Look what happens when we add three little letters of the alphabet together.

I, as in sugar, M, as in money, ISM, ism.

You take that word and you append it to some perfectly delightful and innocent sounding nouns

and you can end up in the middle of a political argument.

Social, socialism, active activism, sex, sexism, you get the idea.

And when this happens with religions, it turns a religion into a political movement with a political agenda.

And then you really have a debate as we do tonight.

Another debate from Intelligent Squared US, I'm John Don Van Welcom.

Our motion is this, better elected Islamists than dictators.

We have four superbly qualified debaters who have lived this issue for years from well before Arab Spring.

And they will be bringing to you their arguments for and against this motion.

Let's now meet our debaters.

First, Ruel Marc Garrick, the Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

And your partner is Brian Catullis.

He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Better elected Islamists than dictators is our motion and the team arguing against this statement,

Zudy Jasser, who is president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

And your partner is Daniel Pipes, who is president of the Middle East Forum.

So this is a debate.

This is a contest.

These debaters are here to try to persuade you of the power of their arguments.

And you, our live audience, will act as the judges.

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