I INITIALLY THOUGHT JUAN COLE WAS THINKING TOO HARD

He wrote that Islamic terrorists want to create hatred and fear of Muslims so they can get more support from non-radical Muslims:

The horrific murder of the editor, cartoonists and other staff of the irreverent satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, along with two policemen, by terrorists in Paris was in my view a strategic strike, aiming at polarizing the French and European public. ... Al-Qaeda wants to mentally colonize French Muslims, but faces a wall of disinterest. But if it can get non-Muslim French to be beastly to ethnic Muslims on the grounds that they are Muslims, it can start creating a common political identity around grievance against discrimination.

I thought this was giving too much credit to the extremists but I later recalled the attempt by Muslim extremists to start a war between India and Pakistan a few months after the US invaded Afghanistan:

MICHAEL KREPON: Well, I think we ought to say a few words of praise for Pervez Musharraf. I’ve not always done that, but he’s been the most stand-up Muslim leader in the globe in facing up to terror. He has vastly changed Pakistani policy, a complete 180 with respect to Afghanistan. And he tried for a while to maintain a distinction between terrorists in Afghanistan and freedom fighters in Kashmir. But that distinction is very hard to hold.

And what’s happened is that the so-called freedom fighters in Kashmir have begun to turn on their patrons. This adds to Musharraf’s difficulties. His interior minister, another army general, who is the point person in this crackdown against extremism, his brother was gunned down in Pakistan about a week ago. The shooting of the Indian parliament on the 13th of December was primarily an attack against the Indian government, but it was secondarily an attack against Musharraf trying to hold his feet to the fire and trying to get him to maintain his allegiance to this Kashmir policy, which is creating great difficulties for the country.