I think he's just pointing out the obvious:
The effort to moderate the conflict between cultures, by enabling rational voices on both sides of the divide to be heard, appears doomed. The opinions of the informed and sensible will continue to be drowned out by the witticisms of those proud of their ignorance and cynicism; the most subtle and obscure issues will be transformed into mass-market products for the consumption of lumpen intellectuals. The religious instinct toward meditation, withdrawal from the noise of the world, and refinement of spirituality will be crushed in the chaos of rhetoric.
Von Clausewitz said that war is an extension of politics by other means, but in our age we may say terrorism is a form of rhetoric.