Idiotic and futile jihad is doomed

Today should be a normal day across Britain – though perhaps a little special for Britain’s mums.

For some it will be breakfast in bed delivered by the kids with dad doing the washing up. For others, Sunday lunch in a favourite restaurant or pub.

Just another typical Mothering Sunday then. And that is how it should be.

That does not mean we have forgotten the horrific events inside and outside Parliament on Wednesday.

It does not mean PC Keith Palmer and the other victims of Khalid Masood’s hate-filled murder spree have faded from our hearts.

We will think of their families and remember that for them there is nothing to celebrate today.

In living our lives normally we underscore the utter and total pointlessness of what that man did. He hurt us, yes. He changed us not one jot.

Throughout history men and women have died for causes they believed in. They were either terrorists or freedom fighters, depending on your point of view.

The independent nations which emerged from under Britain’s yoke were forged in blood – America, Cyprus, India, Ireland, Israel, Kenya, South Africa...

And as many of the tributes following the death of Martin McGuinness go to show, history can revise its opinion.

But history will never see Islamic State as anything other than the ragbag of mad or bad misfits it is.

IS has no political goal beyond some vague idea of a medieval caliphate stretching as far as Spanish holiday resorts, a notion as idiotic as it is unachievable.

IS does not fight for freedom but enslavement. It does not fight for Islam but mangles it.

IS does not fight for justice but for its abolition as it beheads, crucifies and burns alive those who fall into its grasp.

It is all this which makes it so utterly and totally pointless.

And Masood is a symbol of why. Masood the vicious criminal with the volcanic temper. Masood who worried for his own sanity.

Masood who wanted to kill, not for a cause, but for bloodlust.

Masood who Islamic State was proud to call its soldier when any other army would have frogmarched him out of its ranks.

No glorious death on the battlefield for him, but face down on the cobblestones of the home of British democracy. He hurt Parliament, yes. But he changed it not one jot. That makes his death completely devoid of purpose.

There is no answer to this futility other than to wait it out because – as with everything that is futile – it will die of its own accord.

We may not be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel yet, but it is surely there.

We can defeat Islamic State militarily in Iraq and Syria, but that will still leave some men like Masood ready to strike from the shadows.

Over time, though – as it dawns on them that the cause they kill for is an utter waste of time – they will melt away. And we will emerge unchanged from the tunnel of terrorism that for now seems so dark and endless.