While nothing seems to be working to contain international terrorists - neither armed retaliation nor economic stringency - the only hope is being sought in better proliferation of democracy. If this system of polity can be made a fancy of middle-east Islamic countries then terrorism and terrorists can be effectively isolated from their bases. This sentiment is slowly but surely gaining some ground since the barbaric incidents of Mumbai in November last year. The whole world feels more concerned now than ever before to bring terrorist activities to an end. To achieve this end, people are leaning and believing more on the power of democratic traditions and institutions to checkmate ‘Jihadi’ ideologies and ideologues. A number of points have been introduced by author of the widely acclaimed book ‘The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy’, Dr Walid Phares.

In an interview with the German monthly magazine ‘Konkret’, Dr Phares notes that Democratic Revolution is best against Jihadi Terror. Before going into his analysis, Dr. Phares does a threadbare checking of the attacks which shook the whole peace-loving world. He discovers that while Mumbai attacks had a continuity in the pattern of execution but it has shown enough departures from the past jihadi attacks carried out in India as also somewhere else. However, a clear intention to lead investigators across the border was the motive behind these attacks.

The attacks hinted at two self conflicting motivational points. First it was meant to bring the Kashmir issue to the fore again but again that was just apart of the whole scenario.When the two nuclear countries mobilize against each other, obviously the besieged Taliban and al Qaeda in Waziristan triumphs. These two organizations were this time joined by Pakistan-based terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) that has a declared anti-India tilt of thought and a fancy for the deadly al-Qaeda. Seven years earlie, a court of Virginia tried and sentenced a terrorist group Virginia Paintball Jihad for its alliance with LeT and for imparting terror related training to jihadis in Virginia. Pakistan is trying to exploit this fact when it contends that Mumbai attacks were not the handiwork of Pak-based elements alone. The West and some Asian giants have totally failed to understand this nexus in its right perspective. While some think jihadism is a social movement, some others totally overlook the world ensnaring proportions that it sets out for itself as a goal.
He concludes with the refrain that in the end, there are no military solutions to this conflict. The Jihadists will be marginalized by the rise of democratic forces promoting a progressive agenda. When women, students, artists, liberal intellectuals and even labor unions coalesce and rise in the region, the fundamentalists retreat. However, authoritarian regimes, holding sway in most of these countries, have little interest in seeing democratic change taking place.