[link|http://www.donaldsensing.com/2003_01_01_archive.html#90253963|Allah's little robots]

Excerpt:

Bin Laden's sort of self-justifying extremism is not the mainstream of Islam, but neither is it as far removed as we might imagine. Fatalism is a characteristic of Islam. There is no human freedom. Human liberty, especially as Americans think of it, is literally a foreign concept to Islam, especially Arab Islam.

We say that the defining idea of American liberty is "self evident:" Human beings "are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." This claim has no natural fit with Islam. The idea that humans, created by the power of Allah, could inherently possess unalienable rights of their own, which no authority may remove, would require Islam to surrender the idea that Allah enjoys meticulous control over all affairs of nature and humankind. But this notion is lethally dangerous to the defining idea of Islam itself: that Allah has all the power.

Liberty as we conceive it is at the heart of the conflict. For Muslims, the most desirable state of human society is not one that is free, in the Western sense, but one that is submissive to Allah, according to the dictates of Quran. This state of society is dar al Islam, the world of peace. Anything else is the "world of war." Hence, Islam does not use terms such as free or unfree to refer to nations, but at war with Allah or at peace (through submission) to Allah. And because of the deterministic model of Allah, any form of political repression conducted under Islam's banner is seen as Allah's will. Think Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Taliban.

Islamic countries can practice democracy. Turkey is usually offered as a prime example. Because Iraq has been mostly secularized for many decades, Islam does not present a barrier to democracy there as it would in some other Arab countries. Rooting democracy in Iraq won't be easy, but it's main barrier will probably be tribalism rather than religion. Iran might go democratic fairly easily one day, too, because the people there have pretty much had their fill of Islamic absolutism. The rest of the Arab countries will present difficult challenges.