Winning the Long War

Saudi efforts to deradicalize their form of Islam in an effort to modernize is vitally important for the world if we are to finally defeat Islamist terrorism.

I've long said that our military actions are a necessary holding action to protect ourselves in the West and to support Moslem states battling terrorists until the Islamic world can resolve their civil war in favor of non-nutballs.

But is the Saudi effort really deradicalizing individual terrorists? I'm not sure that is the metric. Those fanatics might be better treated with guns and prison.

I want the deradicalization to stop the pipeline at the beginning with the young people who are recruited to terrorism. Things could always be worse, can't they? MBS is no prize by Western standards, but by Saudi standards he's a good start.

Nobody should want endless shooting wars. The only way to avoid that is to help the Islamic world win its civil war.