I suppose there will now be a rightwing blogstorm over Obama's recent beatitude: "Let me say this as clearly as I can: The United States is not and never will be at war with Islam." But as Ed Morrissey notes ¹, Bush expressed almost the very same sentiments during the entire 8 years of his administration.

Ed also added, "the last thing we would want to do would be to declare war on a billion people just on the basis of their religion. The more we can keep the Muslims on the sidelines, the better off we are in fighting against the radicals."

Unfortunately, a war with Islam is inevitable. Sadly, Obama does not realize that Islam is already at war with us ². Even though Bush and Obama expressed almost the very same words, Bush never said, "The United States will never be at war with Islam." When Baltimore and Philadelphia are nuked, when Saudi-funded American mosques start churning out home-grown terrorists as Britain's' mosques have done, when there are Islamic enclaves in our cities that cops are afraid to enter, those words will come back to haunt our misguided and over-confident President.

Notes

(1):

Hot Air, Obama: We’re not at war with Islam

Obama spoke in the tradition established by Bush over the last seven-plus years of emphasizing that America did not declare war on Islam. That’s been obvious through our partnership with Islamic nations, such as Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, just to name a few. And he’s right; the last thing we would want to do would be to declare war on a billion people just on the basis of their religion. The more we can keep the Muslims on the sidelines, the better off we are in fighting against the radicals.

However, the AP wants to pretend that this is some new effort by the US to assure Muslims of our intentions. It decidedly is not, and perhaps a mention that Bush tried making these same assurances for almost his entire presidency would be in order here.

(2):

ShrinkWrapped, A Lesson from Darfur

There is nothing wrong with professing our respect for, and admiration of, Islam (though it is worth wondering what exactly they have contributed to the betterment of mankind in the last 1000 years) but we should be under no illusion that our words can actually make a difference in the long run. As long as the West has any bottom line interests, values, and principles, there will be conflict with some elements of Islam, and if there are conflicts with any elements of Islam, the Arab world will attempt to use such conflict to polarize and demonize the West. I am pleased that we are not are war with Islam; I would be more pleased if they were not at war with us.