Overestimating Al Qaeda

Matthew Parris explodes some popular myths about our erstwhile enemies:

We are hugely overestimating our supposed enemy. We are
overlooking the fractures and potential fractures within it. Even if we were not
— even if Islamism really were a great, fearsome and growing beast — cynics
would say that we in Europe and America would be best advised to let its most
implacable enemies shed their blood and money confronting its advance. In
Chechnya, in Southeast Asia, with China, and all across that swath of nations
ending in -stan, the struggle between Islam and its rivals is one from which the
West can stand aside, leaving both sides to an expensive and wasteful scrap. The
Chinese and the Russians are infinitely more savage than we dare
be.

This is a battle Islamism cannot win. Fundamentalist Islam
is a medieval force. It has little to contribute to modern business, science or
government, and subsists uneasily in today’s world. Profoundly and essentially
reactionary, it hardly creates, innovates or invents, and appears chronically
disorganised and prone to internal division and distrust. Islam in its more
convinced forms may even be in its death throes — it is too early to
say.

We should stand well clear.

I agree except with that last sentence. Remember when we stood clear of Afghanistan after the Cold War?