Worrisome column

Darius Assemi’s excellent Jan. 25 article, Muslim immigrant: Don’t let terrorists define American values, on Wahhabism and its outgrowth (ISIS) as a cancer in the body of greater Islam causes me some anxiety.

Assume Wahhabism is in fact eradicated, or at least minimized, in the context of a Middle East with natural frontiers, not the artificial ones set up by Western powers at the end of WWI.

What then?

Assemi asserts peace will never be seen in the Middle East without restoring such organic frontiers.

History teaches otherwise. Muslim empires ruled the region for no less than 13 centuries, beginning in 623 A.D. with the Rashidun Caliphate, and ending with the 1923 defeat of the Ottoman Caliphate.

This wasn’t a peaceful domination then, nor will it be now with intercontinental ballistic missiles in Iran’s arsenal.

It will be a powerful multinational force with internal dissent quelled.

Most troubling is Assemi’s assertion that it will be “Equally essential ... to provide a framework for public education and good governance, neutral of Anglo-American and Israeli agendas.”

That sounds like the basic agenda of Israel, which is simply to exist, is a threat to a revived, conquest-bent Muslim empire.

Not good.

This story was originally published January 27, 2016 at 8:58 PM with the headline "Worrisome column."