Learning to ignore the roar of the paper tigers

Just as I thought Hamas' election was a good thing (because it exposes Palestinian political goals for all to see), Steve Muscatello thinks the cartoon riots may have a real virtue:

Second, the rage of the Muslim world again lays bare radicalism for all the world to see. A similar fervor was set off in 2005 in response to purported Koran desecration at Guantanamo Bay. People died then, many of them Muslims. But it didn’t matter. The rage is as overwhelming as it is contagious. Victor Davis Hanson has called this the “lunacy principle,” that is, “these people are capable of doing anything at anytime.' That’s what makes Iran so scary. When President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust and says “Israel must be wiped off the map” he really means it. And if his nuclear program continues unabated, he might just wake-up one morning and do it. And that’s the thing, for all their shrewd and secret plots, most radical Muslims are remarkably forthcoming: they seek the destruction of Western civilization, beginning with Israel, in order to establish a world-wide caliphate. That blueprint should scare secular America more than, say, a well-organized group of pro-life activists. But in many cases, it doesn’t. Trace it to comfort or laziness: it’s easier to create a paper tiger out of the “Religious Right” and to rail against their “bigoted” and “intolerant” policies than to acknowledge the true threats posed by radical Islam.

The only problem is that I think Steve is wrong to believe that the Left will willingly give up the safe thrill of fighting their paper tigers, when the only alternative is to abandon their cherished beliefs about solidarity with the Third World underclass and face the real tiger out there.