I’m trying to find a proper analogy.

Colonel von Stauffenberg? That gives him too much credit, I think.

Lucky Luciano? That gives him too little.

Darth Vader throwing the Emperor down the well?

I don’t know. I just wish there were more like him. Except that I sort of don’t.

Mubin Shaikh, a well-known and sometimes controversial figure in Toronto’s Muslim community, says he decided to become an undercover police agent and infiltrate an alleged terrorism cell to protect Canada, the country of his birth…

“There are no combatants on the downtown streets of Toronto,” he said concerning the allegations now facing 17 suspects arrested June 2…

He said he supports the jihad in Afghanistan and Iraq, but not attacks on civilians at home…

During the time last fall that he worked undercover for CSIS, and then the RCMP, Shaikh became an internationally controversial figure in his public life.

Shaikh was the province’s most vocal advocate for allowing the use of sharia law, a set of Muslim rules and guidelines, to settle family law matters under Ontario’s arbitration act.

The Globe & Mail corroborates the Star’s account. CSIS won’t comment, but the G&M obtained evidence from a local resident that suggests Shaikh was with the jihadis in December when they trained at a camp north of Ontario.

If he’s telling the truth, he’s a bona fide, 200-proof, honest-to-god hero.

But that’s a big if:

Echoing concerns raised by lawyers for the 17 suspects of entrapment, they question whether he instigated any of the alleged terrorist plans.

“This is like the pot calling the kettle black because Mr. Mubin Shaikh has been the exponent of Islamic extremism in this city.

“He has been the number one proponent of the imposition of sharia law in Canada, has been extremely hostile to all moderate Muslims, which calls into question whether he’s acting out of sincerity or is he trying to fish himself out of his own troubles,” Tarek Fatah, co-founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, said yesterday.

Scarborough imam Aly Hindy, himself often accused of being an extremist, also questioned Shaikh’s involvement.

“I don’t think his role was just to inform what was happening, he was making things happen,” Hindy said.

Friday night’s no time for pathos, but how tragic that it took a self-professed jihad booster to wage the counterjihad the west’s been waiting for. Even in their hour of triumph, moderate Muslims are saddled with a “but”.

Perfunctory Marshall-esque conspiracy spin: How convenient that Shaikh would drop a dime on a major terrorist plot a mere five months before the midterm elections, just as GOP fear-mongering about new attacks is gearing up.

Perhaps the Toronto cell isn’t the only organization Shaikh duped. Perhaps, unbeknownst to CSIS, he’s a secret U.S. agent dispatched by Bushco’s war machine to infiltrate and dismantle western jihadi outfits in hopes of generating super-scary headlines.

Obviously, I can’t prove any of this.

In fact, it’s retarded.

So retarded that even were I an Iranian nuclear diplomat pitching it to a group of Europeans, I doubt I could convince them.

But that’s the genius of it.

It’s so irredeemably half-assed, who would suspect?

Think about it.

I don’t want to draw rolled eyes. But just … think about it.

Think about this, too: The BBC is launching a series of progams on religion, the first three episodes of which will look at Christianity.

…Through the eyes of a Muslim, who’ll “explore” whether Jesus’s miracles were real or not.

I wonder which side of the fence he’ll come down on.

The series asks if the banquet of loaves and fishes was an act of mass delusion and if the crucified body of Jesus was thrown to dogs in a rubbish dump.

Christian groups are concerned. Peter Kearney, a spokesman for the Catholic bishops in Scotland, asked: “Can you imagine the BBC asking a prominent Christian like Cliff Richard to present a critical look at Islam?”

Good question.

I don’t want to draw rolled eyes. But … it’s the BBC.

Think about it.