| What you are measuring is merely the state of chaos of the middle east post iraq war and arab spring. If you look at the history of terrorism in Europe for instance, before the 70s it was mostly independentist mvts / de-colonisation related. 70s to early 80s was mostly far left terror attacks. Mid 80s state sponsored terrorism (Libya, Iran). 90s to now, islamist terrorism. Islamists were blowing bombs in the metro in Paris in the 90s, and tried a 9/11 style plane attack on Paris in 1994 [1]. Islamism is a worldwide phenomenon, like communism in its time. If you go through every single muslim country from Marocco to Indonesia, the largest or second largest political party is an islamist party, or the islamists are in power, or they have been outlawed after taking too much power, or they are one of the major party to a civil war. Terrorism is a side effect of this rise in islamism, like the red brigades, RAF, etc were to communism. So no, it’s not just a reaction to the war in Iraq. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_8969 |
And what allowed Islamism to rise and prosper like that over these past decades?
The power vacuum created by the removal of Saddam in an illegal invasion? The resulting unleashed sectarian violence?
You can't just switch around cause and effect like that and call it a day. To quote from the 2001 article:
> Moderate Muslim opinion could also easily be swayed against America, predicted Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, head of the Muslim Parliament in Britain, an umbrella group for Muslim organizations. "If they end up killing innocent civilians it will be very unfair," Dr. Siddiqui said. "The problems will arise if people see that justice has not been done."
Now, nearly 2 decades later, we have relentless and ML driven drone warfare [0], torture scandals [1], a US president who is not only condoning it but actively advocating for it. The blatant injustice is done out in the open to see for everybody [2], justified in haphazard "They do not have rights" ways to a point where a US president just declares a "Muslim ban", followed up with pointless legal shenanigans how "it totally isn't a Muslim ban, but a Muslim country ban!", like that's in any way better.
How can you look at all that and deny it contributed to the rise of Islamist sentiments? Don't you think it's kind of telling that you have to summon the good ol "they caught the communism" bug to still justify these US actions?
Is it really that difficult to take a step back and admit: "We've fucked up, we've been going about this the wrong way from the very beginning"? Is doubling down on this oppressive and destructive path really the only way forward from here?
[0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/the-n...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp