In some places, he unwittingly depicts Muslims as children full of irrational hate for the grownups. Ludicrously, Americans have brought terror on themselves by failing to address the issues of tolerance and pluralism which allegedly define al-Qaeda and their like. The focus on Osama bin Laden, Esposito thinks, served to distort "the diverse international sources and the relevance of one man". In other places, he writes terror down as "much like other violent crime", the sort of thing all big cities undergo. Yasser Arafat's call for jihad was comparable to a literacy campaign or the fight against Aids. The description of Hamas as "a community-focused group that engages in honey, cheese-making and home-based clothing manufacture" would surprise Israelis under missile attacks from Gaza.

The Arab Spring, the spread of the Muslim Brothers, civil war in Syria, Iranian imperialism, the killing and persecution of Christians in Islamic countries, are so many day-by-day refutations of Esposito's fanciful interpretation of events. As the corpses pile up, people draw their own conclusions. Useful idiots who excused such tragic outcomes are then remembered, if at all, as psychological curiosities.