I'm going to begin addressing the content of Fareed Zacharia GPS and add others as the talk shows progress in this post.
There's the matter of a Somali author of the book "Heretic" (Ayaan Hirsi Ali) who is about the business of claiming that Islam needs a large scale reformation similar to the Christian Reformation who doesn't realize, apparently, that this is what Wahabism was and still is. Reformationists are what ISIS thinks they themselves are. Wahabism is, of course, the Saud version of Sunni Islam, and both sides of this argument--Wahabism and the Heretic--overlook the significance of how the Battle of the Camel was resolved so that the Califate Empire could be established in early Islamic history, and what Mohammed said about internal divisions reaching the number of 99, and how, after the Battle of the Camel, Islam touts Pillars separate from all Sharia, both Sunni and Shiya.
The House of Saud rose to power by waging war on fellow Muslims in the first place, instituting Wahabism as a proper fundamentalist "reform" in the beginning of its rule, and we, today, mustn't forget that--and yet, it seems, we have, and by "we" I'm including all historian experts, even the Islamic historians currently making the talking head circuits these days.
The U.S. would make a grave error in following the Heretic's advice because it's an ally of Wahabist Saudi Arabia, which claims that Wahabism is legitimate Islam while the President says Wahabist ISIS is not legitimate Islam as if he's in a position to issue a fatwah on that matter, and he isn't. Alliance with Saudi Arabia says he can't, besides. Additionally, no Saudi can make such a fatwah simply because a fatwah of that kind would announce to the world that the Saudis themselves are illegitimate.
"Religion of peace" is primarily the Sufi position and in the current rise of ISIS, it's the Sufis that are cast aside and in terms of reform, the Sufis hold the key to resolving the issue. In Zacharia's program, he questioned the role of The West/U.S. in either resolving or aggravating the situation in the Middle East, mentioning how the U.S. has a long track record of propping up secularist dictators but didn't draw a connection between U.S. ME policy and "U.S. interests" in the form of the petroleum industry which, on the whole, backs the U.S. interventionist policies in what it props up, and in the process overlooked a rather old book on that subject which also explains how the policy cuts the legs off of any claim to U.S. exceptionalism.
Try reading the 1958 book, "The Ugly American", on which a 1963 film was based. This is a good time to resurrect it.
Supplemental--column on Yemen's Islah Party
Sunday Evening Addition: BBC Newsnight comment about Saud family being in a family business sparks this comment from me: Everybody who has been told that the main difference between Shiites and Sunnis is the policy of succession, and whereas Saud Wahabism is Sunni, their dynasty belies that claim, and they're not the only Sunni dynasty out there. One can look at Iran and see Shiites that are NOT dynastic, so any Muslim making the aforementioned claim is a liar.
Elite Eight UPDATE: Ya, I'm sad about the Cats, but today, Duke put on a show worth watching, and they go on to the Final Four. Duke's had a consistently high quality hoops program, too, so it would have been a surprise if they didn't make it...just like it was a disappointment that the Cats didn't make it. Betcha Duke and Kentucky make it to the Big Dance.
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