I partially agree with the following about the middle east but it does not tell the whole story nor does it explain muslim terrorism in Asia.
Suicide bombers are driven by strategic goals rather than religious fanaticism and the war in Iraq will lead to further terrorist attacks, according to a United States professor who has studied every suicide attack carried out over two decades.
The director of the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism, Professor Robert Pape, has studied every single suicide attack in the world between 1980 and 2003 and has come to some worrying conclusions about the way in which Western democracies are pursuing the fight against terrorists.
While British authorities say they cannot be sure last week's bombings in London were suicide attacks, Professor Pape says he is certain Al Qaeda is responsible.
"The London bombings are part of Al Qaeda's strategic logic that they have been pursuing with increasing vigour since 9/11," Professor Pape said.
"The strategic logic which holds these attacks together is not religion but a specific strategic goal - to compel the United States and other Western states with forces on the Arabian peninsula to pull those forces out.
"The London attacks are simply the next step in Al Qaeda executing its strategic logic."
Homeland
Professor Pape says his work is strong evidence that religion is not the main driver of suicide attacks.
"Dying to Win is the first book to collect the complete set of every suicide attacker for Al Qaeda, that is the 71 individuals from 1995 to early 2004 who actually killed themselves to carry out Osama's [bin Laden] attacks," he said.
"We have not only the number but we have the name and nationality and other demographic information of 67 of the 71.
"The data shows that they come overwhelmingly from Sunni Muslim countries where the United States has stationed combat forces since 1990, on the territory that the terrorists prize as their homeland.
"We have even more information with this regard. If it really was Islamic fundamentalism that was driving it, we'd expect that the largest Islamic fundamentalist countries in the world would produce Al Qaeda suicide terrorists. In fact, we find that that's not true.
"Of those 67 that I just told you about, none have come from Iran. Iran is certainly every bit as Islamic fundamentalist as Saudi Arabia yet has never produced an Al Qaeda suicide terrorist.
"Sudan, a population of 21 million, almost the same as Saudi Arabia, whose philosophy of Islamic fundamentalism is so congenial to Osama bin Laden that he chose to live there for three years in the 1990s [but] Sudan has never produced an Al Qaeda suicide terrorist.
"This is really quite strong evidence that what's really the main mobilisation appeal of those Al Qaeda terrorists who are most lethal, who are most willing to kill us, is really coming from the presence of foreign troops on the Arabian peninsula."
Occupation
Professor Pape says religion does play a role in suicide attacks but only once a foreign occupation is involved.
"The occupations where there was a religious difference between the foreign occupier and the local community - those are the ones that have escalated to suicide terrorism.
"Once you have the physical presence of foreign combat forces plus a religious difference, that allows the terrorist leaders to demonise the occupier in an especially stark way."
Professor Pape says that while Osama bin Laden's religious statements may attract more attention, he has also written extensively on the presence of US forces on the Arabian peninsula.
He says democracies are the primary target of suicide bombers because they are seen as "soft", in that civilian deaths could lead to public pressure to withdraw troops.
