The unrealism of “realism”

Daniel Pipes no doubt thinks he’s securing the political viability of his anti-“radical Islam” message through his increasingly risible insistence that radical Islam is only an extremist offshot of the “real” Islam, and that the real Islam has nothing to do with holy war but is “moderate,” “spiritual,” and “peaceful.” But it occurs to me that things may turn out to be the opposite of Pipes’s expectations. As the truth about Islam, which we were thrilled to learn today is now being taught in the Pentagon, gets more and more widely recognized, Pipes could be discredited for holding on so long to a false and untenable view of our enemies that has left us vulnerable to their incursions. His “realism”—i.e., his embrace of an unsustainable construct for the sake of political viability—could turn out to be his political undoing.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 14, 2005 06:40 PM | Send