Scheuer and the Salafi Stew

In a new Jamestown article, Michael Scheuer has refined some of the arguments he made in May in response to the al-Qaeda-is-almost-defeated meme that has been going around since April. He and I had a brief exchange about it here (look in the comments), so I won’t reprise all of it.  But I do want to offer a counterpoint to his remarks on Saudi Arabia and Salafis. In his new article, Scheuer asserts that the Western press has bought the idea that al-Qaeda is near defeat. Journalists, he says, have bought it because some Islamist ideologues who previously supported al-Qaeda have criticized the organization.  (Scheuer calls these criticisms “recantations,” but only a few of the people he mentions have recanted.) These criticisms, Scheuer says, “are part of a bigger project conducted by several Arab states–led by Saudi Arabia–to make the United States and its allies believe Islamism’s strength is ebbing.”