One of the distinctions between the Right and the Left regarding the ongoing war with Islamic fundamentalism is the cause the underlying the conflict. The Left seems to believe that our presence in Iraq and elsewhere is “breeding” terrorists - as if the primary reason for Islamic fundamentalism’s penchant for terrorism is a reactionary one. It’s a “blame the West” mentality. The Right, in marked contrast, believes that the actions of Islamist terrorists are at their very source religious, compelled into action by a belief structure absent any sort of real world prodding by free people.

Hassan Butt, a former member of the British Jihadi Network, validates the conservative interpretation. In an article in Britain’s Daily Mail, Butt explains

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network - a series of British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology - I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.

By blaming the Government for our actions, those who pushed this “Blair’s bombs” line did our propaganda work for us.

The West certainly is to blame for Islamic terrorism, simply by its existence. It this sort of insight from a former fanatic that helps frame the long term nature of this conflict, and the need for Western civilization’s persistence and patience, not self-flagellation and 1960s mired intellectualism. In the world of the Islamic fanatic, there is no grey

There isn’t enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a model of the world in which you are either a believer or an infidel.

Formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion: they are considered to be one and the same.

For centuries, the reasoning of Islamic jurists has set down rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war.

But what radicals and extremists do is to take this two steps further. Their first step has been to argue that, since there is no pure Islamic state, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr (The Land of Unbelief).

Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world.

Along with many of my former peers, I was taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief.

In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians.

So do with this anecdotal redemption what you will. The best way to defeat your enemy is to understand him. If American and Western leadership refuses to accept the truths about the showdown between our culture and the culture of the caliphate, the war will continue and more lives will be lost. An all-out press is still needed, and I am afraid that a significant portion of our Western populace prefers the instinct of the ostrich to the will of a Churchill.

UPDATE Further proof of my point.