[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
Solution? Not sure there is one. Bush's vision (fair to say now that it's more or less dead) of a democratic transformation of the Islamic world was a nice stab at the problem. Another alternative, which M likes (if I recall correctly), is to drop the charade and admit that we are indeed at war with most of Islam and kick some major ass.

[/ QUOTE ]

Regarding democratization of Middle Eastern countries: that is indeed the best solution IF there are also Constitutional safeguards in place (similar to our own) which protect the rights of minorities, the rights of individuals, and the rights of non-Muslims and women. This because, as Sam H., has pointed out, a "democratic" Middle East without Constitutional safeguards could well turn out to be a nightmare of "democratic" oppression. Also, as Daniel Pipes has pointed out, a "democracy" that is allowed (by lack of Constitutional safeguards) to vote for a theocracy may well turn out to be a "one-man, one-vote, one-time" scenario, and thus ever after be theocracy not democracy.

Regarding my view: I think we need to face the facts that the regime of Iran is our de facto enemy, and that Saudi Arabia is our ideological enemy; and we need to be more pro-active in combatting their negative impacts. If Iran gets too close to The Bomb, we must take out their sites, or aid Israel in so doing. Regime change in Iran should be our policy as well, though if the nuclear threat is removed, the urgency becomes less. If we have a larger window of time, we should put more effort into supporting those Iranians who wish for regime change (there are a great many) and the demonstrators.

Islam "the ideology" is at permanent ideological war with all other creeds and political systems; this is due to its inherent philosophical foundation, and to the instructions in the Koran and the Hadiths. That, however, does NOT mean that all Muslims are at war with the rest of the world: many Muslims are moderate (and in fact many do not even know what much of the Koran really says, just as many "lite" Christians do not really know what much of the New Testament says). Also, there are many Muslims who are content to just go on "living their lives" without worrying about fighting or overcoming infidels. Unfortunately however there are a very significant number (if a low percentage) with the "jihadist" mentality as well. And there are many who favor the ideological goals of jihad, but who themselves prefer to remain in the background, lending their moral (or even financial) support.

I do think we need to take a harder line towards the terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, and a harder line against Saudi Arabia's systematized spreading of "hate" religion worldwide, and a harder line against Iran and Syria. Hopefully military intervention in Iran and/or Syria won't be necessary, but as it might be, then hopefully too Iraq will stabilize a lot in the coming months, which could free up resources should we need to deploy them against Iran.