Word: secularizing
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...Iraq, the Arab world's most secular nation, Islamists are a relatively new phenomenon. There's no telling how many there are. The government says Iraqi society is too open-minded for religious fundamentalism to take root, but many outside observers point to Saddam's massive programme of mosque-building as an effort to placate - and even foster - growing religious extremism...
...Turkey is not yet a done deal. Ironically, perhaps, Turkey is one of only a handful of secular democracies in the Islamic world - and an exemplar, therefore, of President Bush's vision of a post-Saddam Iraq. And it's not yet clear which way its parliament will vote on an issue that pits Turkey's key strategic ally, the U.S., squarely against the 90 percent of the country's electorate that opposes...
...speech Wednesday the President reiterated an optimistic view in which a post-Saddam Iraq serves as a beacon of secular liberalism for its authoritarian neighbors, even facilitating peace between Israel and the Palestinians by removing a source of encouragement to suicide bombers. But the Arab and European allies that have opposed this war have heard this argument before, and it hasn't convinced them. Nor is it likely to break the deadlock at the UN Security Council, where the U.S., Britain and Spain are pushing a resolution that would give, if not explicit authorization, at least...
There has been a great deal of nonsense written about Bush's religious convictions, much of it emanating from Europe--a continent where God has been relegated to the back pews--and from secular intellectuals at home. So let's be clear: Bush's public piety is not unique or extreme among Presidents. At the dawn of the cold war, Harry Truman said, "I have the feeling that God has created us and brought us to our present position of power and strength for some great purpose. And up to now we have been shirking...
...course; the President's simple swagger isn't merely a consequence of his religious faith. He has long disdained the tortured moral relativism he first encountered at Yale. He doesn't come from the most introspective of families. And he has recently found an intellectual home in the secular evangelism of the neoconservatives, who posit a stark world of American good and authoritarian evil. But George W. Bush's faith offers no speed bumps on the road to Baghdad; it does not give him pause or force him to reflect. It is a source of comfort and strength...