Of course they’re not inherently incapable of democracy and other modern mind-sets. However, they do have to be ready to leave belief in Islam (to the extent that it requires sharia and all the rest of the cultural baggage) behind, first.

It’s not fair to look at Islam the way we look at a ‘religion’, since the religions most of us are familiar with (Judaism, Christianity, speaking for myself) don’t also necessarily include a legal/political code that can’t be severed from the religious beliefs.

The stoning and jihadi martyrdom and all that execrable stuff is actually part of the ‘religion,’ and we simply can’t tolerate that. It would be like tolerating Nazis, or Aztecs and their human sacrifices.