Is this the dawn of the third world war?

Few weeks ago, I read an article in The Sunday Times titled “If this is third world war, we’re losing” (by Martin Ivens) and I was surprised by some commentaries from several political personalities collected by Ivens. Anyway, I recommend read the article if you’re interested in this subject.

I don’t wish to criticize Ivens in this post because I am not a qualified opinion and my knowledge on International Affairs have decreased (I need up to date it) since I finished my master. So my main intention is to expose my thoughts about the scary image of another big world.

However, there are some mess in the information about the Islamic World. It’s complicated and I am not an expert in it, but we can’t confuse between the theocratic regime of Iran, the Baaz (Baas or Ba’athist) regime of Syria (and the former Saddam Hussein’s Iraq), the terrorist groups in Middle East, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco or Algeria (from different ideologies) or the Taliban movement (with Al Qaeda like main instrument of action). United States and United Kingdom treat to group all this trends in one: Islamo-fascist.

This description is unreal, simplistic and opportunist, but I can understand that they can’t explain the actual targets of their foreign policy. But is this policy well-planned? Is this policy realistic? What are the consequences going to be? It could be the third world war? Are they prevented for new terrorist operations? Is the Islamic World attacking or defending? Could the Islamic World combine against the Western World like an adversarial in a big war? Is the Islamic World such a radical as the television reflects (for example with the demonstrations against the Pope)?

In my opinion:

a)This policy hasn’t been well-planed. The International Community has failed in keeping the peace in Iraq and Afghanistan, solving the Palestine-Israeli conflict or starting the democratization of the Muslim countries.

b)It hasn’t been realistic at all. And the probe is that they have had to re-orient their foreign policy after the failures cropped. First, they have to cut the financial sources of these groups.

c)Consequences:
a.more attacks to Western and Muslim countries,
b.increased worry in the public opinion,
c.ascension of the extreme-right parties in Europe (not only for this question but mainly for the increasing number of legal and illegal emigrants) that will stagnate the European Construction,
d.radicalisation in the Islamic World and in the Islamic communities in the Western countries (ascension the Islamist parties in more Muslim countries),
e.others (unknown to me).

d)I don’t think so. This kind of expressions is used to convince the public opinion like “Star Wars” for the military programme of Regan Administration or the unreal “Evil Axis”. It’s a war, but this a war of ideas (or dialectic war) against the radical Islam. Please, let’s change the chip.

e)Absolutely not.

f)In my opinion, when there is a conflict, the Muslims defend themselves attacking as much as they can (for example, if the Israelis attack with helicopters, they use bomb-kamikazes). They don’t realize that they aren’t going to win anything with this attitude and they are feeding the hate and the pain. This is probably because of the concept of Jihad.

g)I don’t think so. There are a lot of differences between the different sects and movements in the Islamic World, among religious and non religious movements (we can’t forget the recent incident in the US Embassy in Syria, when the Syrian forces avoided a serious terrorist attack). However, there are common points and common enemies and if the things would go really bad, I could change my mind about this question. And the radical groups know how to enrol frustrated people for their targets.

h)Well, it’s worrying to watch people in these countries downloading their hate and fury against every western symbol. They can’t stand and understand the freedom to express ideas about their religion. For example, if the Pope says a confusing commentary, the radical islamist Muslims kill a nun and her bodyguard in Somalia, put an explosive grenade in a Christian Church in Palestine and burn dummies that symbolises or ridicules the Pope (for a start). And it will likely see that kind of extreme demonstrations here, in Europe, in few years (in countries with big Muslims communities, like UK, France, Germany or even Spain). Besides, there will be a strong fight inside the Islam among radical and secular trends.

These answers can be very simply and they can and must be nuanced and I hope to know more of this transcendental question. Please, recommend books or articles.