More has happened than merely the difficulties we are having in Iraq and the reappearance of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Critics of our failed policies there can come up with plausible excuses. There is the factor of a lack of manpower, and of the dissipation of unified activity because of local separatisms. No one can doubt that the divisions among Kurds and Shia and Sunnis are responsible for much that is awry, and Peter Galbraith's proposal that Iraq be divided immediately into three sovereign political entities is attractive. But what has not happened is any deep growth of democratic roots, let alone branches and leaves -- bills of rights, judicial procedures, the division of power -- that one associates with organically secure liberal societies.
And it is worse even than that. The faith of Islam is in fighting trim. In millions, the Islamists are traveling and settling abroad. From these reserves we get occasional irruptions of high-tech loathing, in lower Manhattan and Washington, D.C., in Spanish trains, in British subways. The elderly voices of Islam that stressed toleration and cohabitation are so quiet they might as well be silent. Columnist Pat Buchanan gives us a prickly rundown: "Islamists are taking over in Somalia. They are in power in Sudan. The Muslim Brotherhood won 60 percent of the races it contested in Egypt. Hezbollah swept the board in southern Lebanon. Hamas seized power from Fatah in the West Bank and Gaza. The Shia parties who hearken to Ayatollah Sistani brushed aside our favorites, Chalabi and Iyad Allawi, in the Iraqi elections. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the most admired Iranian leader since Khomeini. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is staging a comeback."
All the world is waiting to see what is going to happen in Egypt after three decades of the most expensive U.S. patronage in history (matched only by our patronage of Israel). And what of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and Indonesia? Not many are predicting that the future there will be pacific and liberal.
Two challenges are posed. The first is relatively manageable: Lower the flag on American universalism -- not to half-mast, but not as toplofty as it has been flying since the end of the Second World War. The second is tougher. Why is Islam burning bright? What on earth do they have that we don't get from Christ our King? If what they want is a religious war, are we disposed to fight it?