"he Islamic world is a source of danger and destruction is all too conceivable. Indeed, it’s been on display, in plain sight, for years... The jihadist threat is real, and it must, obviously, be fought and defeated. But that raises another problem—not a problem with Islam, but a problem with the West. We have lost our nerve. In recent years, the attitude of Barack Obama has prevailed over the spirit of Charlie Hebdo. The claims of sensitivity have trumped the attachment to freedom. Appeasement of jihad has supplanted the war on terror. Most fundamentally—let’s be honest—fear has overwhelmed courage. And so the American president has been happy to proclaim, as he did at the United Nations in September 2012, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” He has been less willing to say that the future must not belong to those who kill in the name of the prophet of Islam... We face a crisis of Islam. We need to be clear-eyed about that. But we also face a crisis of the West. Only if we come to grips with that second crisis will this period of consequences turn out to be an occasion for renewal rather than another marker on the path to decadence."

Bill Kristol Politics See all quotes by Bill Kristol →

React to this quote

More by Bill Kristol

“The town hall has the spirit of representative democracy, the rally of autocracy.”

“No disease any refugee might bring to America is as dangerous as the disease of fear, bigotry and hatred now being spread in America by Fox.”

“It's not a serious document.”

“I’d rather fight than switch. It’s worth fighting.”

“The present moment is not one to be proud of. The normal vulgarity of democratic politics has become the shameless demagoguery of democratic decadence. The routine operation of party politics has given way to the mindless polarization of partisan fanatics. The characteristic limitations of popular leaders have yielded to an abdication of leadership itself. A public life with occasional cringeworthy moments has been replaced by one that is on the whole cringeworthy.”

“nstitutions are strong; it turns out you don't need a lot of sensible or even sane leadership in the White House.”

Resonant Thoughts

"The liar is a person who uses the valid designations, the words, in order to make something which is unreal appear to be real. He says, for example, "I am rich," when the proper designation for his co…"

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Philosophy1844–1900

#knowledge

"And, further, shall we be sure of finding the left bank free from German troops? Germany is supposedly going to undertake to have neither troops nor fortresses on the left bank and within a zone exten…"

— Raymond Poincaré

Politics1860–1934

#time

"Common ground. America is not a blanket woven from one thread, one color, one cloth. When I was a child growing up in Greenville, South Carolina my grandmama could not afford a blanket, she didn't com…"

— Jesse Jackson

Politics1941–2026

#freedom

"The atrocities are, for me, the most horrible part of the accusation in this trial. They thought that I took it lightly or laughed about it or some such nonsense, in court. That is definitely a mistak…"

— Hermann Göring

Politics1893–1946

#truth