For a long time, the strength of Islamists was measured by how much violence they caused: attacks, land grabs, and the deaths of leaders. That measure doesn’t show the most dangerous things that are happening right now. Islamist groups are now in a new phase where they want legitimacy instead of spectacle and continuity instead of disruption. This change is why Western leaders seem uneasy even when things seem calm. The threat no longer shows itself through chaos. It moves forward by making historical claims, taking control of institutions, and restoring symbols. Today, the most dangerous movements are the ones that seem organized, grounded, and unavoidable. To understand the current tensions in the Middle East, you need to know what this phase shift means. It is also the key to figuring out why Washington is starting to freak out. That basic reframing comes from Dr. David Wurmser’s analysis in the JNS TV episode (see link below).

Dr. David Wurmser made this framework very clear. He is a former senior US government official and expert on the Middle East, has long said that the best way to understand Islamist movements is through their civilizational stories. His work doesn’t look at tactics, but at how these movements see history, decline, and fate. Wurmser has pointed out that Islamists don’t think of modernity as a permanent state. They think of it as an interruption. In Wurmser’s telling, they say that the decline started when Muslims stopped following the rules of early Islam. For Wurmser, restoration is not revolutionary but imitative. This understanding is the basis for the analysis that follows.

Using Wurmser’s diagnosis as a starting point, and following his description of the ‘Sunni problem’ as the emerging threat, we can say that the current time is a revival of Sunni Islam after........

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