I think your analysis is quite astute. As an Orthodox Christian, I have had reason to mistrust some initiatives undertaken by JPII over the years (such as his recent visit to the huge mosque in Damascus Syria which used to be an Orthodox church 1400 years ago, I believe). But any attempt to reduce murderous "reprisals" by Muslims against Christians in the Middle East and Indonesia after a war starts can only be good.
Since most such Christians historically since 610 AD have been "Eastern" Christians (in the Orthodox Church, the extinct Nestorian Church, the Assyrian Church, etc. who used to number in the hundreds of millions where now there are but a handful), it only makes sense to make it clear that a secularized Western nation bombing a secularized Middel Eastern country is not a religious war as such.
I think that the primary reason that the British Empire made such a mess of things in the Middle East (militarily defending the Ottoman Empire's Muslim tyranny against the Orthodox Christians, such as in 1855-56 and 1878, for example) is precisely because there has never yet been a Protestant nation annihilated by the Muslim armies. They can feel safe behind the buffer. There will never be a "religious war" as the Muslims believe is already happening, until the day that a nuclear bomb or other horror takes out a Western European city.
I don't think this is going to reduce them, but simply make the Islamics feel more powerful. Islamics have only been stopped, historically, when the Church has stood up against them, not when it has made concessions to them. Saddam is a secularist only loosely speaking; the man who built a mosque out of used rocket shells and had a copy of the Koran written in his own blood is obviously trying to show where his allegiances lie.
In a similar vein, Pius XII tried maintaining a low profile to avoid attracting the attention of Hitler to the Church. This didn't work, because Hitler hated the Church anyway and attacked any individual or organization within it that he suspected might not kowtow to him. It was known that he planned a full-fledged assault on Christians after he got the Jews out of the way.
The only thing Pius XII did was soil his own name and that of the Church, and subject Christians to many more months of fear and reprisals because he did not encourage them to stand up and reject Hitler en masse. They were not supported by the Vatican, not because it was anti-Semitic, but because it was cowardly.
You can't compromise with evil. Throwing that dog a bone just makes it hungrier.
This is an excellent point. Also, the British in India and the rest of the Middle East in the 19th century had some mistaken cultural impressions of Islam - for instance, they thought it was closer to their own religion and not "idol worship" (as opposed to Hinduism for example.)
I would think that the Russians, on the other hand, have had extensive historical experience with various other barbarian Asian invaders, and appreciate the danger here.