A War Americans Don't Have To Fight

Friedman thoughtfully suggests that the War on Terror is, actually, not an American war : "Ever since 9/11, I've argued the war on terrorism is really a war of ideas within the Muslim world - a war between those who want to wall Islam off from modernity, and defend it with a suicide cult, and those who want to bring Islam into the 21st century and preserve it as a compassionate faith. This war of ideas is not one that the West can fight, only promote. Muslims have to fight it from within. That is what is at stake in the Iraqi elections. This is the first great battle in the post-9/11 war of ideas."

In this view, Americans are the collateral damage in radical Islam's fight to control their own sphere of influence. Their tactic is to poison relations between the West and Islamic countries, so that those inclined to a modernist, western-oriented and personal religion feel forced to embracing militant fundamentalism.