Yet even the most thinly qualified of middle east experts [bold mine-DL] must know that Islam, as with any other civilisation, comprehends the sum total of human life, and that unlike some others it promises superiority in all things for its believers, so that the scientific and technological and cultural backwardness of the lands of Islam generates a constantly renewed sense of humiliation and of civilisational defeat. ~Edward Luttawak

Yet there are quite a few people who speak and act as if they were experts on the Near and Middle East who show little or no comprehension of this totalising quality of Islam.  This all-encompassing nature of Islam is not a jihadi trick or part of their propaganda–it is supposed to be one of the more appealing aspects of Islam, because it proposes to have the right answer for every sphere of life. 

Just consider how many people want to give Islamists the benefit of the doubt that Islamist rule is somehow compatible with constitutional rule.  These would be the people who think real constitutional or liberal government is possible in the Islamic societies of these regions.  It might be possible to have some sort of mass participatory Islamic republic (such as, say, Iran), replete with candidates and maybe even parties, provided that everyone involved understood the unassailable position and final authority of Islam.  A constitution in which Islam was not established and empowered as the religion of the state seems highly unlikely.