ABSTRACT
This concluding chapter believes that the war on terror can be won. This is more so when the victory over the ISIS in Mosul and Raqqa amounts to the humiliation of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and ISIS’s delusive Caliphate. However, it is recognized here that the taking of the ISIS territory in Mosul and Raqqa, including the killing of any terrorist organization’s leader—as done to Osama bin Laden—does not amount to victory in the war on terror because the terrorist can easily morph, especially in this digital age when the Caliphate can be established digitally and another leader easily found to replace the dead one. Consequently, this chapter recommends that, to win the war on terror, the war must be de-politicized, with the West holding on to its cherished values of not stigmatizing the entire Muslim faith in order to not create the impression that the war is exclusively informed by the clash of civilization. There must also be the leveraging of a collective or coordinated global response. The end justifies the means attitude must also not be adopted; and counter-terrorism must be equally emphasized alongside counter-insurgency.
