To the degree that Obama believes in promoting democracy, his efforts will flounder if they continue to lack moral realism: a deep sense of religion’s corruptibility.

If the United States hopes to build stable and decent societies in postwar Afghanistan and Iraq, it will have to scrap prevailing doctrines of international development.

A year ago in Cairo, Barack Obama delivered an address promising a new era of wisdom and understanding in confronting the “tensions” between the US and Muslims around the world.