Yet the bogus "clash of civilizations" -- ludicrous, recycled, 19th century Orientalist racism as it may be -- is becoming all too real. The two sides are getting more enamored of the fracas with every passing day. To try to convince them that this is a bogus altercation looks increasingly to be as futile as attempting to convince a bunch of drunk English soccer hooligans that, win or lose, a football match is nothing to come to blows over.

Make no mistake about it: The recent West versus the Muslim World contention over 12 ignorant and offensive cartoons is not about freedom of expression and its limitations. It is first and foremost about the bleak reality of a great many powerful forces -- on both sides of the Atlantic, north and south of the Mediterranean and all the way to the Indian Ocean -- having a decided stake in perpetuating and escalating the so-called clash of civilizations, even if for a whole range of very different reasons. This is no conspiracy but, rather, an ugly convergence of equally repugnant interests.

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