So Now What?

As a follow-up to a post from yesterday, there’s this from David Warren:

I wrote then that [President Bush] was trying to achieve something like the cleaning of the Augean stables, in the Greek myth of Hercules. His mind was working in a Lincolnesque way, towards a grand strategy. He would attack the root cause of terrorism, in effect by diverting the powerful stream of democracy, which had recently swept through central and eastern Europe, so that it would now wash through the Islamic world.

I did not say whether I thought this strategy would work, only that I believed it to be what he was trying. I cannot, of course, read anyone’s mind, yet still think Mr. Bush is dug into such a grand strategy. He sincerely believes that democracy in the Middle East is possible; and that American efforts there can tap deep, universal human desires for liberty and justice, that will, like great waters, finally succeed in cleaning out centuries of backwardness and tyranny.

After a couple of years of additional thought, I now have an opinion on this strategy. The problem with it is, that it requires the water to flow uphill.

“Democracy”, and Islam, are utterly incompatible.

Read, as they say, the whole thing.