Islam’s Goal

Only when Americans realize that Islamists intend to replace the U.S. Constitution with Shari'a will they enter final era of war [Excerpts]:

A courageous speech by George W. Bush last week began a new era in what he calls the "war on terror." 

To comprehend its full significance requires some background. Islamists (supporters of radical Islam) began their war on the United States in 1979, when Ayatollah Khomeini took power in Iran and later that year his supporters seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran. 

For the next twenty-two years, however, Americans thought they faced merely a criminal problem and failed to see that war had been declared on them. For example, in 1998, when Islamists attacked two U.S. embassies in East Africa, Washington responded by unleashing detectives, arresting the perpetrators, taking them to New York, assigning them defense lawyers, then convicting and jailing them. 

The second era began on September 11, 2001. That evening, President Bush declared a "war against terrorism" and the U.S. government promptly went into war mode, . . . . Bush did occasionally mention radical Islam -- in fact, as early as nine days after 9/11 -- but not with enough frequency or detail to change perceptions. British prime minister Tony Blair also advanced the discussion in July, when, after the London transport bombings, he focused on "a religious ideology, a strain within the world-wide religion of Islam." 

But the third era truly began on Oct. 6 with Bush's speech to the National Endowment for Democracy. He not only gave several names to the force behind terrorism ("Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism"), but he provided ample details. 

The detailed texture of Bush's speech transforms the official American understanding of who the enemy is, moving it from the superficial and inadequate notion of "terrorism" to the far deeper concept of "Islamic radicalism." This change has potentially enduring importance if finally, 26 years later, it convinces polite society to name the enemy. 

Despite these many advances, Bush's speech is far from perfect. His quoting the Koran harks back to 2001, when he instructed Muslims about the true nature of their faith; his comment about extremists distorting "the idea of jihad" unfortunately implies that jihad is a good thing. 

Most serious, though, is his limiting the "radical Islamic empire" (or caliphate) to just the Spain-to-Indonesia region, for Islamists have a global vision that requires control over non-Muslim countries too -- and specifically the United States. Their universal ambitions certainly can be stopped, but first they must be understood and resisted. Only when Americans realize that the Islamists intend to replace the U.S. Constitution with Shari'a will they enter the fourth and final era of this war (http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1005/pipes2005_10_11.php3?printer_friendly).