America doesn't border on Muslim countries. European countries do and that seems to be a fundamental difference.
Fundamentalist tendencies and movements existed, so far as I know, in all societies and civilizations.
The core of the American set of beliefs has remained pretty constant.
I don't say that the West is united, I don't suggest that.
Except under rare circumstances, I don't write responses to criticism.
When you have increased migration of peoples and ethnic and religious minorities, you develop a set of rules and language the larger society can accept and the minority community can accept.
Certainly here in the U.S., we've had fundamentalist movements that have taken very critical and hostile attitudes toward immigration and the assimilation of immigrants into our society and culture. So these tendencies are fairly universal. The problem is what if they get out of hand and become the dominant factor in a society, which can only lead to the oppression of minorities or even to war with neighboring societies with differing cultures. That's why it seems to me it's important to try to keep these tendencies toward extremism under control.
Obviously there are divisions within the West and divisions within Islam - there are different sects, different communities, different countries. So neither one is homogenous at all. But they do have things in common.
The U.S. has and still is cooperating with various military dictatorships around the world. Obviously we would prefer to see them democratized, but we are doing it because we have national interests, whether it's working with Pakistan on Afghanistan or whatever.
Maybe Iraq will come back and become the dominant power among Arab countries. That seems to me as conceivable.
U.S. foreign policy is in every area impacted by ethnic groups of one sort or another as well as economic groups and regional groups.
If one of the drafters of the Declaration of Independence came back today, he would not be surprised about what Americans were saying and believing and articulating in their public statements. It would all sound rather familiar.
Since the revolution of the 18th century, America has basically had an ideology of liberal democracy and constitutionalism.
Quite obviously power will continue to play a central role in global politics as it always does. But usually there is something else.
I've been to Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait for brief visits at conferences, and they are very interesting countries.
As far as ideology or political beliefs are concerned, countries are very different.
There are lots of conflicts going on in the Middle East. It is unclear as to which country will emerge, if any, as the dominant or hegemonic power in the Middle East.
The basis of association and antagonism among countries has changed over time.
I think we can expect leaders of Muslim societies to cooperate with each other on many issues just as Western societies cooperate with each other.
The major difference for us in America with respect to Hispanic immigration is that it is so large and that it is coming from neighboring countries rather than those countries off the Atlantic or Pacific. That creates different issues and different problems for us as compared to the past. It is still very different, however, from the situation in Europe where we see people with a very different non-European religion coming from neighboring countries.
The biggest difference as far as Muslims in Europe and America are concerned is that the number of Muslims in America is small compared to the number in Europe.
Certainly there are various trans-Islamic political movements, which try to appeal to Muslims in all societies.
People everywhere talk about Islam and the West. Presumably that has some relationship to reality, that these are entities that have some meaning and they do. Of course the core ofthat reality is differences in religion.
And the big question for the West, of course, and to the Europeans is, what other countries, which were formerly part of the Soviet bloc, should be incorporated into western institutions?
Thus, biologically speaking the American people are literally only half an immigrant people.
