Can Islam reform itself?

Can Islam reform itself? That was the question posed in a debate between Andrew C. McCarthy and Mansoor Ijaz available at National Review Online.

If Islam is defined as the religion described by Andrew McCarthy, a religion based on the Quran that encourages violence towards people who refuse to accept the Islamic faith as their own, then Islam can not be reformed in a way that would make it compatible with liberal democracy. But this leads to the question of how the world's liberal democracies should deal with the world's one billion Muslims.

Liberal democracies have options that do not require a war against one billion people.

Let's first realize that today's Muslim might be tomorrow's ex-Muslim. Iraqi blogger Zeyad renounced Islam years ago. And among those one billion Muslims exist many MINOs (Muslims in name only). Just as during the Cold War there were many people considered "communist" just because they lived in a Communist country even if these people only appeared to believe in communism to avoid persecution, similar people probably exist in the Muslim world.

The same is probably true regarding so-called "moderate Muslims." Imagine someone has lived in Saudi Arabia his entire life and gets the crazy idea (perhaps even the incorrect idea) that Islam is not compatible with the persecution of women and people of other religious beliefs. He believes he is a good Muslim, but he also believes in tolerance and civil liberties for all people. If he shouts his beliefs loudly he isn't going to be shouting very long within the borders of Saudi Arabia or many other countries. Irshad Manji, a self-described lesbian Canadian Muslim, has received many death threats for announcing such views and she lives in Canada!

So, for the most part, Andrew C. McCarthy and Mansoor Ijaz were talking past each other in their debate over Islam. Even if we knew with absolute certainty that Andrew McCarthy has a better understanding of "real" Islam than does Mansoor Ijaz, objective reality is beside the point. The key to defeating "radical Islam" or "Islamism" (or perhaps, if McCarthy is correct, Islam itself) is to change the dynamics with respect to Islam so that neither self-described Muslims nor anyone else are denied basic civil liberties, including the right to question the Quran in part or in its entirety. Bringing civil liberties (including dozens of free media outlets and competitive political parties) to Iraq and Afghanistan is an important strategic accomplishment in the war on "radical" Islam.