VDH: HOW TO CHECK THE SPREAD OF RADICAL ISLAMISM

Classical historian Victor Davis Hanson offers an analysis to account for the current rise of radical Islamism, and offers a few suggestions for countering its malign influence:

So how, aside from killing jihadist terrorists, can we defend ourselves against the insidious spread of radical Islam? Here are a few starting suggestions:

Bluntly identify radical Islam as fascistic - without worrying whether some Muslims take offense when we will talk honestly about the extremists in their midst.

At the same time, keep encouraging consensual governments in the Middle East and beyond that could offer people security and prosperity, while distancing ourselves from illegitimate dictators, especially in Syria and Iran, that promote terrorists.

Establish that no more autocracies in the Middle East and Asia will be allowed to get the bomb.

Seek energy independence that would collapse the world price of oil, curbing petrodollar subsidies for terrorists and our own appeasement of their benefactors.

Appreciate the history and traditions of a unique Western civilization to remind the world that we have nothing to apologize for but rather much good to offer to others.

Finally, keep confident in a war in which our will and morale are every bit as important as our overwhelming military strength. The jihadists claim that we are weak spiritually, but our past global ideological enemies - Nazism, fascism, militarism and communism - all failed. And so will they.

The last point is the most important. Keep confident. By any objective standard, despite the ups and downs of daily events and the malign defeatism of the appeasement party, we are winning.