In Winds of Change, David Blue discusses the West's grand strategy for fighting terrorism:

What we do about this, basically, is seek (or seek to manufacture) allies in the Muslim world. These allies by and large are still committed to our subjugation, but they believe in tactics that in the short term are less offensive to us. As Charles Krauthammer said, their line is: cartoons of Muhammed are unacceptable, as is, in the long run, the violation of any taboo Islam imposes on us - but in the meantime, please don't burn that embassy. "Our" Muslims uphold the principle that Muslim domination must be maintained by fear and by high costs imposed on those who want to convert out of Islam - but they are politically flexible enough to allow one particular Christian convert in a very high profile case to escape with his life. And so on. So these are the people we try to make win...

..That means we agree to the grinding down of polytheists of all stripes, most obviously Animists in Africa and Hindus in India and globally. We agree to the grinding down of Christians everywhere the shadow of Islam falls, in Indonesia, in Egypt, in other parts of Africa, in other parts of the world. We accept the bloody scourging and diplomatic slow grinding down of Israel, and of Jews in general. In short, the swift or slow subjugation and destruction of everything that could compete for turf with Islam happens with our tacit consent.

..We haven't asked ourselves how often empowering your enemies in the hope that they will then voluntarily reform themselves so as not to beat you and so as not to continue successfully to extract concessions from you works, historically.

The average five year old would realize that this is a stupid strategy. As a matter of fact, the stupidity of this 'strategy' is unmatched in history. We're reasonably educated, we're intelligent enough to feed and clothe ourselves - so, why are we doing this? It can't all be blamed on political correctness.

This 'grand strategy' was originally called the 'Green Belt Strategy' - and it was the reason for Carter's lame response to the hostage crisis in Iran. Amir Taheri tells us how and why Carter screwed everything up:

Carter had decided to support Khomeini in the context of the so-called "Green Belt" strategy developed by National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. That strategy was based on the assumption that the United States and its allies were unable to contain the Soviet Union, then expanding its zone of influence into Africa, the Indian Ocean region and, through left-leaning regimes, in Latin America. To counter that expanding threat, Brzezinski envisaged the creation of a string of Islamic allies that, for religious and political reasons, would prefer the United States against the "godless" Soviet empire...

...The second stage in Brzezinski's grand strategy was to incite the Muslim peoples of the Soviet Union to revolt against Moscow and thus frustrate its global schemes.The second stage in Brzezinski's grand strategy was to incite the Muslim peoples of the Soviet Union to revolt against Moscow and thus frustrate its global schemes.

Khomeini called Brzezinski's grand strategy 'behaving like a headless chicken'. But Brzezinski's plan worked against the Soviets in Afghanistan; supposedly, our Wahhabi allies in Saudi Arabia helped us defeat the Soviets. As a result, we're still using the Carter/Brzezinski strategy, even after 9/11.

We're still supporting Islamist allies in the hope that we can use them to intimidate the commies. The realpolitikers think we're manipulating the Islamists, but they're wrong; the Islamists are using us. They've learned our divide-and-conquer routine pretty well, and they're using it against us. Whenever we annoy the Saudis, they go running to the Russians or the Chinese. Our Sudanese allies in the war against terrorism use the Chinese as a threat. Iran uses Russia.

Brzezinski's grand strategy has allowed a bunch of zealots, terrorist/extortionists and second-rate crooks to gain more money and power than they ever dreamed. There is no reason to tolerate these militarily weak enemies or their paramilitary terrorist forces. The world needs oil, but no one needs these zealots and crooks.

By the way, why are we still fighting commies? Did the Red Menace slaughter Americans on American soil in an unprovoked act of war? No, our Saudi allies did. Did Russia pay for the attacks? No, our allies in the UAE and Saudi Arabia did. And the Iranians did too. But if we strike at Iran, we'll make the Russians mad. Divide and conquer.

We tolerate the Islamists because we think we need them to 'protect' us from the commies and the terrorists. We fail to realize that they're inciting our feud with Russia and China. They're also supporting the terrorists. Without everyone's Islamist 'allies' terrorism wouldn't thrive, it would wither.