ARTICLE: Learning to Live With Radical Islam, By Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, Feb 28, 2009

Truly fine piece by Zakaria, perhaps the best think piece he's done so far in Newsweek. I have been struggling with my own recommended "grand compromise" from Great Powers since the Swat deal: accepting enclaves and separatism is very hard, but you cannot make connectivity happen at the barrel of a gun. It simply does not work. So long as those who separate do not deny the right to leave for those who end up wanting something else (better, in our minds), then enclaves must be accepted. As Zakaria points out, there are ways to wage the struggle peacefully. But the quid pro quo, as I indicated in a recent/future(?) post {hell, one I've already written}, is that you can grant such enclaves only when the commanding authorities give up the baddies, or Farwaz Gerges's point (I did a Japanese public TV debate with him a while back--smart guy) about separating the global jihadists from the local fundamentalists--or as, I've always said, There's the Amish, and then there's the Amish with guns. A trite comparison, I know, but one that many Americans understand because the Amish live among us in so many states (like here, where a lot of our new furniture in our house was bought from them). Would I want my kids to live like that? Absolutely not. I find it oddly backward and restrictive. But so long as people get to choose that life on their own, then that's just fulfilling our commitment to our polity to allow all to seek happiness as they define it, so long as that pursuit does not impinge upon the rights of others unduly--your basic John Mills. Would we allow the Amish to offer sanctuary to terrorists as part of their hospitality code? No way. And neither can the Taliban or the Pashtun or the Pakistanis--whatever slice you're talking about. But there will be enclaves in globalization's future--lots of them. If these United States (46 states, actually, and four commonwealths) can house over 500 independent nations within our territory where our laws find no purchase, then yeah, so can globalization. You just have to sign up to the minimal overarching rule set to gain such separatism--and housing terrorists in a basic no-no. (Thanks: jjennings)