To repeat once again: each case is different. It could be argued that the killing of Zarqawi was “objectively” counterindicated since his extremism caused more damage to his own cause than his opponents did. It could well be that if Osama and Zawahiri were eliminated the impact would be very limited except perhaps on the psychological level, given the structure of Al Qaeda.

Why have individual leaders been targets of counterterrorism? Partly because of the feeling that for justice to be done, those who committed criminal acts should not go scot free. Partly because the elimination of prominent leaders is a blow to the prestige of terrorist groups even if the practical significance is limited.

I do not think that the references to Sayyid Qutb and Hasan al-Banna are very relevant. These were ideologues preaching ideas which fell on fertile ground. They became martyrs but this was not the main reason why their ideas became influential. Raymond Ibrahim could have gone much further back, for instance to early Christianity and one of its first spokesmen, Tertullian: The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

True, Qutb and Banna preached violence, but not necessarily individual terrorism—it could have been political, collective action as in the case of many other such movements. Terrorism is usually a gamble. Think of the Muslim Brotherhood challenging Hafez Asad. There was no terrorism in Syria after Homs and Hamah. Or the brutal Russian actions taken against the Chechens. They have been quite effective even though there has been no political solution to the underlying problems.

It is not so much the terrorist ideology threatening the West but their weapons. One of the constant and deeply ingrained Western misconceptions concerns the role of violence in this context. Violence, we are told, is of no help against terrorism, which is a struggle for the hearts and minds, etc. It is true, of course, that antiterrorist violence should be accompanied by attempts to find political solutions. This may be possible in some cases but not in others. It is also true that the use of a little violence very often fails. But massive violence usually succeeds. The domestic political resistance against such a course of action is enormous and it will not be taken by democratic countries except if their very existence is at stake. But this belongs to a different chapter.

Walter Laqueur is a member of MESH.