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Monday, March 08, 2004

Fundamentalist Islam on the wane 

Fareed Zakaria has an interesting new column arguing that Islamic fundamentalists have found a new enemy to replace the West. That enemy, he says, is Shia Islam. Comparing the 90's, when al Qaeda attacked only "high-profile American targets" like the world trade center and USS Cole, to the past few years, when it has shifted its attacks to soft targets in the Islamic world, Zakaria draws the conclusion that we are winning the war on terror, and that Islamic fundamentalists are looking for a new, less formidable enemy. Matt Yglasias sounds a note of caution, though, pointing out that even if we're winning the war on terror, we shouldn't make the mistake of assuming that we're safe. The possibility of a nuke in a US city is still out there. This begs the troubling question, just what would guarantee our safety?
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