Dallmayr on democracy

Fred Dallmayr was one of my professors at Notre Dame more than two decades ago. As part of the Opening Democracy debate, Dallmayr writes of Mobilising global democracy, arguing, in a not so veiled critique of the Bush administration, against those who who would spread democracy by force of arms. Instead he makes a case for cross-cultural learning as a better alternative, drawing on the centuries-old pattern of harmonious coexistence among Christians, Jews and Muslims in Moorish Spain as just one example. Point well taken. But will such a pacific approach be an adequate response to this: The Islamists' other weapon?