I’d like to see the long line of imams standing up to declare them apostate.
Until then, since they are working to establish the Islamic Caliphate, I’d have to take them at their word.
And this is the problem. Muslims acting with confidence and authority are a powerful magnet to the less-confident and less committed. There is no bright line separating the “moderate” from the jihadist. We have to attract muslims to work with us to destroy the jihadists and we have to attract muslim countries to give us staging ground and bases.
So we have to recognize the existence of muslims who are decent. But we shouldn’t get into the weeds trying to decide what is and isn’t Islam, let them do that.
We should present what is good and right and righteous and contrast it clearly against what is not. We can’t do that trying to speak for Islam. We can do that speaking as Americans whose views are firmly rooted in a Christian world view. It is this Christian foundation that even makes it possible for us to be the magnet we need to be in the opposite direction. Hiding our Christianity only makes our job harder if not ultimately impossible.
“So we have to recognize the existence of muslims who are decent ...”
Good luck with that. A “decent” muslim is a “moderate” muslim, whom all other muslims are required by the Prophet to kill. A muslim is a muslim, like a rose is a rose by any other name. There is only one kind of muslim - all others are either liars, ignorant of Islam, or silently support the jihadis.