You guys keep thinking I’m making the resentnik leftist point about the West’s historical blame, whereas what I keep saying is that I don’t care who’s to blame, and there’s no excuse for terrorism and targeting incident . There’s plenty of blame to go around, and as you said, Islam and the West have been at each other’s throats for centuries. These are big, bold religions capable of inspiring their practitioners to commit both great and glorious acts and also barbaric, heinous acts, and I’ve been clear I’m in no way making any excuses for terrorism and targeting innocent civilians. My only interest is what the best current strategy is in dealing with Islamic extremism, and so the reason I’m pointing to our history of interference in the Islamic world during the 20th century is not to blame us for anything, but rather, to elucidate this question of whether constant interference is the optimal strategy. My point has been that virtually every instance of U.S. intervention in the Middle East during this century has resulted in tons of blowback, resulting in greater instability and unleashing further resentment and extremism. I’m not arguing for a foolish pacifism. If we’re attacked, we need to defend ourselves, and we need to be proactive about dealing with burgeoning nuclear threats, etc. I’m also not against quick targeted strikes like what Trump did in Syria to send a message to Assad that chemical weapons will not be tolerated. What I’m against is spending trillions on big interventions and nation-building of the sort that gave rise to ISIS or the Islamic Revolution in Iran or instability and extremism in Libya or support for Saudi Arabia, which then funds extremism and terrorism throughout the world. If you disagree with me, what’s your solution?