In Friday’s National Journal Article Jonathan Rauch points out why everyone’s struggling to define the conflict we are in, and I think his observation is extremely important. We aren’t going to win, nor can we discredit the enemie’s ideology if we don’t define it better. This article went somewhat unremarked then because the net was reverbating to the “unorchestrated” confessions of six generals, and the new leaf turned by Patrick Moore. I think folks should take a look now that the furors have died down.

No single definition prevails, but here is a good one: Jihadism engages in or supports the use of force to expand the rule of Islamic law. In other words, it is violent Islamic imperialism. It stands, as one scholar put it 90 years ago, for “the extension by force of arms of the authority of the Muslim state.”

Jonathan Rauch, National Journal