Donald Rumsfeld made a superb speech yesterday in Munich, delineating with clarity the nature of the threat to the West:

[A] war has been declared on all of our nations and on our people...The Cold War wasn't won through fate or good luck. Freedom prevailed because our free nations showed resolve when retreat would have been easier, showed courage when concession seemed simpler and more attractive.

...The Iranian regime is today the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism... The world does not want, and must work together to avoid, a nuclear Iran.

[Rumsfeld said violent extremism was a danger faced by Europe as much as the United States. He said Islamic militants were on the move and had to be stopped.]

They seek to take over governments from North Africa to Southeast Asia and to re-establish a caliphate they hope, one day, will include every continent. They have designed and distributed a map where national borders are erased and replaced by a global extremist empire.

Today our countries have another choice to make - we could choose to pretend, as some suggest, that the enemy is not at our doorstep; we could choose to believe, as some contend, that the threat is exaggerated. But . . . what if they are wrong?

The clash of civilisations is multi-faceted, but one of the most pernicious aspects of it is that within the West, between those who either deny or simply do not realise threat we face, and those - such as Rumsfeld - who understand and are prepared to confront the aims of militant Islam.

The cartoon conflict is not some obscure row which has blown up out of all proportion: it is a perfect demonstration of the threat to freedom. As Andrew Sullivan puts it:

It would be hard to illustrate the core issue of our time more vividly: freedom versus religious extremism. From the threat to Salman Rushdie through 9/11 to the murderous thuggery of Zarqawi in Iraq, the line is a straight one. And it must not be appeased.