An early political lesson was taught to me with the parable of the boiled frog. Through a frog into boiling water and he'll jump out lickety-split, but put the frog into cold water and gradually turn up the heat, and the frog will remain quiesant until cooked.

Mark Steyn, the thinking man's Ann Coulter, is desperately trying to warn the frogs that the water is getting warmer.

It's not surprising when you're as heavily invested as the European establishment is in an absurd equivalence between a nuclear madman who thinks he's the warm-up act for the Twelfth Imam and the fellows building the Israeli security fence that you lose all sense of proportion when it comes to your own backyard, too. "Radical young Jewish men" are no threat to "Arab-run groceries." But radical young Muslim men are changing the realities of daily life for Jews and gays and women in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Oslo and beyond. If you don't care for the Yids, big deal; look out for yourself. The Jews are playing their traditional role of the canaries in history's coal mine.

Something very remarkable is happening around the globe and, if you want the short version, a Muslim demonstrator in Toronto the other day put it very well:

''We won't stop the protests until the world obeys Islamic law.''

Stated that baldly it sounds ridiculous. But, simply as a matter of fact, every year more and more of the world lives under Islamic law: Pakistan adopted Islamic law in 1977, Iran in 1979, Sudan in 1984. Four decades ago, Nigeria lived under English common law; now, half of it's in the grip of sharia, and the other half's feeling the squeeze, as the death toll from the cartoon jihad indicates. But just as telling is how swiftly the developed world has internalized an essentially Islamic perspective. In their pitiful coverage of the low-level intifada that's been going on in France for five years, the European press has been barely any less loopy than the Middle Eastern media.

What is remarkable about Steyn's article is that for all its alarmist tone, its basically inarguable, unassailable, and impossible to ignore. This isn't Joe Biden or Chuck Schumer demagoguing on the "inevitability" of UAE shipping in CAST containers of nuclear material to irradiate the east coast--this is demonstrated public fact.

Frankly, from a strategic perspective, large scale terrorism in the U.S. isn't just unnecessary, its counter productive.

We don't know how far 9/11 set back the global Islamic caliphate, but set it back it did--al Qaeda is more of a hindrance to Islam's progress than a facilitator. As Steyn's piece (and many before this) make clear, all Islam has to do is bide its time as Europe's silly liberal-Democrats are slowly cooked.

Radioblogger transcript on Hugh Hewitt's discussion with Mark Steyn on this subject.

The Queer Conservative