Why stop with offering excuses for Islamic civilization being outcompeted by making metaphorical analogies to wolves? Literal wolves and coyotes and mountain lions and bears still exist, let’s make excuses for them. They have been increasingly tolerated by our somewhat decadent Western civilization. If Western civilization inexorably sinks into sufficiently deep dazed confusion, the wolves and coyotes and mountain lions and bears could feast and multiply and devour us all.[*]

Or not. There is a high proportion of dazed confusion in Western Civ, sure, and the proportion is probably still growing. But if you want to go all “evolution selects for virulence” you should get more serious and realize that it only takes a proportionally small remnant to survive and thrive and kick ass. Not too many centuries ago the Hispanosphere lost its way in dazed confusion fairly badly, and the Italians and even the French did to a significant extent too. And then? Various mostly northern Europeans and especially English and their colonies picked up the slack to make Western Civ more significant than it had ever been. And not too many millennia ago the Greeks lost their way to some extent, but through their cultural offshoots esp. in Rome they played a significant role in kicking butt throughout the rest of world history. I consider it unlikely that history will continue smoothly for long enough for the trends you see favoring the Muslims (like birthrates) to matter — something like strong AI or all-out WW3 or an unexpected game-changing scientific discovery is likely to upend the system first. But if somehow no such discontinuity occurs, so that history sails smoothly along on current trends, then even a small not-too-dysfunctional remnant of Western Civ would be likely sufficient to stomp Islamic Civ. And even if no such remnant were to persist, then the cultural offshoots (notably in east Asia and/or south Asia) would be likely sufficient to stomp Islamic Civ. Islamic Civ does not seem to be on track to develop the capability to hold its own in modern high-intensity war, and none of its subcultures seem to be either. (Some hybrid like Turkey might, but it’s unclear that it would be Islamic Civ when the dust cleared, any more than modern China is Communist Civ.) It is very unlikely that every single major subculture of Western Civ and every single one of its offshoots will lose that capability, so a lack of that capability will remain a serious limit on the scope of action of fast-breeding not-capable-of-modern-war rivals such as wolves, ants, or crows.

[*] (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laconic_phrase .)

Islamic civilization failed.

With the fall of the Ottoman Empire came Ottomanism, Western Arabism, and, as an opponent, the Arabs’ courtship with Fascism. With their defeat by the Soviet Union victory in the WW2, the Marxists and Socialists took over of Arab elites. As with all Socialisms, it ended without the “new man” being discovered. What we are seeing in the last 40 years is the collapse of the Arab Socialist cultural bloc in the Middle East. To replace it that society went back to what it knows best: Islam.

ISIS is just Political Islam. It doesn’t matter if it is called Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram. etc.

“That leaves his third strategy, a complete disengagement and withdrawal from the region.”

Really?