Separation of State and Religion

Continuing the theme of religion in public life, here is an op-ed I got from a friend. Thomas Friedman of the NYTimes writes about his dinner with some Muslims.

Excerpt:
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I was invited to interview a rising progressive Iraqi Shiite cleric, Sayyid Iyad Jamaleddine, at his home on the banks of the Tigris. It was the most exciting conversation I've had on three trips to postwar Iraq. I listened to Mr. Jamaleddine eloquently advocate separation of mosque and state and lay out a broad, liberal agenda for Iraq's majority Shiites.
...
for my money, the most important reason we fought this war: If the West is going to avoid a war of armies with Islam, there has to be a war of ideas within Islam. The progressives have to take on both the religious totalitarians, like Osama bin Laden, and the secular totalitarians who exploit Islam as a cover, like Saddam Hussein. We cannot defeat their extremists, only they can. This war of ideas needs two things: a secure space for people to tell the truth and people with the courage to tell it.
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Indeed, the Middle East is only going to settle down when the forces of conflict stop themselves. It will only happen with the Israelis conclude they won't have all the land they had in Biblical times. It won't happen until the Palestinians decide that Israel has a right to exist in some kind of safe and sane borders.

The US cannot take over the whole place and run up the flag. The Iraq war was a risk. It was a calculated one that if one place can get its house in order the rest will follow. Yes, the US has got to do a lot of work in post-war Iraq. But the real peace will be won by Muslims themselves.

Meanwhile, in the post below a contrast on religion and the state. There is legimate concern for separating the power of the state from the power of religion as shown in the examples of radical Islam. But, it is rather remarkable how in the US, there is this effort to remove religious faith from all civic life for fear that the government is "establishing" religion. Let's have some sense of scale: can we really say that having the Psalms on plaques in the Grand Canyon is as bad as the radical Islamic terrorists?

I'm sure some "extemists" would say exactly that.

Let's be serious!