A World Struggle Between Democracy and [Islamo] Fascism

Brilliance from The Belmont Club:

When pundits say that Iraq is in the throes of a civil war, perhaps the correct conflict to which it should be compared is the Spanish Civil War. Although many of the elements of that conflict were driven by peculiarly Iberian causes, it was far more importantly the focal point of a world struggle between democracy and fascism. It is impossible to understand the events in Iraq today as simply the result of the mindless bungling of George Bush. It is above all the locus of the major clash between two contending trends in the 21st century. And like the Spanish Civil War, Iraq may be the most unavoidable event of the age.