I've seen the statement many times on this board that Islam has always sought the total annihilation of everyone that does not convert. This is not historically accurate.
It would be more accurate to say that 1) Radical Islam today wants this but radical Islam is not the whole of Islam and 2) Islam functions most peacefully when it has the upper hand over all other religions.
Neither of these two situations are ones that I care to live under, so I still view Islam as a threat to us, but maybe it is time after five years of being at open war with the religion to start making the distinctions that exist and that we've ignored up to now.
There is no doubt that radical Islam wants us dead. There is also no doubt that radical Islam is a large part of the religion itself. So we will be fighting for quite some time into the future. In any war, though, it is important to know who the enemy is and who it is not. We don't want to waste time or lives fighting people we don't need to. Therefore, instead of viewing Islam monolithically, I think it is time to make some delineations about who we must fight, who we are likely to have to fight, and who we don't have to fight. This will cut the job down to more manageable size. Islam is comprised of many different sects and beliefs. Not all of them are as hostile to us as others. Making sure we don't have to fight people we are not required to is important because in any fighting, our people are going to be dying. I for one would like to make sure that they don't die needlessly. Viewing Islam as a whole as a threat means that many will die needlessly. In the same way Christianity is not monolithic, neither is Islam, if people take the opportunity to learn more about the religion.
The idea that historically, Islam has sought the total annihilation of anyone who disagreed with their creed is also not accurate. Spain existed under Muslim rule for nearly over 700 years. There were plenty of Christians in Spain during that time. There was no eradication campaign by Muslims. The Balkans were under Muslim rule for almost 500 years. Lots of Christians before the Muslims came, lots of Christians after. Armenia was under Muslim rule for nearly 1000 years. Armenians are still Christians. Muslims historically did not seek to annihilate Christians.
What they DID do, however, was to ensure that Islam had a favored place in society. Life as a Christian wasn't easy under Muslim rule. Of course, that went both ways. Life as a Muslim wasn't easy under Christian rule, either. Muslim rule over Christians meant a series of laws enforcing Christianity's second-class position in society. When Islam was in the driver's seat, it was at least a peaceful religion, though I for one have no desire to be ruled by even the most benevolent Muslim ruler.
Just injecting a note of historical accuracy into the debate. Book are out there on this subject. I recommend reading them in order to know the enemy better and to know just who the enemy is.
As an example about why it is important to know more fully one's enemy, take the example of the Muslim world being beaten by Israel. Some have said that the fact that Israel whipped them several times in the past should be a clue that Allah is not with them. True enough. However, their reaction to that is not what we would expect. They generally came to the conclusion that Allah is punishing them for their sinfulness by allowing their enemies to achieve victory. The reaction? The rise of the very type of conservative Islam that has degenerated into radicalism. Islam reacted by becoming more fundamentalist and less moderate in their outlook. Literal interpretations of the Koran replaced metaphoric translations. Jihad became an outer journey, not an inner struggle for one's own faith against one's own sinful nature. True, there were trends towards radical conservatism in places like Saudi Arabia long before the present time, beginning with the rise of the Saud family and their alliance with Wahhabism, but that was mainly localized. It took the defeats by Israel to cause a crisis of faith in Islam and that crisis of faith has resulted in a much more conservative Islam. That conservative Islam finds much in radical Islam that it can admire. So instead of causing people to lose faith, the defeats by Israel caused much of Islam to react by becoming more conservative and by doing so, they hope to make themselves more pleasing to Allah, who will favor them with victories over their enemies.
That's why the stalemate between Israel and Hizbollah in Lebanon was seen as a resounding victory by the Muslim world. A Muslim army stood up to Israel, did not run, went toe to toe and gave as good as it got. That was seen as a not only as a victory by Hizbollah but a sign that Allah is rewarding Muslims for their newly-found conservative piety.
The point I'm making is that the way we think about things is not the way a Muslim thinks about things. We need to learn more about them in order to defeat them.
