Gabriel, a Lebanese Christian who immigrated to the United States in 1989 and founded the antiterrorist lobby ACT! for America, says core principles of Islam are behind the crusade to subjugate "infidels" throughout the world. But her book is simplistic and shrill. She asserts that Muslim radicals are "overtaking Western Europe" with "riots, rape, murder, beatings and burnings" and contends that "sensitive positions" at the Pentagon are filled with "Muslims about whose background and loyalty we know nothing."

Sciutto, the senior foreign correspondent for ABC News, says political realities in the Middle East have an enormous impact on the recruitment of anti-American terrorists. "Not purely or even principally religious," he argues, Islamic extremism "is the protest movement of choice for a generation of young Muslims."