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It is one of the few things on which right and left agree. Whether it is the right’s obsession with getting Obama to say the words “radical Islamic terrorism,” or the left’s insistence on “staying true to our values,” the unifying principle is that there is a solution to this problem — that on the other side of the present madness, whether by force of arms or intelligence or sheer steadfastness, lies peace.

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Indeed, the same basic optimism animates even the defeatists. All those glum warnings that we are in an “unwinnable” war, all those demands to know, in advance of any commitment of forces, how we will know when “victory” has been achieved, and what our “exit strategy” might be, are premised on the assumption that there is an alternative: that if we give up the fight, so will they.

Alas it is not so. Whether or not we choose to be at war with ISIL they are at war with us. And there is very little we can do to change this.

We cannot simply defeat them in battle, as we might a conventional state: whatever progress we have made against ISIL in Iraq and Syria seems only to have diverted its energies into attacks overseas. Nor can we appease them, as we might a conventional terrorist group, even if we were of a mind to: for they have no demands, or none that we can possibly meet, such is the fantastic, end-times nature of their beliefs.

Nor can we just harden our defences, as if we could anticipate every possible avenue of attack. Protect the most prominent public buildings or infrastructure, and watch as restaurant diners and concert-goers are mown down. Guard against bombs and hijacked airplanes, and see AK-47s and trailer trucks used instead. Close the borders, and find yourself beset by homegrown jihadis. Focus on known terrorist profiles, and the enemy takes the form of “lone wolf” attackers, with no necessary connection to ISIL.