** Phillip Jenkins has forecasted a global conflict between two general religious movements, fundamentalism and liberalism (mentioned on this site earlier). Paul Berman is seeing a similar kind of conflict between Islamists who want to return the world to the state it was in in the 7th century, and practically everyone else. This context provides a perspective by which to view the current war in Iraq. Berman believes that while President Bush is doing it all wrong, something needs to be done to dismantle Saddam Hussein's regime. If not successful that country could become the staging area and power base for a reactionary Islamist state. The consequenses could be dire for modernity.
Berman groups Hussein with the thought patterns of Hitler and Stalin, whose intentions to establish a kind of fundamentalist state of their own were eventually thrwarted by armed resistance. Fortunately, Hitler and Stalin were stopped from fulfilling their intentions. This is an important point that he feels anti-war protesters are missing. Suzy Hansen of Salon interviews Berman in this thought-provoking article: Bush is an idiot, but he was right about Saddam
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