I know how and why clinton got us on the wrong side of this tragedy, what I don’t understand is why President Bush stayed there.
Bush has repeatedly made clear that he thinks there is no threat in Muslim hegemony. He went to Turkey prior to the last round of EU admission talks and declared that "I don't believe in this clash of civilizations stuff". I watched him say it on TV in France; in Europe, people were shocked.
If there is any political calculation here, it is appeasement of the Sauds, and an effort to get them to agree to the legitimacy of Israel.
The two situations are not congruent, but you get the notion.
Bush has no problem with Islamic states. He just established one in Iraq. I think he actually believes they can be moderate and modern; maybe he thinks a Muslim Unitarianism will eventually come to pass. Outwardly, Attaturk Turkey looked like that, but the truth is that it is re-Muslimizing quickly and the secular protections will evaporate.
There's no such thing as a moderate Muslim. It's a belief system that does not tolerate that, and always leads to fanaticism. As such, it is a vehicle for political domination, which is what it was started for.
Thus it cannot ever be tolerated in the West.
As a poster on another thread said to me, "Islam is a political system in religious drag".