Actually, the Middle East Is Our Crisis Too

Sunday, Jul. 30, 2006 By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
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To Western eyes, the spectacle is bizarre, not seen since the Catholic Church six centuries ago sported rival Popes, one in Rome, one in Avignon. Our only near contemporary experience of dueling churches occurred in the 1960s and '70s, when the Soviet Union and China competed for the title of most authentic communist and for the allegiance of client states and guerrilla groups around the world. On 9/11, al-Qaeda bestrode the world of radical Islam. Al-Zawahiri simply had to show up at the scene of the latest Arab-Israeli fighting lest Iran usurp al-Qaeda's hard-earned mantle.

For all their medieval trappings, these two sources of Islamic fervor now vying for possession of the newly transmuted Arab-Israeli dispute confirm the Bush Administration's view that, after a holiday from history in the 1990s, the global ideological struggles of the 20th century have been rejoined with a change only in the cast. In place of the ersatz Western religions of fascism and communism, radical Islam, bastard child of a real and great religion, has arisen. Led by two rival Vaticans, one in Tehran and the other cavebound on the Afghan-Pakistani border, it raises the banner of a militant religion that will not rest until, as al-Zawahiri pledged, Islam has retaken every piece of Waqf "from Spain to Iraq."

Yes, Spain--conquered by Islam in the 8th century, lost to Christianity in 1492. That's a long way from Haifa, from Lebanon, from Baghdad and even from Mecca. It's an even longer way from rationality, which is why the struggle against it will be long and painful, and enduringly surreal.

> More of Charles Krauthammer's columns can be found at time.com