Phil , I accept your facts which I only partially knew before. And I admit that it is difficult to decide just how to proceed for us democrats. But if people, women especially, want to be religious, can't they combine this with being democratically-minded? And once the majority of Islamic dictatorial countries are democratic, there is no real Islamic threat anymore, because there will always be democratic opposition to the Islamic leaders, and free speech. This enables young people to chose better and this in turn forces Islamic leaders to behave better, in competition with their opposition. Also when Islamic politicians are in power they are heald accountable for the welfare of their country. People can then turn against them if they can't deliver. Islam is now very unpopular in Iran, and America is very popular there, because of its Islamic dictatorial government, of which the Americans are clearly the enemy. So if we work towards more people under democratic rule and eventually more countries under democratic rule, we may be able to defeat the Islamic leaders in a predominantly peaceful way. In this context I hope America and Western countries will support democracy whereever it arises, even with Islamic democratic parties. President Obama already mentioned something of this policy in one of his speeches.