The criticism I’ve most often heard of Mark’s book–which I made myself when reviewing it (and which I am sure Mark himself has heard till he’s tired of hearing it) is that after a brilliant diagnosis of the problem, his proposed solution falls a bit flat. Reform Islam? How on earth do we do that? Oh–encourage them to do it? What if they just won’t? Why, actually, should they–especially given that large numbers of them feel they have a divine duty to reform us, and they are present in far greater numbers in our countries than we are in theirs? Etc. etc.

The other possibilities Mark lists in his book–submit to Islam, or destroy Islam–are unacceptable for obvious reasons. He doesn’t mention the idea of just “fencing off” Islam–i.e. of separating ourselves from them, with travel prohibitions, expulsions, and the like. That would be less unacceptable, at least to a lot of conservatives I know; but under the ruling regime of “respect for diversity” and so on, it’s unlikely we could summon the will to do it.

So what other ideas have we got? Jim Woodhill has suggested “weapons of cultural mass destruction”– i.e. swamping Muslim countries with low-grade Western pop culture, in the hope of doing to them, culture-wise, what we have done to ourselves. I don’t know the practicalities of beaming “Desperate Housewives” into Saudi Arabia 24/7, but it seems to me it’d be worth a try.