Simon Jenkins: The chief threat to world security at present lies in the capacity of tiny groups of political Islamists to goad the West into a rolling military retaliation. Extremists on each side feed off the others' frenzied scenarios so as to garner money and political support for their respective armies of the night. I believe in the robustness of the democracies created in the West over the past half-century. I am not sure that our leaders do. Our leaders would suspend the freedoms of democracy at the bang of a bomb.
