That's a relief

"Can al-Qaeda be Defeated?" asks a recent opinion piece on the attacks in Mumbai. On the ideological level, according to this author, things are looking up:

A more fundamental question is whether al-Qaeda can be defeated. On one level, the answer is yes. The puritanical vision of a unified Islamic theocracy at permanent war with nonMuslims no longer appeals even to alienated young Muslims. Not only is its anachronistic conception of a new caliphate unfeasible; in Bradford as well as Baghdad, Muslims find the carnage orchestrated from caves on the Afghan border an insult to their faith.

Except for the ones that volunteered for the operation that occasioned this article, of course.

Tags: Mumbai, terror