Is democracy the path to a restored Caliphate?

David Warren says spreading democracy in the Mideast is a worthy idea and we should not give up on it, but then he indicates why he thinks it’s the opposite of a good idea, in fact the Mother of All Bad Ideas:

[The] enemy is now adapting to the tactic of democracy. Even in Iraq, he takes up the challenge, to win elections instead of merely sabotaging them. And he sees a huge possibility in this: to link together disparate national Islamist movements into a pan-Islamic popular front—that may itself eventually overwhelm the bulwarks and firewalls of European Imperialism. Like multiple hijacked airliners, a modern Western device can be put at the service of an ancient Islamic cause…. What I fear may hit us in due course might be awkwardly called, “the new democratic pan-Islamism.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 06, 2006 05:55 PM | Send