Dr. Wafa Sultan has tremendous courage. And she’ll probably be killed for it.

The New York Times reports that a fatwa has been issued against this psychiatrist from southern California for “blaspheming Islam.” And now, her answering machine is filling up:

One message said: “Oh, you are still alive? Wait and see.” She received an e-mail message the other day, in Arabic, that said, “If someone were to kill you, it would be me.”

Her crime? Criticizing radical Islam.

She knows to take these threats seriously.

Dr. Sultan grew up in a large traditional Muslim family in Banias, Syria, a small city on the Mediterranean about a two-hour drive north of Beirut. Her father was a grain trader and a devout Muslim, and she followed the faith’s strictures into adulthood.

But, she said, her life changed in 1979 when she was a medical student at the University of Aleppo, in northern Syria. At that time, the radical Muslim Brotherhood was using terrorism to try to undermine the government of President Hafez al-Assad. Gunmen of the Muslim Brotherhood burst into a classroom at the university and killed her professor as she watched, she said.

“They shot hundreds of bullets into him, shouting, ‘God is great!’ ” she said. “At that point, I lost my trust in their god and began to question all our teachings. It was the turning point of my life, and it has led me to this present point. I had to leave. I had to look for another god.”

She recently found the spotlight on herself for speaking out against terrorism:

An angry essay [on an Islamic reform web site] by Dr. Sultan about the Muslim Brotherhood caught the attention of Al Jazeera, which invited her to debate an Algerian cleric on the air last July.

In the debate, she questioned the religious teachings that prompt young people to commit suicide in the name of God. “Why does a young Muslim man, in the prime of life, with a full life ahead, go and blow himself up?” she asked. “In our countries, religion is the sole source of education and is the only spring from which that terrorist drank until his thirst was quenched.”

But it was a February appearance on Al Jazeera that led to her present danger:

Speaking of the Holocaust, she said, “The Jews have come from the tragedy and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling.”

She went on, “We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people.”

She concluded, “Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them.”

This is not the sort of criticism that certain people take lightly. And with modern communications carrying Dr. Sultan’s words around the globe, we see that Sharia law is in effect even against this woman in southern California. It doesn’t matter whether the aggrieved are in Egypt, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. To them, Sharia law applies anywhere. That’s the lesson of the cartoons.

Whether we’d like to admit it or not, we are currently in the middle of a war that could last 50 or 100 years. Or much less, depending on who gets their hands on nukes. That’s the chilling future Western civilization faces. Unless, of course, there are more brave people like Dr. Sultan who are willing to stand up, be heard, and—most likely, unfortunately—sacrifice themselves for a more hopeful future, one in which the power center of Islam is driven by people of peace.

Maybe there are a billion Muslims who want to peacefully coexist with the rest of the world, but a billion pacifists can’t defeat a million fanatics if the peace-loving among them won’t stand up for what they believe is right. True pacifism means sacrificing yourself for peace, not keeping your mouth shut and hoping the fanatics magically disappear. Pacifism is laying down your life to increase the chances of peace for those who remain. Outside the facile pacifism of the flabby West, the way of the true pacifist is no easier than the way of the warrior.

Dr. Sultan is a warrior for peace. She understands that her words may have committed her to death. Yet she spoke, because she knew it was right, and she hoped that it would encourage others to stand up and do the same. We’ve seen a shocking number of Muslims sacrifice themselves by blowing themselves up or flying themselves into buildings. Let’s hope there are more Dr. Sultans in the Muslim world than Mohammad Attas. Only Muslims can reform Islam. And only Islamic reform or Western submission will end this war. What’ll it be?