Islamic extremism is a cancer that is spreading around the world, claiming innocent lives from Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria, to Chattanooga, Tennessee, here in the US. With every passing year, an increasing share of armed conflict and terrorism around the world is attributable to the pernicious influence of militant Islam.

Yet for more than a decade western leaders — conservatives and liberals alike — have united in insisting that “Islam is a religion of peace” and buying the absurd notion that Islamophobia is the threat we should worry more about. Until this week. On Monday, at long last, the British prime minister stood up and said what urgently needed to be said.

He condemned what he called “Islamist extremism” as a doctrine“hostile to basic