If not appealing to the more moderate islamites to help end the reign of terror, then what is the answer? Certainly trying to convert moderate islamites (whose ethics are by far more closer to that of conservatives than they are to radical islam or America's liberalists) would only enrage and alienate them. By doing so, we've now two enemies instead of one.
If we claim to have a moral superiority - which some have said Christianity has over radical Islam, then our collective goals better bear testament of that claim, meaning we have no choice but to disavow what America is becoming to represent with regards to several issues of late, for those moderate islamites may see an evil in homosexual marriage or abortion on demand at par with the murder of innocents.
I don't disagree with most of your post. I am simply saying that Pat Buchanan is the wrong spokesman for you to use.
In his September 1993 speech to the Christian Coalition, Buchanan declared:
"Our culture is superior. Our culture is superior because our religion is Christianity and that is the truth that makes men free."
I guess that the actions of a few guard in Iraq have since changed Pat Buchanan's view of whose culture is superior.
The way to do that is not to kow-tow to them. The way to do that is to make it clear that if they don't clean up their lunatic problem, the sledge hammer will fall on the radical and the moderate alike.