Via Kevin Drum, an excerpt from an interview with Robert Pape of UChicago that is perhaps apropos to my earlier post. Pape’s claims are that

1. “… overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland.”
2. “In virtually every instance where an occupation has produced a suicide-terrorist campaign, there has been a religious difference between the occupier and the occupied community.”
3. “Once the occupying forces withdraw from the homeland territory of the terrorists, they often stop — and often on a dime.”

The overall argument is that once the physical fact of empire dissolves, support for suicide attacks dissapates. And indeed, the most effective rhetoric by Al-Qaeda and others is focussed on this issue. I’m somewhat dubious that the effect of cultural imperialism can be so easily swept under the rug. On the other hand, it’s a lot easier to live and let live if you don’t have foreign soldiers down the street from you.