RALPH PETERS, who wrote the excellent essay on stability in Parameters that I linked to a while back, has an piece today in the Wall Street Journal arguing that the Arab world is hopeless, though the Islamic world is not. I think he’s absolutely right, and it’s important not to conflate the two. The Arabs were hopeless before Islam, they were hopeless at Islam’s peak, and they’re hopeless today. They’re the target of considerable resentment within the non-Arab Islamic world, which views them at times as colonizers who make mockery of Islam’s claims of equality. We should understand that, and take advantage of it.

Send a copy of Peters’ essay to your Senator.