Oh The Sweet Peaceful Majority

Andrew Bostom:

[...] the preponderance of contemporary mainstream Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia, apparently share with their murderous, jihad terror waging co-religionists from al-Qaeda the goal (if not necessarily supporting the gruesome means) of re-establishing an Islamic Caliphate. Polling data just released (April 24, 2007) in a rigorously conducted face-to-face University of Maryland/ WorldPublicOpinion.org interview survey of 4384 Muslims conducted between December 9, 2006 and February 15, 2007-1000 Moroccans, 1000 Egyptians, 1243 Pakistanis, and 1141 Indonesians-reveal that 65.2% of those interviewed-almost 2/3, hardly a "fringe minority"-desired this outcome (i.e., "To unify all Islamic countries into a single Islamic state or Caliphate"), including 49% of "moderate" Indonesian Muslims. The internal validity of these data about the present longing for a Caliphate is strongly suggested by a concordant result: 65.5% of this Muslim sample approved the proposition "To require a strict [emphasis added] application of Shari'a law in every Islamic country."

I swear I've read something similar before...

The only reason we don't see most Muslims in Europe and North America pushing sharia is because they simply don't have the demographics to back up their totalitarianism. Yet.

First link via NRO.

Comments

[Josh Scholar]

Isn't there a law that Muslims can only engage in defensive jihad without the approval of a Caliph?

That probably explains why they always call terrorist attacks "resistance" because they have to pretend it's "defensive".

Once there's a Caliph, they're free to engage in Conquest, baby!

Don't you suppose that that is why they want a Calphate? Otherwise they can't fulfill their duty to conquer the world.

Here comes world war three barreling down on us.

[Isaac Schrödinger]

Well, I think that Muslims will need some kind of a superstate to wage war on the West in a prolonged manner.

Think of the geography: from Algeria and Turkey, passing through Pakistan and Bangladesh, all the way to Malaysia and Indonesia. If Muslims could put together even 25% of that land together into a Caliphate, then the ruler of that nation will automatically become the most powerful Muslim in history.

I think this was the primary pipe-and-wet dream of Osama bin Laden.

[Josh Scholar]

Actually a single Caliphate would skew the war in our favor. It would end the deniability about who we get revenge on after each terrorist attack.

[Isaac Schrödinger]

Oh, I agree.

I initially wrote that a Caliphate would wage war in an "effective" manner, then realized that it'd be the most ineffective way of going about it.

I substituted "prolonged" for ineffective. Even that doesn't seem entirely correct.

I'm looking at it from a military standpoint. The Jihadists need some kind of grand base to operate from. If they can cobble together a Caliphate, then they'll have that. Plus, they'll have tremendous Muslim support. (The strong horse and all that.)

But then that would be favorable for us. So, it'll be a Pyrrhic victory for them.

[Alex]

So, basically, they have no hope of winning through terrorist tactics, but they'll get destroyed as soon as they try conventional conquest. And they're too stupid to realize it. Great. Just great.