President Obama should listen to former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the "founder" of shuttle diplomacy.
Kissinger told Bloomberg TV's Judy Woodruff recently that he sees little hope in the "Arab Spring," nor is he optimistic about peace in the region following the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Welcome to the party, Dr. Kissinger. Some of us who have been denigrated for taking seriously the Muslim Brotherhood's goal to promote radical Islam worldwide are happy for you to join us in Realityville.
The New York Times headlined a recent story: "Muslim Brotherhood's Statement on Women Stirs Liberals' Fears." What took them so long? It isn't like the fundamentalist Muslim position on women is new.
President Obama's first in-office trip to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan, seemingly, is mostly about keeping Israel from attacking Iranian nuclear sites. He may also restate the failed policy of asking Israel to "do more" for peace. How about asking Israel's enemies to do less: Less terrorism, less incitement, less teaching young people that Israel is evil and must be destroyed?
Former Danish journalist and anti-Islamist Lars Hedegaard understands Islamic fundamentalism better than most. A self-described "secularist," Hedegaard has confronted the Islamist philosophy in the worst possible way. Last month, he was nearly assassinated by a jihadist pretending to deliver a package to his door. The man fired, the bullet narrowly missing Hedegaard's head, the gun jammed and, following a brief tussle with Hedegaard, the man fled.
On a recent visit to Washington, Hedegaard told me the growing presence of Islamic radicals throughout Europe will soon land on America's doorstep. "If," he says, "it hasn't already."
Does anyone believe America is ready?
"The concept of Jihad," he says, "is really not war in our sense of the word. ... It's not two armies opposing each other on the battlefield. Jihad is an instrumentarium of hundreds of different things you can do to further the cause."
Such as, I asked?
"One of them is terror," he says. "One is assassination."
Hedegaard says radical Muslims "know how to wage war because they've been at it for 1,400 years. I would say Mohammed as a strategist is unsurpassed. ... He has come up with a warfaring system that does not depend on a state. The warfare can even include factions that disagree with each other, such as Sunnis and Shia. ... At the same time they can wage war against the infidels. So as a warfaring concept, it is lodged in every man and woman's head. That's why it is so effective."
Germany appears to be heeding Hedegaard's warnings. BBC News reports the government has banned three Islamist groups, one of which allegedly inspired the man who shot and killed two American airmen at Frankfurt airport in 2011.
Too many people shy away from confronting the truth of radical Islam because they fear being attacked, as happened to Hedegaard and the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, shot and stabbed to death in 2004 because of a film he made that criticized the treatment of women in Islam.
Welcoming President Obama to Israel, op-eds in the official Palestinian Authority Daily implied that Hitler was greater than Franklin Roosevelt and that Americans were behind the 9-11 attacks. Parse that, Mr. President.
(Readers may e-mail Cal Thomas at tmseditors@tribune.com.)
