Mr. Lewis is a meticulous historian who offers specific details for analysis, not predictions. But he sounds alarms when he describes differences in perception, East and West. When the Soviet Union was defeated in Afghanistan, we read it as a victory for the West; Osama bin Laden saw it as a defeat of the more dangerous of the two superpowers. When the United States did not respond to terrorist attacks on its embassies, on the USS Cole and the first attempt to bring down the World Trade Center, he concluded that America was weak and unable to reply to its enemies. The cosmic struggle could easily be taken into the heart of the remaining superpower.
He draws chilling differences between "them" and "us." The Muslims bring fervor and conviction to the struggle; we don't. The Muslims are self-assured in the rightness of their cause; we answer with self-denigration and self-debasement. Muslims prize loyalty and discipline; we prize politically correct multiculturalism. Most troublesome of all, he says, demographics favor the Muslims. He worries whether there will be an "Islamicized Europe" or a "Europeanized Islam." The assets of the West are freedom and the unfettered pursuit of knowledge, and he offers the hope that Muslims will eventually find these things appealing. But he concedes it's only hope.
After he finished his speech, Eric Felten's Orchestra treated the crowd to dancing to music from the World War II era, the swinging sound of Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey and Harry James. The music drew the obvious contrast between then and now. The attack from the skies on September 11 has been frequently likened to December 7 at Pearl Harbor, when the Japanese calculated America was weak, too. The Germans and the Japanese soon learned otherwise. "What is needed [today]," says Bernard Lewis, "is clarity in recognizing issues and alignments, firmness and determination in defining and applying policy." But is anyone listening?