I'm half wondering whether Gorbachev's analysis might not mean the entire thing's out of date. He postulates that the extremism nowadays is actually coming from the commercial world fighting amongst itself, for example the Russian oligarchs driving Putin and the US - well, it hardly needs saying. The position in the Muslim world's less clear, but it does look very much as though it's the Arab business circle driving the terrorist agenda too. Bin Laden is a major Saudi business, I had a near run-in this summer with one of the Al-Khalifas (Bahrein/Dubai) who's wanted for human rights abuse.
If so, will we end up in the Japanese position of corporate sell-out for simple survival?