Only some in the West think that is possible. The Islamic world knows better, whether 'fundie' or 'moderate'. If we do nothing about this political regression, we will have to admit defeat in our larger goal of reforming the Mideast. If we make a big deal of it, the fundies will portray us a 'Crusaders', aiming to replace Islam with Christianity, followed by equality for women, sex and alcohol, heretical images displayed in public (a cross on a Christian church, for example), and many other things that have been strictly taboo for over a thousand years.
Our President said (and I agree whole-heartedly) that the thirst for freedom is universal. However, the suffocating effect of a religion that has not changed in any important way for over a thousand years may prove too great to overcome at this moment in history. If it turns into a 'religious war', we will not prevail. I fear the latent fundamentalism of our 'moderate' allies much more than any 'insurgents'.
Historically, every time Islam begins to moderate a bit because it comes into contact with other cultures, it is attacked by its own more orthodox (and hence more fundamentalist) members. The rise of various Muslim fundamentalist/extremist movements in the 20th century are nothing but another expression of this built-in tendency. Islam is resistant to interpretation; theoretically, for example, the Jews should be out smiting unbelievers and dashing their children against the stones, because this appears frequently in the Old Testament, which forms a heavy component of Islam, as well. Judaism, however, long ago discovered interpretation and symbolic thinking, something that is categorically forbidden in Islam, which must be "interepreted" literally.
The result is that Muslim orthodoxy is 100% on the side of the extremists, and this is what gives them power to overwhelm the moderates time and again, and what makes an Islamic society fundamentally anti-modern and unstable, always subject to a return to theocracy and a takeover, usually violent, by radical fundamentalists.
You may be right. But until we lose out of momentum, I'm all for bombing the Afghans every time they execute a Christian.
However, let's not forget that when Osama picked targets, he picked a symbol of modernity and commerce (WTC), a symbol of the mechanism that enabled millions to practice democracy (Pentagon) and nightclubs (Bali). Churches aren't on the list, neither is the Vatican or the Crystal Cathedral. The radicals fear modernity more than they fear the Gospel, because deep down they know modernity will give people too much time and room to think about the fraud they've been sold at the mosque.