The Tribes

Rich Lowry, NRO, RCP on not your usual churchgoers, "Why Mideast Muslims are not American Methodists:

This is why even the mind-bogglingly brutal Saddam Hussein had trouble handling the tribes of Iraq. The extraordinary progress we have seen in Iraq in the past six months has less to do with winning new converts to our ideological vision of liberal democracy, and more with how we have -- through inspired and very practical work at the local level -- turned the tribes in our favor. We have greased palms, stroked egos, and benefited from the excesses of an al Qaeda so savage and dark that it represents a threat even to the not particularly gentle or enlightened way of life of the tribes.

The related problem is that American and Western liberals unreasonably fear a government takeover by Western organized religion more than they do al-Qaeda and their murderous ilk.