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On September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden declared "global jihad" on the West. In response to the day's attacks, the United States has waged its own global war on terrorism, which the Pentagon has described as a generational conflict similar to the Cold War. In The Islamic Challenge and the United States, Ehsan Ahrari takes a close look at this ideological conflict, focusing on the Middle East, Africa, and South and Central Asia. Arguing that the war on terrorism is founded on secular fundamentalism (an ideology that envisions Islam as dangerous and volatile because it mixes religion and politics) and the Enlightenment narrative, Ahrari suggests that the US sees global jihadists as absolutist, irrational, obscurantist, and anti-modern. While violence on behalf of the Muslim community - ummah - is thus framed as reprehensible, violence on behalf of the Western nation-state is seen as sometimes necessary and often praiseworthy.