Tarek Fatah: As America falls, India rises

...the United States has left a trail of destruction in every country it claims to have helped including Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and now, Yemen.

After propping up Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, two terrorist-producing countries, perhaps America’s downward slide, seen in the context of its farcical presidential election, is nature’s way of settling scores.

The trouble is the Islamists do not simply seek the destruction of America.

They seek the end of civilization as we know it, and pray for an Armageddon promised in the books of Islamic sharia.

But who will pick up the baton from America as the giant falls?

It won’t be Europe, as Mark Steyn has correctly predicted, and certainly not the authoritarian regimes of China or Russia.

On Tuesday, The Independent reported on just one of the sledgehammer tactics adopted by China to fight rising Islamism among its Muslim minority.

Beijing is calling on people to report their neighbours, friends and relatives for “luring minors into religious activities".

New education rules coming into force in Xinjiang Nov. 1, threaten to remove children from their parents’ care and send them to “receive rectification” at specialist schools.

Notwithstanding the medieval ideology of the Islamists, China’s and Russia’s iron-hand authoritarianism will produce the opposite effect of what we want.

The one country that can take a lead in this global endeavour, post-America, is India....