QOTD: Professor Paul Eidelberg

QOTD: Professor Paul Eidelberg on America's War Aims (what they should be rather than what they are)

The U.S. should issue a declaratory policy having the following elements:
(1) The U.S. will regard as a belligerent any Islamic state that supports or harbors terrorists.
(2) The U.S. will regard as racist any Islamic state that encourages its people to hate and kill non-Muslims, and will take action to have that state banned from the United Nations.
(3) The U.S. will proclaim that the bellicose concept of jihad contradicts the UN Charter as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which prescribes “tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial, or religious groups.” Accordingly, the U.S will take action to terminate the UN membership of any Islamic state that does not renounce that concept.
(4) The U.S. will regard public renunciation of jihad as the litmus test of whether a Muslim state is sincerely committed to peace and worthy of diplomatic relations.

The war aims of the United States should not include wholesale democratization of Islamdom—an impractical and, in many countries, an undesirable objective. In such countries, constitutional monarchy is preferable. The political objective is to rid Islam of tyranny. The moral objective is to rid Islam of its jihadic ethos.