Why Bush is a bigger threat than the Islamists

Jonah Goldberg had this to say in a recent column on National Review Online:

Only a handful of people on the Left — and far too few liberals — see radical Islamists as a bigger threat than George W. Bush.

Now, to anyone who's seen the beheading videos, or read the text of a Bin Laden speech, it's probably hard to believe that George Bush really is a bigger threat than the Islamists.

But he is. Here's my reasoning, as expressed in an email I sent to Jonah G.:

I thought I might make the case for why President Bush is, in fact, a bigger threat than radical Islamists.

First of all, it is obvious (to me anyway) that radical Islamists are more evil than George Bush; I would far rather live in Bush's America than any Islamist country. I think radical Islamists obviously have a far greater desire to kill innocents, destroy freedoms, etc. than does Bush. But Bush, as I see it, is nevertheless the greater threat to our peace and prosperity.

The Islamists may have started strong, but it seems clear to me that they will eventually fizzle out, as did the anarchist movement 100 years ago. Any country that is taken over by Islamists will crash even faster than communist countries did, and Islamists, who have no ability to sustain a conventional military or a functioning economy, will fall to fighting amongst themselves. They may do some damage to the developed world in the process, but we'll recover, as we did from 9/11.

Bush, on the other hand, has the potential to upset the whole post-Cold War international system that kept the world peaceful and the world economy humming for (basically) 25 years. He may have done this already. By stirring up intense anti-Americanism in nearly every country in the world, he's already removed us from our position as "leader of the world." The Iraq quagmire has sapped our military strength, and may eventually put an end to the Pax Americana. Incidents like Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, etc. have seriously eroded other nations' perception that the United States stands for human rights and the rule of law.

All this could have very negative and lasting effects, if it pushes the world into the arms of, say, a China-Russia bloc.

Thus, through a combination of incompetence, executive overreach, and disregard for world opinion, Bush may end up doing more damage to the world system than the far more evil Islamists. Even if you don't agree, I'm sure you can see how reasonable liberals could take this position.

If you think radical Islamists are the bigger threat, well, I'm not going to argue the point. But nobody - conservative, liberal, or anyone - should be blind to the existential threat to America's freedoms, security, and most of all our place in the world, that is represented by George W. Bush.