From a reader:

I enjoyed your debate with Peter Beinart and thought you certainly came out the winner. But your argument against a clash of civilizations with Islam didn’t seem all that convincing. If I understood you correctly, you argued that an all out conflict between the West and the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims was such a terrible thing to contemplate, and would have such horrible implications, that we had no choice but to operate under the assumption that it is not inevitable. But that doesn’t answer the question of whether such a conflict is inevitable or not. If it is, then it doesn’t matter how horrible it is to contemplate, we need to start preparing for it. To use an asteroid analogy (which I know you’re partial to), it’s like someone telling you an asteroid is heading towards earth, and your counter argument being that we have to assume it’s not, because it’s too terrible to think about. Maybe your argument is simply that it is way too early to throw in the towel on finding some civilizational common ground, and I would agree with you there. But in the meantime, I don’t think it does us any good to rule out the idea that there is a civilizational conflict coming, and not start thinking about how we will deal with it. When you consider the level of conflict that occurs where ever a Muslim population meets a non-Muslim population, it certainly seems as likely as not.

Me: This is worth a much longer conversation. But suffice it to say for now, that the problem with the asteroid analogy is that there would be nothing wrong and everything right with declaring preemptive war on an asteroid. Declaring preemptive war on Islam is, as far as I know, the single best way to guarantee all out war with Islam, which should be avoided if possible. In other words, if it’s inevitable we’ll know soon enough. If it’s not inevitable, we’ll make it inevitable by acting as if it is. That said, I think the reader is absolutely right that we shouldn’t rule out anything.