Kathleen Parker on the Miss World Riots

The wise and always even-tempered Kathleen Parker (she’s the anti-Coulter) perfectly captures the Miss World riots in Nigeria. The lunacy gripping northern Nigeria at the moment is fairly persuasive evidence for those who argue that the real problem we face is not principally one of Arab culture but of Islam, and it likewise supports Ralph Peters’ theory that we should be most concerned about attacking radical Islam from the outside in, i.e., starting with non-Arab Muslims in places like Indonesia, Nigeria, etc.
Of course, Nigeria is a hugely strategically important place in its own right, partially because it has massive reserves of oil, partially because it is making fitful steps towards restoring a fully functioning democracy, partially because it’s nearly the only sub-Saharan African nation (other than South Africa) with any chance of both modest prosperity and democracy, and that’s something we should encourage. The central government has been critical of the Islamic extremists, and I believe that the nation as a whole is more Catholic than Muslim. It’s one place the United States should be watching carefully.