Shocka! Islamic Supremacism Linked to Terrorism

A new study by the US Institute for Peace of polling data from fourteen different Muslim countries finds that support for political Islam strongly correlates with support for terrorism.

The standout finding of the USIP study is that support for an increased role for Islam in politics is correlated with greater support for the use of terrorism, even in countries that already adhere to political Islam:

People who support a strong role for Islam in politics are more likely to also support terrorism. Perhaps more surprisingly, people who perceive Islam to play a large role in the politics of their home country are also more likely to support terrorism. (p. 7)

The USIP study also busts the bubble of radical Islamic apologists who claim that support for terrorism is driven by people living under Islamic dictatorships. What the data shows is that dissatisfaction with Islam’s role in internal politics has very little correlation to attitudes on terror. The study finds that

...dissatisfaction with the role of Islam in one’s own country’s politics is much more weakly correlated with support for terrorism then raw attitudes toward to role of Islam. (p. 7)

Perhaps even more important, the data shows that in these countries the perceived threat to Islam posed by the government plays virtually no role at all in support for terrorism.