It will take a long time, and certainly the West will remain the dominant civilization well into the next century, but the decline is occurring.

Partial truths or half-truths are often more insidious than total falsehoods.

Israel has military capabilities including nuclear weapons, far surpassing any other power in the Middle East, but it's a small country. The rest of the Middle Eastern peoples are Muslim and Israelis are not, so it is hardly in any position to become the leading power.

The argument now that the spread of pop culture and consumer goods around the world represents the triumph of Western civilization trivializes Western culture. The essence of Western civilization is the Magna Carta, not the Magna Mac. The fact that non-Westerners may bite into the latter has no implications for their accepting the former.

The question really is what will be the central focus of global politics in the coming decades and my argument is that cultural identities and cultural antagonisms and affiliations will play not the only role but a major role.

There has been an Irish lobby that has impacted U.S. foreign policy for a century and a half, and at times made our relations with Great Britain very difficult. Other comparable lobbies exist.

Certainly there are various trans-Islamic political movements, which try to appeal to Muslims in all societies.