According to a new Pew poll, support for suicide bombing and extremism in general among Muslims in the countries which are benefitting from globalization has dropped as much as 40 percent since 2003. For example, in Jordan confidence in Bin Laden has dropped from 56% to 20%, and the number of those who believe suicide bombing is justified has dropped from 43% to 23%. Similar results have been obtained in Lebanon, Indonesia, Turkey and Pakistan. What's remarkable is ...
... that these four countries are all seeing an upsurge in Islamic fundamentalism. What that means is that the desire to live under Sharia law does not coincide with a desire to kill yourself or others - or, for that matter, to attack America.
Palestinians are going the other way. Only 6% of Palestinians said suicide bombings are never justified. What does this mean? That it's not religion that drives Muslim extremism. It's politics, and it's economics.
Take away the sense of oppression that drives educated and even wealthy Muslims to extremism on behalf, as they say, of their brethren; and provide the method and the means to achieve a better life to people at the bottom, and bin Ladinism is doomed to shrink. The best proof of that is in Saudi Arabia, where the people who invented bin Laden's faith have no problem dealing with the Christian west. It's the bottom of the Saudi economic pile that supplies Saudi terrorists - those who have no education, or well-educated men frozen out of meaningful employment by the Saudi economic system.
As long as America views this struggle as one of religion is how long the long war is going to last. We could seriously dent the danger facing us with the profits of one hedge fund.