[anatolfz]

I think there might be a political game going on when US or Russia appear to side with Arab states, but ultimately there's no real alliance. No US-Arab axis, or whatever, is conceivable.

Europe, America, and Russia (and Israel, come to think of it) are very far from the Arab world. Very far. Journalists and 3rd-rate novelists never understand that. To them the East is still full of mystery and despite what you may have read they are all kids looking at National Geographic and saying, "Wow, cool." I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.

[schu]

You may not agree with all of the conclusions drawn in this article, (and the book) but it does provide a framework for understanding what is going on in the world. It does provide a method for understanding the nature of the conflicts underway, especially the Islam/West conflict.

There are some indisputable truths; the relative decline of the west versus Sino and Islamic cultures is pretty obvious. It is relative however; this does not preclude the West from being successful and vibrant.

Interesting note that he does see issues with Western culture specifically with the tendency for our “intellectuals” to insist that we are a multicultural society. IMHO, this is the root of our problem, we do not know who we are. Huntington sees this going either way as we could fracture into this squabbling entity or we can get it together, define who we are and help fix some of the problems out there. Our survival may depend on it.

It is one good resource, there are others. I like to combine this worldview with the message in the 4th Turning. Combining the thoughts that we are entering a perilous cycle with the changing world creates some view on where it is all heading. All this from an armchair observer of course. ;-)