Challenging the conventional wisdom

I may be outgunned but I'm feisty. As Pennywit notes in comments to my last post, he has an answer. I have a response.

Let's look at Wahhabism

PW opines:

but perhaps in a war against "terrorists," you'll see the light at the end of the tunnel when Salafism and Wahabbism are in retreat and al-Qaida no longer finds quite so much favor with its fellow Muslims.

A quick google search tells me it was founded in the early 1700s and although growing rapidly, was reviled by the Sunnis. They're essentially a fringe group that amassed a great deal of money and thus political influence that would belie their actual numbers. (Not unlike our own Christian fundamentalists). Two and half centuries of history is nothing to sneer at and is not easily displaced. It's entrenched enough to be the state religion of Saudi Arabia - our ally. Yet if I'm to believe the White House, the Sunnis are the insurgents in Iraq, which suggests they put aside their differences with each other, in order to fight us.

Gerald Howarth in a speech to the Conservative Way Forward had this to say about them.

The enemy we face is far more diffuse and elusive an any single organisation, the links between those who committed the attacks in say Madrid and al Qeada are tentative. Despite clear links to a mother organisation, these individuals were able to carry out a major terrorist attack. It is important to begin by understanding that what we face is an idea.

That idea is Whabbism. Originating in Saudi Arabia Whabbism has spread through out the Islamic world. This fundamentalist interpretation of Islam calls for the establishment of a Caliphate across the Islamic world, beginning with the expulsion of the infidel from Muslim lands. It seeks support in much the same way Marxist doctrine did in the 20th Century, mixing Islamic religious teaching with perceived societal inadequacies. It teaches that every Muslim has their part to play and every Muslim can achieve Martyrdom. Such a doctrine does not need an organisation to spread. Indeed, it has spread like wildfire through the Madrassas and radical Mosques. Any Whabbist acting alone or in a group can take up this cause and more often than not it is older men acting on young disenfranchised Muslim men.

...In many ways to call the War on Terror a war at all is a bit of a misnomer as in a war one would expect to achieve victory, however in this fight ultimate victory is unlikely to be forth coming. We can defeat bin Laden and even what we understand to be al Qeada, but all it takes is one man or a group of men with a Whabbist outlook, a crude means of delivering death upon innocents and the will to do it and you’ve got terrorism!

He goes on to (wrongly) support your view with those facts but I ask how can we "defeat" a belief system when it only takes one man to promulgate it's theology of violence? It supports my contention that the world is no more or less safe than it was before the Towers fell.

I submit that it the West's policies, rightly or wrongly perceived as imperialistic that provides the recruiting platform for Wahhabis and any extremist sect. Bush can hold a press conference and claim we have no intention of remaining in Iraq but the 14 permanent military bases our Army is erecting at this very moment, would belie his words. He probably made quote of the week in the AQ recruiting videos - set against a backdrop of footage of the construction sites.

The only way to quell support for these violent movements is to remove the common enemy and allow the Arab States to truly exercise their sovereignty. It seems to me expecting to diminish the influence of Islamic extremists through military force, rather than concentrating on simple defense, is a fool's hope and does nothing to protect us at home. In fact it endangers us more.

I may get the last word on this thread yet.

Update: Sigh, or not. PW has an answer. I have a response but I want to think for a while.