"The War Has Already Started"

The New York Times and CNN will probably never figure it out, but the "cartoon war" is only a small skirmish in a cataclysmic clash of civilizations. Islam and western liberalsim cannot coexist, and in the age of electronic communications and open borders even stay out of each other's way.

"The way I see it, the war has already started," said Daii al-Islam al-Shahal, a Sunni Muslim cleric in the coastal Lebanese town of Tripoli, who helped organize protests this month against the cartoons in his home town and in Beirut. "Will it end soon, or will it come to a close only after it has completely wiped out the two sides? That is up to God."