The good news is they do lose eventually:
So how do you fight Islamic terrorism these days? Can't use the old ("kill 'em all") methods, so all you can do is keep the killers out of your own territory, and wait for the madness to die out naturally, as it has done many times before. Changing the poor and misgoverned Moslem nations that generate Islamic radicalism is another option. But that takes time as well, and the current wave of Islamic terrorism may die out before democracy takes root in the Arab world.
The bad news is that the world didn't have nukes way back when so riding out the wave is not much of an option for us. Now nukes are out there. If a terrorist group gets nukes, 9/11 will look like a shaving cut by comparison. And even if we win this round and avoid a catastrophic strike just by wearing the jihadis out, how widespread will nukes and nastier technologies of death be in a few generations in time for the next wave of Islamist terror?
All the more reason to press forward with democracy for the Islamic world. Something needs to break this depressing pattern. "Stability" is not an option. Islamic terror has been a pretty stable feature for a thousand years.
