What's the motive?

Submitted by Victor Purinton (United States), Mar 6, 2009 at 15:55

So, Dr. Pipes, what do you think is going on? Why the reluctance to name the enemy? Why has our government reached the conclusion that we make things worse if we talk about "Islamist supremacists" and the "Caliphate" and "jihadis"?

I have a theory. I think the Saudis have made the following argument to us: if you make too strong a connection between Islam and this war, you will stir up so much rage in the Muslim world that we can't guarantee we can keep the oil flowing. Or, we might have come to this conclusion ourselves. Either way, the distinction between Islamist and Muslim is lost on so much of the world that we can't count on context being our friend. I think that's a chance we have to take, however.

I still look back with amazement and longing to the speech Bush gave a couple years ago in which he was frank about the supremacism of Islamists and their plans to build a Caliphate by force. The only problem was he stopped short before spilling the final truth about Islamists: in their minds, there is not a corner of the Earth that is exempt from Allah's laws.

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