But exposure to the fanatics has been a great learning experience for Iraqis:
After almost five years of war, many young people in Iraq, exhausted by constant firsthand exposure to the violence of religious extremism, say they have grown disillusioned with religious leaders and skeptical of the faith that they preach.
In two months of interviews with 40 young people in five Iraqi cities, a pattern of disenchantment emerged, in which young Iraqis, both poor and middle class, blamed clerics for the violence and the restrictions that have narrowed their lives.
And as I've noted many times in the past about jihadi violence that once appeared only on television in the homes of Moslems:
Violent struggle against the United States was easy to romanticize at a distance.
“I used to love Osama bin Laden,” proclaimed a 24-year-old Iraqi college student. She was referring to how she felt before the war took hold in her native Baghdad. The Sept. 11, 2001, strike at American supremacy was satisfying, and the deaths abstract.
Now, the student recites the familiar complaints: Her college has segregated the security checks; guards told her to stop wearing a revealing skirt; she covers her head for safety.
“Now I hate Islam,” she said, sitting in her family’s unadorned living room in central Baghdad. “Al Qaeda and the Mahdi Army are spreading hatred. People are being killed for nothing.”
Jihadi terror stopped being satisfying when you saw it in your own neighborhood.
Democracy can take root in Iraq. The bitter struggle against jihadis may have provided a crucial ingredient to building rule of law by destroying the appealing aura of religious extremism.
Perhaps we can discuss that whole "blowback" concept in a new light.
