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In Iraq, in Iran, within the Palestinian community and around the world, jihadists are being reassessed for their excesses, for the direct and tragic harm suicide terrorism has caused Islam, Islamic shrines and noncombatants of all faiths An ill wind is blowing for jihadists. It is the wind of reason. It is the wind of human conscience. It is the wind of true Islam. And it is bad news for the terrorists. On Wednesday, Osama bin Laden's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, appeared in a videotape vowing revenge for the U.S. killing of a top Al-Qaida commander in Afghanistan. It was not the killing per se which augered poorly for jihadists, but the specific language of al-Zawahiri's threats. Seated next to an assault rifle and backed by a library full of Islamic books, al-Zawahiri chose to speak to a growing chorus of Muslim clerics who have openly criticized jihadists as acting contrary to the teachings of Islam. "So seek help, O Americans and agents of Americans, from those seeking a way out," he intoned, referring to the anti-jihadist clergy. "They will be of no help to you." As Iran prepares to celebrate the 30th anniversary next year of the revolution led by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the world of jihad is fraying at many points and, in the worst symptom of any revolution, beginning to show its age. The same day the Al-Qaida video appeared, senior Iranian cleric Hassan Rowhani strongly criticized President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his verbal assaults against Israel, asking: "Does foreign policy mean expressing coarse slogans and grandstanding?" The day before, an exhaustive Gallup poll of the world's Muslims showed that 93 percent of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims are moderates, and only seven percent are political radicals who condone the September 11 attacks and other subsequent terrorist operations. And the day before that, the Darul-Uloom Deoband Muslim seminary in India, seen as the most influential school for Islamic law in Asia, condemned terrorism as violating the teachings of Islam. Seminary head Maulana Marghoobur Rahman denounced terrorism as completely wrong and contrary to Islam's concept of peace. He was addressing a landmark conference on terrorism that was expected to explicitly ask the Muslim community to stay away from acts of terrorism and from organizations that promote violence in the name of religion. From the dawn of this decade of terrorism, there has been a widely held belief that no matter how the West chose to combat armed Islamists, the extremists would only benefit. Appease them, the reasoning went, and they will take advantage of any and all largess to expand their activities, exploiting a cocktail of democratic freedoms, Western post-imperial guilt and First World technology in order to further their aims, spread their message and kill again and again. Make war on them, on the other hand, and you again play into their hands, as the ideology of martyrdom neutralizes all conventional notions of deterrence, numerical and material superiority, and even the very idea of victory. You can't touch them, the theory held. Success makes them stronger. Pain and despair fuel their struggle. Fanaticism armors their faith. They can outlast you, they will out-populate you, they revel in your pursuit of comforts. They are hard-muscled where you are malleable, motivated where you are resigned, they cannot be bought off, they will stop at nothing and, for dessert, you pay their way every time you stop at the gasoline pump. Or so the theory went. Maybe the theory was wrong. If recent indications are any measure, we may be seeing a turning point in the fortunes of radical Islamist clergy-warlords and terrorist groups who cite Islam as their inspiration. In Iraq, in Iran, within the Palestinian community and around the world, jihadists are being reassessed for their excesses, for the direct and tragic harm suicide terrorism has caused Islam, Islamic shrines and noncombatants of all faiths. Where Islamists have succeeded in taking control of governments in the cases of the former Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and a confused, directionless Gaza - radicals have shown that they know how to topple governments, but have little clue how to run them. If recent indications hold, Islamist terrorism as an ideological brushfire is dimming in its ability to galvanize and electrify. If recent indications hold, Islam itself will be the winnerAs in the days of Noah....
