[Skybird]

Not exactly. I said that our past actions - and lack of - , and our propagated "system" and ways-of-doing, have directly helped to create the current situation over the past 20 years or longer. with regard to Iraq and Pakistan as well as Palestine, one could look back even further.

From a western standpoint regarding the modern present, there were three major sins:

1. the for most total lack of any ME policy by the United States worth the name (and the lacking realism in the good wishes of Europeans that replaced their attempts of a realistic diplomacy, both the American and European policies are just variations on the same theme: lacking a realistic orientation),

2. the non-reaction to the alarm warning of the oil crisis in the 70s - a lesson nobody wanted to learn for the sake of evading costly action and still sacking that short-termed profit at the cost of future chances,

and 3.) and though subtle still most profound: the opening of doors and gates for Islam to enter the Western hemisphere in strength by adjusting the church's attitude towards Islam during the second Vatikan council in the early 60s, since that made it falling back from the challenges Islam raises even inside our own western home nations. The shift in the church's policy soon was mirrored by political shifts as well, for example by propagating the opening to the East and the indiscriminated invitation of guest workers.

Not to mention our dependance on oil - without which Islam would not play a powerful role in the world today, and most arab nations would still be the poor the mess they degenerated into since the appearance of Muhammad, which meant to turn their superiority from the medieval stage into a slow, long lasting civilisational fall: if not depending on their oil for so long, we would be able to isolate and if needed: fight the Islamic world today. See point 2.).

The rivalry between Russia and the West during the cold war, as well as china's interest to interfere at the West's costs, also helped past historic trends in favour of the Islamic world.

Additonally, with us wanting to be open and liberal societies, one also has to point out that the more openess there is towards the other, the more you put yourself into reach of him. That is nice when the other is just your loving wife, maybe, but it is something different when it is another culture that by its views and values is incompatible and directly hostile towards your own cultural views and values, and despises and understands to be weakness what you value and consider to be your strength. In principle we run a policy of appeasement since half a century. In a way, the situation we are in today, is just the logical consequence.