Ever since President George W. Bush said “Islam is peace” on Sept. 17, 2001, it has been politically shielded from any debate about its effects on its adherents or on the rest of the world. Muslim nations and pressure groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations have used political correctness as a weapon to punish anyone who dared to begin any debate on Islam by calling them “Islamophobes,” an accusation of racism.

That era was ended by the lead editorial in the July 5 edition of The Economist, the prominent liberal British news magazine. Titled “The Tragedy of the Arabs,” the article began by wondering why after the glories of past centuries the Arabs are in a “wretched state,” why the fruits of the Arab Spring “rotted into renewed autocracy and war.”