A Broader View of History: The Deeper Implications of 9/11 for America and the West

Trenchant, insightful piece by Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the UK.
An essay with broad historical sweep and well worth reading in its entirety on this, the 10th Anniversary of 9/11
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How to Reverse the West's Decline - Jonathan Sacks
1989 was the year of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War. One narrative was that the West had won. Communism had imploded. The other narrative was quite different. The key precipitating event of the fall of Communism, the withdrawal, in 1989, of the Soviet army from Afghanistan, set in motion the rapid collapse of one of the world's two superpowers. It was achieved not by the United States and its military might, but by a small group of religiously inspired fighters, the mujahideen and their helpers. If that is what a small group of highly motivated religious fighters could do to one superpower, why not the other, America and the West? That is when 9/11 was born.
The question is not radical Islam but, does the West believe in itself any more? Is it capable of renewing itself as it did two centuries ago? Or will it crumble as did the Soviet Union from internal decay. The writer is Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Great Britain and the Commonwealth. (Standpoint-UK)