Fallacy about war on islamic extremism

I think you’d agree that a doctor acting in this way is either deeply incompetent or flat out crazy. Either that, or she has bigger plans on her mind than actually curing you, like say, pumping up the profits at a cardiology practice where she is a silent partner. I am deliberately using this fictional doctor when I consider the actions undertaken in the Middle East by the US and its allies over the last 14 years.

We are told again and again, in both explicit and implicit ways, that the “free world” is locked in an existential struggle with Islamic extremists in that region and the rest of the world. Assuming that this is, in fact, the case, a number of strategic emphases in that battle are—or at least should be—axiomatic. The first would be a clear priority on attacking those places in the Islamic world where Islamic fundamentalism is most powerful and well financed. The second would be to actively prop up those governments where the cultures of secularism, and from there, inter-group tolerance, are most highly developed.