[Kozak]

Much better to characterize extremists as those who do not really abide by the tenets of Islam; this way we not only have allies, but we also isolate our enemy down to a much more manageable number (thousands/millions(?) vs. billions.)

Great. Wonderful.

Except:
There is NO "official definition of Islam" and when you try to pin Muslims down regarding the "unislamic nature" of the terrorists, you will not get them to flat out reject them as UNislamic.
We have NOT been able to isolate them in the Muslim world, they have a huge base of support among the masses of muslims worldwide, if you think otherwise you are kidding yourself.
If we are in fact ( and NOT of our own accord ) at war with most of Islam, refusing to recognise that fact is basically a psychotic reaction. Make believe is not a sustainable strategy for defence.

[browardchad]

If we are in fact ( and NOT of our own accord ) at war with most of Islam, refusing to recognise that fact is basically a psychotic reaction. Make believe is not a sustainable strategy for defence.

We're at war with Islam, the ideology. By using the term "characterize" I think Snerfling was conceding that point. The strategy is to at least attempt to separate non-observant (i.e. non-fundamentalist) Muslims from the jihadist ideology.

In many ways it psychotic, but then again, so is fundamentalist Islam.