From my OMEG (Original Middle East Guy) re last night’s post:

Jonah,
You said:
It reminds me, I’ve always thought that Western public diplomacy could make a bigger deal about how Islamic radicalism wipes out “dissident,” indigenous, forms of Islam. It would have to be done very carefully, and with the right spokesmen, but I think the more it can be demonstrated that Wahabism or Salafism or Jihadism are foreign as opposed to “authentic” forms of Islam in most parts of the world the easier it would be to communicate that we aren’t at war with all Muslims and the easier it would be to separate potential enemies from allies.
Yeah, but. Here’s the problem. Not only is “Arab Islam” frequently viewed as more normative or historically authentic, because of the Prophet being an Arab, but the BILLIONS of dollars our friends the Saudis have distributed over the years have gone a long way into equating “Arab” with “Waḥḥabî” with “authentic.” It’s a false equation on all sides, I think, but it doesn’t mean they haven’t done a good sales job. The massive underwriting of schools, patronage of mosques, huge funds through foundations, and—let’s not forget—their status as Guardians of the Holy Places (to which all Muslims aspire to make the ḥajj), have gone a long way in convincing a lot of the less-lettered and farthest-flung portions of the Muslim world that theirs is the “purest” Islam. Bad news all around.
Could it be countered? Probably. But it’d have to be an indigenous (-appearing?) Muslim phenomenon out of Istanbul or Samarkand or Cairo or someplace which could not only bring intellectual heft but historical prestige to the ballgame and convince people that the Waḥḥabîs/Salafîs are the bad guys that they’ve historically been perceived to be throughout the Muslim world.