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I do not believe that we are in a religious war. I believe that we are in a war with individuals that hate our country, our people, and our way of life, and that these individuals are using their interpretation of the Islamic faith, among other things, to rally support.

We can hope it is so. It definitely seems this way. I think, however, there is more to it than meets the eye. We have 'individuals' who are using their interpretation of Islam. Yes. Not that many if compared to 1.2bn of total Muslim population. We have 1.2bn Muslim population who if do not openly support terrorism, then silently ignore it for a variety of reasons: some of them are sympathetic to terrorism, some of them are too afraid to protest, some of them are so brainwashed by their media, religious leaders and governments, that they don’t know what is really happening.

We also have some European states that lost their power last century. They would give a lot to get the lost influence back. Unfortunately, the traditional European approach to the international politics is to transfer the contention to some other places (Middle East and North Africa are the most traditional places). The typical approach is to find the strongest power and start chipping away its strength. The traditional methods include covertly supporting the enemies of the current power, agitprop directed at their own population whereby they depict the current power as some sort of subhumans that are morally and intellectually inferior to them.

The economically and politically dysfunctional regimes of the Muslim world (with probably one or two exceptions) create the most favorable circumstances for such power quests. The US is not exactly alone in this fight, there are allies. However, the world needs to change really a lot before the allies can be considered a powerful counterbalance to their opponents.

Then there is always Russia. Those guys are on the mission of their own. They are only looking after their own interests, making and breaking the alliances as they see fit without any moral constraints.

I am inclined to treat these muddy waters as a beginning of the Cold War II:

Some of the European states are on the quest of creating so-called multipolar world.
The only opponent they have (at the moment) is the US.
The EU states have an opportunity to exploit the political and economical circumstances for their advantage (surely, a very shortsighted policy).
The points of contention are again the Economy and Ideology.

We have some advantage compared to the previous Cold War: the arms race hasn’t started yet (it is on the way - big time). The only way to move forward is to nip this in the bud. I do agree, it is not a religious war, but a war where the religion will be used (alongside with other things) to try to bring the US down.