. Vdare.com does not take an editorial position on the Israel-Palestinian dispute or the War in Iraq.

I don’t undertand Un’s last point. If vdare limits its editorial mission strictly to immigration, why does it continually publish anti-war and anti-Israel articles by Roberts et al?

I think Unadorned was referring to the positions taken by VDare generally only on immigration. VDare has regular columnists, (who I think even get paid,) that focus on immigration but still deal in other issues — and those columns get run anyway.

This of course includes some crazy ranting by P.C. Roberts, (who still has his brilliant moments,) but also includes articles such as Robert Locke’s advocacy of ‘transferring’ the Palestinians out of Israel. I don’t think VDare takes a position _per se_ on that question, just because Mr. Brimelow ran that article. Different points of view get presented, (some really bad,) but there’s no question what position VDare takes on immigration. And I’ve always been under the impression that it’s the only place they draw the line clearly.

Mr. LeFevre explained what I was going to say. They have columnists whose non-immigration-related pieces they publish along with their immigration-related ones as part of their general oevre but which don’t get highlighted, when they appear, by being placed in the “lead-story” spot on the home page, a spot reserved exclusively for immigration-related pieces that agree to a greater or lesser extent with the site’s general editorial position. Regular Vdare.com contributor Joe Guzzardi, for example, is a Democrat who has on occasion come out with some pretty mainstream-Dem-sounding criticisms of Pres. Bush (not on immigration — though he criticises him on that score too, of course — but on other issues) for which the site drew some intensely negative reaction from its anti-Dem-Party readership. Nevertheless his stuff along those lines does not get spiked, and I agree with their policy of strict neutrality in regard to their columnists’ non-immigration-related commentary. They view such commentary as extraneous to — “at right angles to” — their raison d’être and do not take a position for or against it. I believe that has to be that particular site’s policy, for a number of reasons both theoretical and practical — to focus on immigration to the exclusion of all else. I think they’ve got it exactly right. Other questions can be thrashed out if need be on other sorts of sites.

Mr. Pipes has never written to represent all neo-Conservatives. He is a patriotic orientalist like his father, Richard Pipes, is a patriotic Kremlinologist.
The hatred is towards the revolutionary regimes, not for the peoples enslaved by these.
I think that Pipes has hit a major problem; mainstream Islam is now anti-Western, anti-Semitic, and supports Jihad. It differs from more Militant Islam in means, and some of the specific ends, but not in the general goal. I se many parallels to communism.
The Islamists are the modern Bolsheviks, who see themselves as the revolutionary vanguard. The Saudis and other Wahabbi regimes are the Mensheviks or Islam. They do not disagree with ends, but are simply biding their time and spreading their cancer among other Muslims.
The mainstream Muslims are Democratic Socialists loking for slower change based on acceptance.
I vbelieve that we must try to promote the Moderate Muslims, who have reconciled themselves to modernity, while dividing the rest.