Radical Islam, Obama’s critics contend, is what it sounds like: radicalism rooted in the religion of Islam. Scientific questions posed by St. Augustine, early father of the Christian church, are presented as a part of a proposed undergraduate course for religion and philosophy students. In the new version, it says it was made with “a brusqueness that we find unacceptable.” Benedict added in a footnote: “In the Muslim world, this quotation has unfortunately been taken as an expression of my personal position, thus arousing understandable indignation. I hope that the reader of my text can see immediately that this sentence does not express my personal view of the Quran, for which I have the respect due to the holy book of a great religion.” He said he cited the text as part of an examination of the “relationship between faith and reason”. Notably, these appointees have put forth this sweeping vision before taking charge of the nation’s security-before a terrorist attack has occurred on their watch. Several of the president-elect’s national-security appointees have argued that the United States is at war with “radical Islamic terrorism,” or “radical Islam,” or something broader still, such as “Islamism.” They have described this war as a primarily ideological struggle to preserve Western civilization, like the wars against Nazism and communism.

For years now, Republicans have condemned Obama’s avoidance of the term “radical Islam,” arguing that it represents the president’s failure to properly assess and address the threat. Asked if he was referring to “radical Islam,” he responded, “It’s radical, but it’s very hard to define. America’s two post-9/11 presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, attempted a balancing act: combatting jihadist terrorism while seeking to avoid the impression that the Western and Muslim worlds were engaged in the kind of clash Lewis described. He rejects the notion of a clash of civilizations, both because he thinks it overestimates the threat of terrorism to the United States and because he doesn’t want to affirm the jihadists’ narrative of a struggle between Islam and infidels in the West. When a U.S. president uses “loose language that appears to pose a civilizational conflict between the West and Islam, or the modern world and Islam, then we make it harder, not easier, for our friends and allies and ordinary people to resist and push back against the worst impulses inside the Muslim world,” Obama told The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg. Where Obama sees a weak enemy that is getting weaker, his critics see a strong enemy that is getting stronger.

Where Obama sees a clash within Islamic civilization-between a tiny faction of fanatics and the vast majority of Muslims-his critics see a clash between Western civilization and a small yet significant segment of the Muslim world. Where Obama sees a serious but manageable national-security threat, his critics see an ideological and civilizational challenge to the free world. A free downloadable content pack titled Valhalla was released on December 12, 2023. Serving as an epilogue to Ragnarök, it follows Kratos as he participates in a series of trials within Valhalla, where he must come to terms with his past life in Greece. And in fact, reaching communion with God may require that God not be your goal, after all, since turning your back on the physical world seems to be the main requirement, it only makes sense that any concept of God which you currently carry in your mind, must also be left behind when you begin your search. “I don’t believe all cultures are morally equivalent, and I think the West, and especially America, is far more civilized, far more ethical and moral, than the system our main enemies want to impose on us,” Flynn adds.

“I think Islam hates us,” Trump said earlier this year. Mike Pompeo, the Kansas congressman who Trump has tapped as his CIA director, has described the clash in more nuanced terms, stressing that Islam should not be equated with extremism. It is concerned more with the everyday understanding of spirituality than with rites and rituals. But a couple of Passover rituals take place almost universally: the eating of matzo, an unleavened, cracker-like food said to have sustained the Jewish people during their rush to freedom; and the Seders. Several members of Trump’s emerging team have described the threat in similarly stark and broad ways. Saudi Arabia and a regional coalition have taken strong action against Houthi militants in Yemen. Saudi Arabia, enraging Osama bin Laden-the historian Bernard Lewis sounded an alarm in The Atlantic about brewing anti-Americanism in the Muslim world. Trump has gone further than many other Republican leaders in advancing the counterargument to Obama-not just in his proposed policies, like banning or severely restricting Muslim immigration to the United States, but also in his rhetoric.