This message was self-deleted by its author

[KingCharlemagne]

25. Juan Cole had a very interesting take on these Paris attacks -- that the attackers hoped to

provoke France's majority to engage in anti-Muslim pogroms, so as to motivate the largely apolitical and non-observant Muslims in France (some 5 million of them) to become radicalized in reaction. The motivation for the attacks was, in Cole's words, to 'sharpen the contradictions'.

Since the attackers are dead, I don't suppose we will ever be able to verify Cole's assertions regarding this attack. But we can say for certain that bin Laden's attacks on America succeeded beyond his wildest dreams by provoking an imperial over-reaction that led to the radicalization of many Muslims who, one can speculate, might have remained quiescent absent the outrages of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and their like.

In Cole's view, these Paris attackers then, are similarly using Islam as a fig-leaf behind which to conceal their geo-political intentions. Even if one of those intentions is the re-establishment of the Caliphate, that ambition strikes me as largely secular, i.e., non-religious.