In the Telegraph yesterday, Julie Lenarz argued persuasively that Germany cannot craft a coherent response to Islamist terrorism until it analyses the challenge. And the challenge is the presence of a certain strain of Islam in our midst, the one usually identified as Wahhabism.
Mrs Merkel might consider some historical parallels, in particular that of another female ruler, one who is generally accounted a failure, but who in one respect had the right idea. Catherine de Medici, faced with the renewal of religious war in France, called together various Catholic and Protestant divines for a conference known to us as the Colloquy of Poissy.
