Dan: You wrote: “The last time there were large Islamic empires they existed as one of the pinnacles of Mediterranean development. They had great works, religious tolerance (for montheists) and tremendous economic and intellectual developments”.
This is a popular misconception and one that has been furthered by cinema (David Lean’s “Lawrence of Arabia” comes to mind), books and the media.
In point of fact most of the “tremendous economic and intellectual developments” you cite were actually products of the conquered peoples (the Jews, for instance) and not the Arabs/Muslims/Moors themselves. Bernard Lewis and other Arabist authors have made this point as well.
The “religious tolerance” you cite is also something of a sweeping generalization rather than a specific truth. The Spanish Reconquista came about because the Spaniards sought to throw off the repressive government they lived under. The Crusades are another example of what happens after several centuries of Islamic “religious tolerance”.
Whether or not the worldwide Islamic Caliphate that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda envision will be a reality is obviously open to debate. However, it is gaining traction and in areas from Indonesia to Egypt to Turkey to Britain. Wahhabist Islam is not only virulent, but viral. It threatens regimes in Saudi Arabia and Egypt (in my opinion, at even greater danger of destabilizing than Saudi Arabia), as well as democratic countries like Holland, France, Britain and Italy.
You’re correct that our being nicer isn’t really at issue. Our being smarter certainly is, and gandalf has astutely pointed out that we are barking up the wrong tree with our nation building exercise in Iraq. However, I would point out that Iran’s animosity at present has far less to do with our questionable coup in 1953 and far more to do with regional hegemony. And, in that case, the example of Neville Chamberlain is quite relevant. Perhaps the Iranians aren’t as dangerous as Herr Hitler in the late 1930s, but, with a nuke, even petty dictators can punch far above their weight.
