The underlying problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power. The problem for Islam is not the CIA or the U.S. Department of Defense. It is the West, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the universality of their culture and believe that their superior, if declining, power imposes on them the obligation to extend that culture throughout the world.

So there is both a sense of superiority and a gnawing sense of inferiority.

Exactly. How can you have a religion that is supposed to be the ultimate truth, and yet other religions are making such great strides economically, culturally, etc?> So they want to destroy our way of life so we’ll be like them. Sad indeed.