Is growing anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States, highlighted by Quran-burning Paster Terry Jones, evidence that we are quickly headed toward World War III? According to columnist Yevgeniy Shestakov of Russia’s Rossiyskaya Gazeta, ‘American dogmatism’ will mitigate against compromise with Muslims over issues like First Amendment rights, and may well lead to the fulfillment of Fidel Castro’s fears of an impending nuclear war.
For Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Yevgeniy Shestakov writes in part:
Last week it became obvious that the world is half a step away from a dangerous line. The beginning of the Third World War has been postponed. For how long?
Just Thursday, it seemed that the Rubicon had been crossed and that on September 11, the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States, Pastor Terry Jones would carry out his threat to publicly burn 200 copies of the Quran. The photos of this auto-da-fe would then have gotten into newspapers, provoking an uprising of protest from the Muslim world unprecedented in its scale.
Then everything would have escalated. After the inevitable wave of terrorist attacks and attacks on Americans – and not only in “hot spots” – would have come Western accusations that Iran was supporting the radicals. Amid the obvious attempts by “the regime of the ayatollahs” to develop nuclear weapons, any provocation, even an accident, will be enough to provoke an armed conflict. Events would then snowball, capture the Islamic “street” in various countries and give impetus to a Third World War.
Alarmist? Perhaps. But evidently formed over decades of ideological struggle with the Soviet Union, the dogmatism of the American population doesn’t give one hope that the Quran burning promised by the pastor won’t eventually occur.
Pastor Jones and his followers, which as recent events confirm, are numerous, have put off the burning of the Quran. But for how long?
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