My guess?

As much as anyone else.

Here is a description of Arabs themselves discussing their problems:

“We Arabs are at the bottom of everything — at the bottom of every index: literacy, capitalism, the rights of women. Everything. In our countries, we have cults of personality, dictatorships, dynasties . . . Where is democracy? Where is rotation in office?

“In the past, extremist Islam was unusual; now it is usual. In the Soviet Union, South Africa, South Korea, there was restructuring. But not in our region. We have no Gorbachev, we have no de Klerk, we have no Kim Dae-jung.

The vast majority of our people are chromosomally reasonable and moderate. And the human spirit must be unleashed here.”

More:

An Arab intellectual says, “In our region, we have those who are hardliners for reform and those who are against reform; and we have hardliners against peace and those who are willing at least to consider peace. Unfortunately, the hardliners for reform are also the hardliners against peace.”

In other words, these are Islamists — as I understand it — who want to shake up entrenched regimes and make government more accountable to the people. They also, of course, want to make war.

The intellectual says, “Those who are both hardline for reform and hardline for peace are in a tiny, tiny minority.”

Which alas explains a lot.