An excellent topic for consideration. Religion can serve as both the casus bellli or merely the facade, or anywhere in between, depending upon the context and the individuals involved.

One thing that is for certain, however, is that the US government has zero credibility when it comes to issuing dictates regarding the interpretation of any given collective religious corpus. The problem, as one sees it, is that US government officials and media derived from the Western secular model have become deluded by their own propaganda (one can almost immediately strike off any government or media utterance that includes the epistemological bias, manifested as framing bias, of 'radical' and 'extremist' - throw in a few ultra- and far- for good measure to enhance the comedic value). One clearly can't rule out the political pandering angle but the mirror image logical fallacy is clearly evident. If Western secularists are the target audience then one is preaching to the choir. If the target audience is from outside this group, then the propaganda is falling on deaf ears. The US government has either volitionally or through myopia failed to grasp the religious roots, specifically in regards to Islam, that predicate the actions of Islamically adherent non-state actors.