ABSTRACT
The commonly accepted knowledge in the administration and in the Pentagon is that this is a religious war, that these men blow themselves up for God. All the investigations into who the terrorists are and what inspires them are clear about the fact that their primary inspiration is not religious, but political. The study of 300 suicide bombers made by professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago found that virtually none of them was religiously inspired; they were communists, socialists, Muslim Brothers, Arab nationalists, but above all, they were inspired by Western occupation and dominance of their lands. It is becoming more and more clear that if anything besides Armageddon is to come out of our present involvement in the Middle East, then we must embrace the political argument while keeping an eye on the religious one—but swiftly adjust our policies in order to change the situation.
