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For him (Ahmadinejad), Mutual Assured Destruction is not a deterrent, it is an inducement.

Bernard Lewis

Islam explicitly rejects dictatorship and there are no traditions of the Prophet or passages in the Qur’an which clearly give dictators this support.
BERNARD LEWIS

Giving Passages Religious Support Traditions
These internal clashes in Israel nowadays are in a sense a continuation of a clash between Islam and Christendom through their former Jewish minorities and it works out in a number of different ways. It’s fascinating to watch.
BERNARD LEWIS

Continuation Different Islam Nowadays Work Out
I think the important point which I’ve been trying to get across is that Islam, from the very beginning, is strongly, clearly opposed to autocratic dictatorial government.
BERNARD LEWIS

Dignity Human Important Oppose Strongly Thinking
The Cold War philosophy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), which prevented the former Soviet Union and the United States from using the nuclear weapons they had targeted at each other, would not apply to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran.
BERNARD LEWIS

Country Dignity Human Important Philosophy Prevented War
The United States is showing minimal and diminishing interest in the Muslim world. They now have to confront their own problems. The old excuses are gone. The old justifications are gone and therefore the anger of people is turning increasingly against their own rulers.
BERNARD LEWIS

Confront Diminishing Excuse Justification Own Problem
Christians and Muslims share the belief that they are the fortunate recipient of the final God message.
BERNARD LEWIS

Belief Christian God Message Share
We in the Western world make the great mistake of assuming that ours is the only form of good government; that democracy means what it means in the Anglo-American world and a few other places in the West, but not many others.
BERNARD LEWIS

Assuming Country Democracy Good Mistake Other
Blaming the imperialists nowadays is obviously absurd, as is blaming the Americans, who obviously don’t have the slightest desire to control anything in the Middle East.
BERNARD LEWIS

Blame Blaming Country Desire Dignity Human Importance War
The object of jihad is to bring the whole world under Islamic Law.
BERNARD LEWIS

Dignity Human Important Islamic Law
In the Muslim world, history is important and their knowledge of history is not always accurate but is very detailed. There is a strong historical sense in the Muslim world, a feeling for the history of Islam from the time of the Prophet until the present day.
BERNARD LEWIS

Accurate Community Feeling History Knowledge Strong
Very often we mean the same thing. But what we do mean, what in the Western world we call human rights, in the Islamic world, they don’t talk about rights. Now they do, but in the past they didn’t. It wasn’t part of their terminology. But really it’s the same thing.
BERNARD LEWIS

Country Human Rights Mean Past Right Same Things
Mustafa Kemal’s government was certainly authoritarian, but he had a saying which is profoundly true.
BERNARD LEWIS

Dictator Dignity Human Important Profound Remember Saying Thinking
One could with equal justification talk about a Judeo-Islamic tradition or a Christian-Islamic tradition. These three religions are interlinked in many signification ways, which marks them off from the rest of the world.
BERNARD LEWIS

Christian Country Equal Interlinked Significant Tradition Ways
Christianity had the great religious wars of the 17th century. Islam, fortunately for the Muslims, did not have that. Christianity worked out a system of toleration. Islam was always more tolerant of Christendom.
BERNARD LEWIS

Always Century Great Muslim People Religious Tolerant Toleration
The general perception, in much of the Middle East, is that the United States is an unreliable friend and a harmless enemy. I think we want to give the exact opposite impression.
BERNARD LEWIS

Country Enemy Treacherous Unreliable
Islam and Islamic values now have a level of immunity from comment and criticism in the Western world that Christianity has lost and Judaism has never had.
BERNARD LEWIS

Criticism Immunity Islamic Level World

For him (Ahmadinejad), Mutual Assured Destruction is not a deterrent, it is an inducement.

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For him (Ahmadinejad), Mutual Assured Destruction is not a deterrent, it is an inducement.

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