“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.”