It seems like the must-have book for neocons this season is America Alone by Mark Steyn. With the disclaimer that I’ve not read the book, but I have read an article by Steyn in New Criterion, here’s the synopsis. According to official statistics, Europeans of Arab and African ancestry are having a certain number of babies on average, while natives Europeans are having a smaller number, and these trends, coupled with continuing immigration, mean the end of the world as we know it. (His words, not mine.) He predicts some European countries being governed Islamic extremists while others switch to fascism to defend against the Muslim menace.
So far it looks a lot like what Pat Buchanan has been sounding the alarm about for decades. Steyn is clearly smarter and more stable than Buchanan, yet Buchanan at least can claim that he opposed the war in Iraq.
For Steyn’s theory to be true, we have to believe that virtually every Muslim in Europe is conspiring to impose Islamic law on their new homeland and that this enthusiasm won’t flag during the next century. This, of course, includes many people who fled the Middle East precisely to escape religious oppression, as well as others who came simply for job opportunities. And we have the assume that all this is top-secret conspiring, because there are enough Muslims in some European countries to elect members of the various legislatures, but as of yet no wannabe Talibans have shown up in any Parliment that I know of.
The obvious contradiction comes from Steyn’s support of the Iraq War. He was a relentless cheerleader who promised his readers that we’d be welcomed with open arms, no prolonged insurgency, no resistance to the new government, etc… Obviously he was wrong about the Iraqis’ tastes for democracy.
So how can it be that one man (and presumably his sizeable fan club as well) could believe that every Muslim in Europe is out to destroy western civilization, while every one in Iraq will rush to embrace it?