Islam needs a 12-step program

Why are Islamic societies still staggering in the cultural dark ages?

The US wears the mantle of Most Benevolent Superpower in History, primarily by virtue of being the most recent democracy to achieve that status (Britain's 19th Century empire providing the first case of superpower democracy and certainly the most benevolent superpower up til then).

As western civilization becomes more, well, civilized, each successive western superpower (I assume the US will not be the last) should continue the trend.
Islam continues to fail because Islam has not established self-correcting democracies. I think that's not an accident of history. Muslims have and continue to play the blame game. Where westerners in adversity often at least entertain the thought 'what did I do wrong?' Muslim culture will always find a way to pin their problems on someone else. The Culture of Victimization is a self-inflicted wound, and we know those are always the most painful.

As Muslim refusenik Irshad Manji writes, "Since Sept. 11, folks have been asking me, “What does it take to whip a human being into the kind of frenzy that makes him a suicide bomber for God?” Because I’ve never equated fundamentalism with faith, I don’t understand it. Neither do most Muslims I know. But instead of acknowledging that there’s a serious problem with the way our religion is practiced, even in cosmopolitan Canada, we romanticize Islam. The peer pressure to stay on message – the message being that we’re not all terrorists – seduces us into avoiding the most crucial of jihads: introspection."

Acknowledging and accepting responsibility for your problems is the first step in recovery.