Ryan Mauro

They're either part of ISIS or they're at least part of the jihad overall.

We can work with them.

Then there are the pro-Western, the pro-American Muslims who they've basically given up on.

So when people say, oh, there's no such thing as a patriotic Muslim, well, the jihadists disagree because they basically said, well, we're not even going to try to convince them anymore.

It's not working.

And then you have the middle ground.

So those are the most that they think they just have to kill.

And then there's the middle ground where it's Muslims, particularly those living in Europe and the United States, who like the systems.

They're comfortable.

They like the people.

But they don't fully identify with the West.

They may not agree with the foreign policy of the West, certainly don't like Israel.

And so that's the gray zone that ISIS calculated.

If they could radicalize them,

then that was the game plan.

Just as much as building the caliphate, the other goal is extinction of the gray zone by radicalizing those Muslims in the Muslim middle ground so that they come to their side.

And the key to doing that is enraging and terrifying the West so much

That Muslims who were once loyal to the West are in that middle ground become radicalized because they have no other choice.

Their belief in democracy, the love they felt from Westerners, they realize it's an illusion.

They actually hated us the whole time.