WarSclerotic

Following the murderous rampaging by Islamist radicals, the Jerusalem-based Shalem Center issued a reminder this week that in 2003 it published a Hebrew translation of Professor Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations.” Huntington wrote the book in response to Professor Francis Fukuyama’s analysis, whereby the fall of Soviet communism would usher in an era of prosperity and happiness, and democratic-liberal dominance. Huntington began lecturing, wrote an article, and finally a book contradicting Fukuyama’s prognostications. He predicted that a ruthless religious-cultural war would replace the power struggle between the Eastern and Western blocs. This is what every Israeli sees when looking across the Syrian border at Quneitra, on the Golan Heights.

This war goes by different names. It is raging throughout the Middle East. The various rivalries are murky. It is raging in Iraq, Syria and Libya, it is knocking on Jordan’s door and it has certainly made its way to Sinai and the Gaza border. As the person who penned the introduction to “Clash of Civilizations” in Hebrew, I included this sentence from the sages: “When calamity befalls the world, it is first always felt by Jacob [Israel].” Just as Israel felt the 50-day clash with Hamas on its own skin, it sees with its own eyes the situation along the Syrian frontier.

As of now, indeed, the bloodletting is primarily being waged among the Islamic nations; Sunnis against Shiites, ISIS against Hezbollah. But anyone with their ear to the pavement, anyone trying to see a thing for what it really is, understands the objective is to establish Islamic rule over the entire globe, and that the eyes of the Islamists are fixed primarily toward the West and the Christian world. The Jews, meanwhile, are merely an obstacle on their path to ultimate victory.

The terrifying ascendance of ISIS and its affiliates has been met by a dumbstruck world. The adoration for ISIS has grown in Arab states in light of the flaccid response from the West, Russia and the leaders of moderate regimes, who are fearful for their own heads. Europe is lamenting the day it decided to receive the Muslims with open arms. British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday finally declared that Britain would ban entry to citizens who join the Islamist ranks. This is like drying a river with a spoon.

Most Muslims are not yet following the radicals; still, aggressive European policies against them should be able to restrain the Muslim citizenry in Paris, London and The Hague. To reach the goal, however, it is not enough to simply realize the truth, rather to take risks and act with full force.

All eyes are on the United States, but President Barack Obama still lacks, in his words, a strategy. You do not need a strategy, you need to attack with persistence, study the Israel Defense Forces’ conduct during Operation Protective Edge (or the American military under Bill Clinton in the former Yugoslavia) and attack incessantly. This must be done while ISIS and the likes are relatively small and weak, and they must not be allowed to delay the democracies fighting against them with short-term cease-fires.

Eighteen years have passed since Huntington formulated his principle theory into a book. All of Western academia, in the Far East and in Russia as well, was upset by his umbrage with Fukuyama. The scenario was already laid out, but Obama was caught without a plan.