and, I think, an important insight, compared with some similarly-concluded analyses I've seen. In the places where I normally hang out, this gets more often interpreted in the Ashtonesque "Mine's Bigger!" sense -- that is, "what they respect is the strongest one." Therefore my post, below, about bullying.

The different slant here is the religious one, of course. What Krauthammer is suggesting is that, unlike Jews (and Christians, who inherited it) the Islamics are still in animist territory. God is concrete and immediate, not abstract and ineffable. By the evidence on the ground, not too bad a thesis.

Hm. The Roman pantheistic animism sometimes included indifferentism -- my Gods don't seem to be doing much for me this week; can I borrow yours? Is there any crack related to that that might be open for applying leverage? Killing people is useless and redundant, and messes the carpet something fierce.