Getting it right

Submitted by Erich W (United States), Dec 10, 2010 at 03:49

I suppose the reason it is hard to treat the Islamic or Islamist world like we treated the Soviet Block-with containment and a degree of isolation--is that we are in a symbiotic relationship to the oil producers, and we are geopolitically committed so that we need of military bases in those areas. In general, Dr. Pipes' policy idea seems right, though. Any military intervention abroad always seems to result in deeper, multileveled entanglement abroad, and immigration from the countries where we intervene. Just as England, France and Holland occupied Islamic areas of the world in the days of their empires, and now are flooded with Muslim immigrants to such an extent that integration is not possible, and Sharia enclaves multiply; even so if the US occupies Muslim countries from time to time, we are likely to develop similar problems in the long haul. Involvement with Muslim States needs to be limited to the extent that we will not need to intervene militarily on their soil, or over burden our ability to filter and integrate immigrants from them.

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