President Bush delivered a speech last week to the National Endowment for Democracy. Quoting Ronald Reagan’s 1982 address at Westminster Palace, Bush noted Reagan had argued that Soviet communism had failed “precisely because it did not respect its own people — their creativity, their genius and their rights.”

The Bush address understandably came from a Western perspective. But, as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher noted at a U.N. disarmament conference more than two decades ago, we in the West make a mistake when we “transpose” our morality on those who don’t share it.

President Bush asked, “Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty?” It depends on the meaning of liberty. What if the Islamic nations of the region define liberty differently from us? Suppose they see our liberty as something corrupting to faith and morals and our culture as something they do not wish to import, but oppose as inimical to a healthy life on Earth and an impediment to an afterlife?

The president asserted that Islam was “consistent with democratic rule,” and he listed as examples several states where nonradical Muslims live (Turkey, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Indonesia and Niger). These states are not a threat to the United States. The threat comes from states dominated by extremist Muslim militants, especially the Wahhabi brand. To draw a comparison between atheistic communism and radical Islam and to suggest that what happened to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe can be replicated in the Middle East is dangerous.

The president said there was “democratic progress in many predominately Muslim countries,” such as Niger. He also said Muslim men and women were “good citizens” of a number of other nations, including South Africa, Western Europe and the United States. Would it be indelicate to note that Muslims do not (yet) direct the political destiny in those nations?

To fundamentalist Muslims, liberty is not found in democracy. It is found in Allah and actions they believe please their god. The most extreme of them plant the idea in the minds of children that this life is nothing and that they should “seek Shahada” (martyrdom) and “ask for death,” which they teach is true liberty.

In his speech, the president said securing democracy in Iraq was “a massive and difficult undertaking.” He is right. It will be made even more difficult if Westerners think that Islamic nations want what we have. In their sermons, in editorials in their state-owned newspapers and on television and in the actions of the most radical among them, their objective is clear — to defeat and subjugate all nations and all thinking to their religion and their way. To them, it is we who live in bondage and they who are ultimately free. It will take more than speeches to convert them to America’s point of view.

Cal Thomas is a columnist for Tribune Media Services.