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The Obama era was a - confused - time for America. Like the Jimmy Carter years, there are land mines laid down that shall go undetected for years, only to blow up when the unwary or incautious swerve into them, causing crisis after crisis, much like the Carter deal that booted the Shah of Iran out and replaced him with a theocracy, exacerbating long-simmering blood feuds between various cults of Islam.

I trace most of the current Middle East problems to that one seminal event. The Shah was an imperious tyrant, but he was no religious fanatic, imposing strict limits on behavior at the most minute level, and vastly different from the anthill thinking of Saudi Arabia.

Islam is not ready for the benefits of democratic government, and certainly not a representative republic.

Islam may never be ready for any experiment in freedom.