Is It Really Islam Against the World?

"A tipping point on Islam?", posted on Glenn Reynolds' MSNBC blog, notes the surge in anti-Arab/anti-Muslim sentiment created by the Cartoon War and being expressed now in the UAE ports deal:

Jim Geraghty, blogging from Turkey, wonders if we're seeing a tipping point in Western attitudes toward Islam. Geraghty collects a lot of quotes, and writes of "my sense that in recent weeks, a large chunk of Americans just decided that they no longer have any faith in the good sense or non-hostile nature of the Muslim world.

With even the Democrats calling for religious profiling (that's what the uproar over the ports deal is really about, though most would deny it), an open "clash of civilizations" may be at hand.

Reynolds notes that such a conflict is exactly what the fundamentalist jihadis want, which is true, and sees an eventual Western victory with a diminished Islamic world that "...will rapidly become a tiny remnant of its current self."

I'm not so sure that victory will be swift, or even certain. I note the abject cowardice of the American mainstream media during the Cartoon War and wonder how deep that unwillingness to defend basic democratic principles runs in our society.

I also note that the Cartoon War just might serve to galvanize any "moderate" Muslims who wish to avoid an apocalyptic war.

Via memeorandum.