"Political Islam is on the march", says William Dalrymle - and it owes its rise to the ballot box rather than the bomb. Since the US invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, Islamist parties have reaped electoral dividends everywhere, from Lebanon, Iraq, Iraq and Palestine to Egypt and Turkey. It's obviously not what the Bush administration had in mind in 2004 when it proclaimed its mission to promote democracy in the Middle East. We now know, and perhaps should have known, that the US cares little for democracy when it doesn't suit their desired outcomes. An entirely pragmatic approach, but which needlessly contrasts with the fanciful rhetoric of the last few years of the "war on terror".

Dalrymple states in the Guardian that while Middle Eastern countries are moving towards election, instead of voting for "liberal secular parties, as the neocons assumed", Muslims have rallied towards the parties most clearly seen to stand up against Western interference. Religious parties, in other words, have come to power "for reasons largely unconnected to religion".

The US response has been to ignore poll victors such as Hamas, but this makes the problem worse. Hamas has arisen from occupation by an expansionist and quite ruthless settler state, namely Israel, which has some formal democratic institutions, and modernised economy facilitated by tremendous US investment (mainly military), but has absolutely no concept at an institutional level, of human rights in the occupied territories, and even within its own, regarding Arabs and diaspora Jews. This is only one example of why context is important when assessing the rise of political Islam. Islam will always remain a powerful transnational force, whether it remains peaceful or violent in its respective communities is a question of external cultural and political pressures.

Peter Rogers of the Oxford Research Group has candidly put what should have been addressed before 2001, “If the Al Qaeda movement is to be countered, then the roots of its support must be understood and systematically undercut.”