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One can disagree with some details of his argument, but overall Buchanan is right, as you observed, if only (I observe) because he likes to annoy the knee-jerk conservatives. I think it has something to do with the quote below, but also with the strange habit in this country of regarding anyone who ran for POTUS and lost a complete loser. Nearly identical responses are vomited out by these pseudo-thinkers to anything Alan Keyes has to say, or Jerry Brown, or Ross Perot, each one of whom was at one time or another a godlike figure to many, and still may have an interesting thing or two to say.

That said, Buchanan has a shtick to maintain and a specific seat to occupy in the pantheon of Beltway pundits, and that's how he earns his living. Nobody will pay him to produce milquetoast. When I see him occasionally on Mc Laugh-In Hour I get the impression he thinks it's all a joke...

"Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people." -- (attributed to) Admiral Hyman G. Rickover

When I see him occasionally on Mc Laugh-In Hour I get the impression he thinks it's all a joke

Likewise. Or that it's such a hopeless battle that he might as well be as outrageous as possible just to amuse himself.

Obviously Buchanan is not saying "we should side with the Islamists." He's making the point that in this vaunted "clash of civilizations" that so many seem to be hawking, our side ain't what it used to be.

You might say that it died under Wilson and was buried sometime around Vatican II.