Someone saw this coming -- and no one listened

[Please scroll down, or click here, to vote in the Conservative Slogan Contest. Your votes matter.] In the West, the Muslim demand for hegemony burst on us in 1979, and then, from the Western perspective, went dormant until 2001 (I'm ignoring the Israeli's role in the front line of the war). It turns out, though, that America had a heads up 60 years ago. It was then, reports Daniel Pipes, that the Military Intelligence Serice of the U.S. War Department wrote a postwar study (which Pipes warns loads very, very slowly) about the state of the world and what to expect. With respect to the Islamic nations, the author had this to say:

With few exceptions, the states [in the Muslim world] are marked by poverty, ignorance, and stagnation. It is full of discontent and frustration, yet alive with consciousness of its inferiority and with determination to achieve some kind of betterment. Two basic urges meet head-on in this area, and conflict is inherent in this collision of interests. These urges reveal themselves in the daily news accounts of killings and terrorism, of pressure groups in opposition, and of raw nationalism and naked expansionism masquerading as diplomatic maneuvers.

The report didn't stop with this observation. It went on to note that the situation in the Muslim world meant that there was a "terrific internal pressure" building amongst Moslems, leaving their activities "unpredictable." Ultimately, said the study's author:

In an atmosphere so sated with the inflammable gases of distrust and ambition, the slightest spark could lead to an explosion which might implicate every country committed to the maintenance of world peace.

There's more, and it's all fascinating, and I could just weep that no one took this report seriously. Talking to Technorati: Muslims, Islam, Caliphate, Hindsight