When an author articulates views that resonate in the government of the world's greatest power, he deserves attention. When the position he expounds is dangerous, he deserves a response. In an article that appeared on the FT’s Comment page on September 8 about the massacre of schoolchildren in Beslan, William Kristol, the influential editor of the neoconservative publication, The Weekly Standard, provided such an analysis of the terrorist threat. This is my response.

The arguments provided by Mr Kristol are beguilingly simple. We, the forces of civilisation, are confronted by barbarism and should regard jihadist terror - the impulse at work in Beslan - as comparable to the genocidal totalitarianism of a Hitler or a Stalin. We should condemn as appeasers those who seek to address the causes of terrorist acts and place pursuit of the war against terror ahead of a search for a "better diplomacy". We must, above all, join in common cause against our terrorist foes.