Salafis are not a fringe group though.

Because in the Christian-Lebanese political view, there are no fanatical radicals in Hezbollah. They do not exist in the whole of Shia Islam, including Iran. Why? Well, it's obviously politically more expedient for them to believe that.

Even if it was true that the Christian-Lebanese political view is singular and totally uncritical of Hezbollah, what's significant about that? Why isn't this business as usual?

In my opinion, the Salafi become understandably radical and intolerant when you incessantly black mouth them. — alcontali

As far as I'm concerned, all salafis are radicals, just in different ways. Even quietists like al-Albani and al-Wadi'i are radicals, since their stance leads to the acceptance of tyranny. Jihadis are the inversion of that, producing excuses on the fly in order to satisfy their blood-thirst. Then there are more politically minded salafis, but most of the time these are wackos too.

Why is it significant that Taleb does not differentiate between the various salafi sects and pays lip service to his political allies?