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Indeed, a central premise of the "peace process" was that because the United States was the world's only superpower, rational actors — Arafat, Assad, etc. — recognized they had no choice but to come to terms with Washington and its ally Israel. Only Islamic militants lacked the rationality to comprehend that.

Of course, these assumptions proved tragically wrong. The "secular" Arafat never made peace with Israel, and he proved quite capable of working with the "fundamentalist" Hamas. The same for "secular" Syria, which hosts the likes of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, while Hezbollah's activities in Lebanon, are possible only because Damascus allows them.

This division between "secular" and "fundamentalist" is not meaningful.

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Ping for your consideration. Ms. Mylroie, as SOD Rumsfeld might say, doesn't do tact.

Mylroie could not be more on-target. The perfect example for the claim that one should not be confused by the use of "secular" and "fundamentalist" is the activity that has occurred in Sudan since 1990. Khartoum has been used by so-called secularists like Arafat, Hamas, and Iraqi intelligence to meet with islamists leaders from Al Qaida, Islamic Jihad, and a plethora of like-minded groups. Together, and with the approval of the Sudan government they plotted activities in Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, and the Balkans.

Today the Hamas office is still operational in Khartoum, and it still serves as a meeting ground for so-called secularists and Islamist fundamentalists. It is one reason that the Sudan has not been taken off the State Department's list of nations who abet State-sponsored terrorism.

"Arafat, Assad, etc. — recognized they had no choice but to come to terms with Washington and its ally Israel. Only Islamic militants lacked the rationality to comprehend that.

Of course, these assumptions proved tragically wrong. The "secular" Arafat never made peace with Israel, and he proved quite capable of working with the "fundamentalist" Hamas. The same for "secular" Syria, which hosts the likes of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, while Hezbollah's activities in Lebanon, are possible only because Damascus allows them.

This division between "secular" and "fundamentalist" is not meaningful. Princeton's learned Bernard Lewis has cautioned that this is a Western distinction that does not exist in Islam. Nonetheless, many analysts persist in making it.

Moreover, such analysts habitually invert the relationship between states and groups, as the latter, particularly al Qaeda, is their focus. Yet states are the primary actors in international affairs. They control territory and have the power to tax and otherwise raise revenues. The nastiest of them have multiple intelligence services and major unconventional-weapons programs — biological, chemical, and nuclear. Indeed, senior administration officials have repeatedly warned that the threat is terrorist states working with and hiding behind terrorist groups to commit acts of unconventional terrorism.

Most probably, the Istanbul bombings were the work of Iraqi intelligence, in concert with Islamic militants. As I have written — at length, throughout the 1990s — Iraqi intelligence worked with and hid behind Islamic militants to attack the United States. Now it appears that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was, in fact, an Iraqi-intelligence agent. Most recently, The Weekly Standard has reported the extensive contacts between al Qaeda and Iraqi intelligence, while author Ed Epstein has provided fascinating new details on the Czech claim that Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi-intelligence agent five months before the 9/11 attacks."

We see the intentional blindness that has permeated the State Department and much of the CIA since the Carter Days and was inforced during the Clintoon Days in the above.

The false belief that secular Islamofascists really don't cause problems and the complete inability of the Rats in state, CIA, our Senate and the liberal media to see the terrorist links between Iraq, Iran and Syria. They never want to blame the thugs in control of these Islamofascist countries.