Ralph Peters has an interesting dissenting view from the Eurabia prediction, best represented by Mark Steyn. Peters is a retired military officer, an American and frequent media guest. Like Steyn, he is a hawk on Iraq, although somewhat less enthusiastic than he used to be. Peters writes:

THE historical patterns are clear: When Europeans feel sufficiently threatened - even when the threat's concocted nonsense - they don't just react, they over-react with stunning ferocity. One of their more-humane (and frequently employed) techniques has been ethnic cleansing.

And Europeans won't even need to re-write "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" with an Islamist theme - real Muslims zealots provide Europe's bigots with all the propaganda they need. Al Qaeda and its wannabe fans are the worst thing that could have happened to Europe's Muslims. Europe hasn't broken free of its historical addictions - we're going to see Europe's history reprised on meth.

The year 1492 wasn't just big for Columbus. It's also when Spain expelled its culturally magnificent Jewish community en masse - to be followed shortly by the Moors, Muslims who had been on the Iberian Peninsula for more than 800 years.

Jews got the boot elsewhere in Europe, too - if they weren't just killed on the spot. When Shakespeare wrote "The Merchant of Venice," it's a safe bet he'd never met a Jew. The Chosen People were long-gone from Jolly Olde England.

From the French expulsion of the Huguenots right down to the last century's massive ethnic cleansings, Europeans have never been shy about showing "foreigners and subversives" the door.

And Europe's Muslims don't even have roots, by historical standards. For the Europeans, they're just the detritus of colonial history. When Europeans feel sufficiently provoked and threatened - a few serious terrorist attacks could do it - Europe's Muslims will be lucky just to be deported.

Is he right? Is the berserker Viking lurking in the breasts of socialist Europe?

No, he's not.

With all due respect to Peters, Europe's historical penchant for massive violence was an environmental consequence, not a genetic one, and Europe's environment is profoundly different than it was a century ago. There simply are no political and cultural creches for violence on the level Peters predicts.

Yesterday, Dave Mark posted the rhetorical question of whether the Germans are cowards. The Speigel article Dave comments on doesn't so much as try to disabuse the notion than defend cowardice as a sensible approach.

Of course individual Europeans may have a personal affinity for violence, but violence on the scale required for a genocide requires a culture willing to justify the acts of violence of their government and that simply doesn't exist anymore. Europe will first have to recreate it and I there is strong resistance to doing so (to their credit?). Moreover, they don't have much time--the Muslims are well ahead of the curve when it comes to creating a culture of hate.

Ironically, what may save Europe is what contributed to the problem in the first place--the lack of assimilation. The Europeans still hold all the levers of power, so should they decide to repress the Muslims, they would actually have the means to do it, but I very much doubt they could overcome 50 years of indoctrination in the virtues of dialogue and compromise.

Finally, Peters ignores the bête noire of the issue--the demographic problem. Even if Europe deports or kills its Muslim population, it still exists in a demographic death spiral. It is the reason the Muslims are there in the first place.

In the final analysis, I don't believe in the coming genocide, but rather in the on-going suicide of Europe.

UPDATE Powerline also notes the Peters column, and thanks to blogger-elite clout, gets Mark Steyn to comment:

I don’t know whether Mr Peters is referring to my book, because, as usual when this particular columnist comes out swinging, he prefers to confront unnamed generalized opponents: thus, he refers to “a rash of pop pundits” predicting Europe will become Eurabia. Dismissing with airy condescension “a rash” of anonymities means you avoid having to deal with specific arguments.

Had he read America Alone, for example, he would know that I do, indeed, foresee a revival of Fascism in Europe. He concludes: “All predictions of Europe going gently into that good night are surreal.” Which of us predicted anything about “going gently”? As I write on page 105 of my book: “It’s true that there are many European populations reluctant to go happily into the long Eurabian night.” What I point out, though, is that, even if you’re hot for a new Holocaust, demography tells. There are no Hitlers to hand. When Mr Peters cites the success of Jean Marie Le Pen’s National Front, he overlooks not only Le Pen’s recent overtures to Muslims but also the fact that M Le Pen is pushing 80. As a general rule, when 600 octogenarians are up against 200 teenagers, bet on the teens. In five or ten years’ time, who precisely is going to organize mass deportations from French cities in which the native/Muslim youth-population ratio is already – right now - 55/45?

As I’ve said innumerable times, the native European population is split three ways: some will leave, as the Dutch (and certain French) are already doing; some will shrug and go along with the Islamization of the continent, as the ever-accelerating number of conversions suggests; and so the ones left to embrace Fascism will be a minority of an aging population. It will be bloody and messy, as I write in America Alone, but it will not alter the final outcome. If you don’t breed, you can’t influence the future. And furthermore a disinclination to breed is a good sign you don’t care much about the future. That’s why the Spaniards, who fought a brutal bloody civil war for their country in the 1930s, folded instantly after those Madrid bombings. When you’ve demographically checked out of the future, why fight for it?

Ralph Peters is late to this debate. If he’s going to join the discussion, he might do better to tackle the facts. But that would require him to acknowledge real specifics rather than “a rash of pop pundits”. You’ll notice that his column and mine differ not just in their approach to worldviews but in their approach to argument: mine cites four specific persons, their actions and assertions; his boldly batters anonymous generalizations. I know which I regard as more effective.

Steyn seems a little perturbed to have a dissenter, but his argument is good--demographics trump whatever aggressive tendancies Europeans may deign to display.