Dialogue Plus Pressure

by Conor Friedersdorf

Ross Douthat takes on the controversy about how non-Muslim Westerners should relate to spokesmen for a moderate Islam. 

I hold no particular brief for Tariq Ramadan, and his critics have provided ample evidence of his slipperiness over the years. But we have to be able to draw intellectual distinctions on these matters, and if we just lump a figure like Ramadan — or any Muslim leader who has one foot solidly in the Western mainstream but a few toes in more dangerous...