OF NO little CONSEQUENCE?

David Ignatius is more or less considered be centrist, establishment sort, not associated with partisan extremes has this in a Washington Post OpEd: The Fading Jihadists.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR200802... [1]

I have recently circulated the idea that Osama bin Laden has won the ‘Iraq round’ of the confrontation with Radical Islam. No one of note disagrees that the appeal of Radical Islam within the Arab/Muslim world, or, indeed within the Muslim world as a whole, has grown relatively greater since our 2003 invasion of Iraq. Since eliminating that appeal is the decisive key to the overall problem posed by the jihadists, we have lost valuable ground to Osama bin Laden. However, as presented in Igantius’ column, it is Sageman’s thesis that the ability of Al Qaeda to exploit the advantage Bush et al has handed to them has been seriously compromised – be it noted through efforts that had little or nothing with the Iraq War.

It has long been my expressed opinion that our foes were best described as a rag tag collection of fanatics who had nothing to offer their people beyond pyrotechnic nihilism and stagnation in a life closed to all the opportunities open to people in the modern world. Sageman suggests that the ‘rag tag’ descriptor is more apt than ever. It has also been my oft expressed opinion that the greatest hope Al Qaeda has is to ignite a far larger conflagration in their world in hopes they can ride that to some position of greater influence – although, given the nature of such a strategy, just how that might work out cannot be known. Sageman now suggests that the Arab/Muslim world is beginning to realize both the ‘dead end’ and sheer reckless, craziness of Al Qaeda and its thinking.

Time, it would appear, is on our side, just as it turned out to be in the Cold War.