can be sustained. In 2001, in a book that was published before the full impact of 9/11 had been absorbed by the culture, journalist Robin Wright argued that Iranian fundamentalism was not solely responsible for spreading terror in the West, since decades of Western policy had fueled resentment among Muslims and since the failed political regimes of the region have left Muslims with few outlets other than religious ones to express their frustrations. That, too, has been traditional, since virtually every century has witnessed a recrudescence of fundamentalism. Even so, writing in 2001, she explains, the current "Islamic crusade" more than any other single trend threatens "the interests of Arab, Israeli, Western, and, to a lesser degree, Eastern governments. Nor has any movement sparked such visible fear" (Wright, 2001, p. 20).
White explains that Islamist terrorism gained momentum with the Iranian Revlution in the late 1970s, compounded by the civil war in Lebanon in the early 1980s. The creation of Hizbollah in Lebanon by Shiites took its example partly from Iran and indeed was an Iran client, later affiliating with a terrorist group called Islamic Jihad, an offshoot of Egypt's long-lived but ever-shifting Muslim Brotherhood. Whereas Hizbollah's tactics evolved into open (and apparently permanent) confrontation with Israel in Lebanon and elsewhere, Islamic Jihad took on a cell structure and secrecy. Suicide bombing was raised to something of a high art during the Lebanon conflict, and it was accompanied with high-profile kidnappings of Westerners as well as murders of Israeli military and civilian personnel--all the while opposing the Middle East peace process sponsored by the U.S. While White makes the point that Iran probably sponsors IJ, the group is more loosely confederated than such sponsorship would suggest.
Hamas was the specifically Palestinian response to the peace process and to the Palestine question in general. Its f...