Outstanding set of posts and links from Eschaton about this week's hip rationale for doing a Pearl Harbor on Iraq: to "humiliate" Islam. Believe it or not, this idea is actually gaining currency in D.C.; that is to say, the U.S. / "west" needs to pick a fight with the Muslims and give them such a staggering defeat that the Arab World will throw up their hands and say, "oops, we were wrong about Allah and the Koran, screw the Palestinians, let's embrace western ideals, etc."(ed.-I always thought capitalism was supposed to do that). This is sort of a variation of Snitchens' "war against Islamofascism", and is based on a rather bizarre misreading of the aftermath of WWII, that the Allies needed to fight Germany and Japan so as to deliver an humiliating defeat, after which our former enemies embraced democracy, tolerance, et al. Perhaps it bears repeating that prior to our getting the chance to "humiliate" Germany and Japan, they fought rather tenaciously for six years, and killed lots of innocent people. Before we decide to go chain the entire Arab World to the back of our pick-up truck, metaphorically speaking, maybe we need to start listening to a broader spectrum of opinion on this issue, especially now that it seems that the crack epidemic has spread to the editorial board of Commentary.