Shelf Life: Michael Potemra on Hadley Arkes and others.

books, arts & manners the jihadists a rebellion against global capitalism and the “sham” democracy it seeks to impose. This accounts for the ferocity of the Left’s denunciations of the war against Iraq and for its opposition to the war in Afghanistan. And this poses a serious practical problem for the West—because, says Berman, understanding the totalitarian nature of the threat is essential to defeating it politically in the Islamic world. The 20th century offers an analogy: “Totalitarian movements flourished . . . because modern life allowed them to flourish.” For the Nazis to triumph, you needed “all the other right-wing movements that [looked] on the Nazis in a friendly light”; and Stalin’s tyranny could not have claimed half of Europe and much of Asia without “naïve trade-union leaders and ignorant workers who believe what they are told.”

Only if we properly understand the threat as ideological can we effectively vanquish it through a clear and consistent war on terror rooted in articulation and promotion of liberal-democratic values. As Berman asserts, in the end. “freedom for others means safety for ourselves.” The successful defeat of Muslim totalitarians requires leaders who Know “how to wage a war of ideas even while waging the other kind of war.” Iraq and Afghanistan have proven we can wage “the other kind of war,” but the jury in still out on how well we will wage the war of ideas.

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books, arts & manners the jihadists a rebellion against global capitalism and the “sham” democracy it seeks to impose. This accounts for the ferocity of the Left’s denunciations of the war against Iraq and for its opposition to the war in Afghanistan. And this poses a serious practical problem for the West—because, says Berman, understanding the totalitarian nature of the threat is essential to defeating it politically in the Islamic world. The 20th century offers an analogy: “Totalitarian movements flourished . . . because modern life allowed them to flourish.” For the Nazis to triumph, you needed “all the other right-wing movements that [looked] on the Nazis in a friendly light”; and Stalin’s tyranny could not have claimed half of Europe and much of Asia without “naïve trade-union leaders and ignorant workers who believe what they are told.”

Only if we properly understand the threat as ideological can we effectively vanquish it through a clear and consistent war on terror rooted in articulation and promotion of liberal-democratic values. As Berman asserts, in the end. “freedom for others means safety for ourselves.” The successful defeat of Muslim totalitarians requires leaders who Know “how to wage a war of ideas even while waging the other kind of war.” Iraq and Afghanistan have proven we can wage “the other kind of war,” but the jury in still out on how well we will wage the war of ideas.