Violent Islamist extremism in global context: Statement to the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs

The metaphor of a staircase to terrorism provides the political, economic, cultural and socio-psychological framework for understanding the development and adoption of a fanatical Islamist ideology that is one of the factors associated with radicalization and terrorism. The staircase metaphor points to the necessity of both short-term and long-term anti-terrorism strategies, aimed respectively at people on the higher and lower floors. The most important long-term challenge is to resolve the New Global American Dilemma, bringing US foreign policy practices more in line with expressed ideals. A second challenge is to implement omniculturalism to more effectively integrate Muslims in the European Union, where the threat of home-grown terrorism is more serious than in the United States.