I will only note the beginning of their comments on ISIL:
The most extreme Islamic terror group on the planet, hated by all other Islamic terrorists, was defeated but not destroyed in 2017. It was driven underground where, if tradition holds, it will fester for a generation or so and then revive and repeat. In effect this is a chronic problem. It is an unending Moslem civil war between those (mainly Islamic terrorists) who want a worldwide religious dictatorship run by themselves, versus those representing the majority of Moslems who are getting tired of being threatened and murdered by Moslem religious fanatics.
I've noted that jihadi violence is mostly a civil war within the Islamic world and that the West is collateral damage.
But Moslem popular reaction against the jihad has to continue even when "only" other people are killed by jihadis. That's been a problem. Yet there is hope on this issue.
That's why I continue to have hope that the Arab Spring reflected a basic impulse to cure the ills that cause the Islamic Civil War with democracy (and the all-important rule of law that makes sure voting doesn't just create a tyranny of the majority) rather than alternate between autocrats and mullahs to rule Arabs.
And I hope that leaders in the Islamic world (like in Egypt and in Saudi Arabia, which is the most important place for such reforms to succeed) see that real change away from that traditional choice of governance must happen for self preservation if not for idealistic reasons.
UPDATE: Protests and violence over prices and taxes in Tunisia, where the Arab Spring of 2011 first began.
Will the only success story of that era be undone? Will use of force destroy progress toward rule of law and democracy?
