Moslems were a world power too until they got the guts kicked out of them by the Crusader knights-—Before Crusades Islam expanded, After Crusades Islam fell back. Only oil money keeps them afloat today—take that away and they are just warring tribes in the desert. England made some bad choices—but they are not finished yet.
Not quite. The Crusades, while a counter attack against the Islamic conquests immediately after the death of Muhammad, were largely ineffectual. Not only did Islam survive, it continued conquering, eventually taking Constantinople, and the entire Byzantine Empire out, invading the Balkans, and even going so far as to lay siege to Vienna. During this same period, Spain was being contested as well.
The final removal of the Islamic invaders occurred in early 1492, the same year Columbus sailed from a newly liberated Spain. Isabella hocked her jewelry for the mission for a reason, the Spanish royal treasury was almost bare, the financial costs of almost eight hundred years of war.
Islam wasn't truly broken as a major military threat until Jan Sobieski and Polish forces relieved the siege of Vienna, and the Ottoman Turks' navy was roundly defeated at Lepanto.
All these occurred well after the last Crusade was a memory...
the infowarrior