Using Husar's post as an anchor, but I think many of you are missing the point. Islam is not a monolithic structure and Islamofascism is not the only option.
There are substantial and ideologically sound alternatives that have been developed in recent history. Because of the West's predilection for "safe" strongmen, those alternatives have been sidelined by the fanatics as somehow "less pure" and the more we characterise political Islam as only fanaticism, the stronger we make our enemies. The example of Clinton's fatheaded treatment of Khatami in Iran is apposite, getting us only the more dangerous Ahmadinejad.
We are terrified of advocating more democracy (or greater freedoms) in Islamic states because of the Hamas factor - maybe all we'll get is elected fanatics. But maybe advocating and supporting more moves like King Hussein's (Syria now being a good example) would make greater gains for marginalising Islamicism.
Simply characterising all Islam as mediaeval is a cop out and simply gives the dangerous men even more fertile ground to threaten our interests - because they do the same thing in characterising the west as an imperial hegemony.
Islam had a Golden Age of tolerance and scientific progress that Europe only dreamt of for five hundred years. Surely we can think constructively about what events impacted that culture so badly that Islamofascism has the currency it currently does?
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