Shadow of the giant

with. I learned a
lot from him about destroying your enemies with demagoguery conducted under
pseudonyms."
    "So you were praising him."
    "I'm saying that America shaped itself with
institutions so strong that it could survive corruption, stupidity, vanity,
ambition, recklessness, and even insanity in its chief executive. I'm trying to
do the same thing with the Free People of Earth. Base it on some simple but
workable ideals. Bring nations into it because they freely choose to join.
Unite them with a language and a system of laws, and give them a stake in
institutions that take on a life of their own. And I can't do any of that if I
conquer a single country and force it to join. That's a rule I can never
violate. My forces will defeat enemies who attack the FPE, and we'll carry war
into their territory to do it. But when it comes to joining the FPE, they can
only do it if a majority of the people want to. If they choose to be subject to
our laws and take part in our institutions."
    "But you're not above getting other nations to do your
conquering for you."
    "Islam," said Peter, "has never learned how
to be a religion. It's a tyranny by its very nature. Until it learns to let the
door swing both ways, and permit Muslims to decide not to be Muslim without
penalty, then the world has no choice but to fight against it in order to
remain free. As long as Muslim nations remained divided, working against each
other, they weren't going to be a problem for me, because I could pick them up
one by one, especially after the FPE becomes large enough for them to see how
the people within my borders prosper."
    "But united under Alai—"
    "Alai is a decent guy," said Peter. "I think
he has some idea of liberalizing Islam from the top. But it can't be done. He's
simply wrong. He's a general, not a politician. As long as ordinary Muslims
believe it's their duty to kill any Muslim who tries to quit being a Muslim, as
long as they think they have a holy duty to resort to arms to compel
unbelievers to obey Islamic law—you can't liberalize that, you can't make it a
decent system for anybody. Not even for Muslims. Because the cruelest,
narrowest, most evil people will always rise to power because they'll always be
the ones most willing to wrap themselves in the crescent flag and murder people
in God's name."
    "So Alai is doomed to fail."
    "Alai is doomed to die. The moment the fanatics realize
that he's not as fanatically pure a Muslim as they are, they'll kill him."
    "And install a new Caliph?"
    "They can install whoever they want," said Peter.
"It won't matter to me. Without Alai, there's no Islamic unity, because
only Alai can lead them to victory. And in defeat, Muslims don't stay united.
They move like a great wave—until they meet a wall of rock that doesn't move.
Then they crash and recede."
    "As they did after Charles Martel defeated them."
    "It's Alai who made them powerful," said Peter.
"The only trouble is, Alai doesn't like the things he has to do in order
to rule a totalitarian system like Islam. He's already killed a lot more people
than he wanted to. Alai's not a killer, but he's become one, and he likes it
less and less."
    "You think he's not going to follow Virlomi into
war."
    "It's a race," said Peter. "Between followers
of Alai who plan to kill Virlomi in order to free Alai from her influence, and
fanatical Muslims who plan to kill Alai because he betrayed Islam by marrying
Virlomi in the first place."
    "Do you know who the conspirators are?"
    "I don't have to," said Peter. "If there
weren't any conspirators planning murder, it wouldn't be a Muslim empire. And
there's another race. Can they kill Alai or Virlomi before China or Russia
attacks? And even if they do kill one or both of them, will that stop China or
Russia from attacking, or simply encourage them to think that victory will be
more likely?"
    "And is there any scenario where you'll go to
war?"
    "Yes," said Peter. "If they get rid of
Virlomi, and Russia and China don't attack, then Alai—or his successor, if they
kill him, too—will be pushed into attacking Armenia and Nubia. And that's a war
I'm ready to fight. We'll destroy them. We'll be the rock against which Islam
crashes and breaks into pieces."
    "And if Russia or China does attack them before they
can turn to you, then you still profit from the war as frightened nations unite
with you against either Russia or China—whichever country is seen as the
aggressive, dangerous one."
    "It's like I said,"