A Washington Times commentary:
The man in charge of hoodwinking the Western powers about Iran’s now 18-year-old secret nuclear program believes the apocalypse will happen in his own lifetime. He’ll be 50 in October.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Shi’ite creed has convinced him lesser mortals can not only influence but hasten the awaited return of the 12th Imam, known as the Mahdi. Iran’s dominant "Twelver" sect holds this will be Muhammad ibn Hasan, the righteous descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. He is said to have gone into "occlusion" in the 9th century, at age 5. His return will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war, bloodshed and pestilence. After this cataclysmic confrontation between the forces of good and evil, the Mahdi will lead the world to an era of universal peace.
Meanwhile, as unpopular as this will make me, let me say that, for the sake of prudence, post-Christian Europe should consider whether it is really able to fight the fight it is warming to with the thin-skinned bullies of Islam. It feels good to tell these pinheads off, I know. And perhaps some kind of conflict is inevitable. The Danish cartoons represent one of those thrilling moments in a movie when the brute who has just deliberately spilled three glasses on the hero’s suit finally gets the drink in the face he richly deserves.
However, after that is the little problem of the logistics of the barfight. Can a Europe that believes in nothing, including life or love, actually sustain a conflict with a culture that very definitely believes in higher things? I’m skeptical it can. Radical Islam is a thin-skinned religion of bullies. Ordinary Muslims feel acutely not only the foreignness, but the essential emptiness and godlessness of the West. When the West mocks Radical Islam, it doesn’t mock Radical Islam: it mock Islam. Result: more PR for the "Toldja So" advertisers of Radical Islam among the rank and file.
Meanwhile, Post-Christian Europe is running on the fumes of a sort of pissed-off imperial autonomous liberalism that has been on the dole too long. It resents muscle flexing Islam because it doesn’t like wogs, doesn’t like religion, and dislikes the bullying arrogance of this cocksure new demographic bloc that feels the emptiness where the Christian core used to be, senses weakness, and is confident of the future birthrate triumph of Islam.
Uproars over criticism of radical Islam almost always follow the same ironic trajectory. First, someone makes an observation about the violent character of Mohammed or Islam. Then what follows? Violent protests and rioting, which serve to illustrate and confirm vividly the criticism that occasioned them.
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