Here is a pdf of a superb piece by Laurent Murawiec of the Hudson Institute: “Deterring Those Who Are Already Dead?”
Here he says something simple, clear, commonsensical, and true — and that I have been saying for years now:
If our enemy was merely “˜terrorism,” we could defang it, admittedly at great cost: by destroying the Saudi-Wahhabi nexus and their grip on power, by wiping out the Iranian Ayatollahs” strength, and by squeezing hard the noxious Pakistani military-intelligence establishment — all in all, the linchpins of Muslim terrorism. Once this infrastructure of terror collapsed, much of terror would. But terror itself is nothing but the principal para-military instrument of jihad: the operative concept is jihad, not terror. The jihadis”
purpose (in Clausewitzian terms, Zweck), in the very words of the Quran, is to strike terror in the hearts of unbelievers, it is a quasi-military objective: once terrorized, the Unbelievers, the schismatics and the polytheists will convert, submit or die. The strategic aim (Ziel) of jihad is the Gnostic takeover of the world. To some extent, we may be able to lessen, hinder or hamper the Zweck. But the Ziel is unconditional and cannot be altered. Can we de-fang jihad by pulling its terrorist teeth?
Read it all.