The prolific human population genetics/social sciences blogger Razib Khan had a fairly good disambiguation a year ago of what ISIS' and their ilks ideology really stands for:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/g...rstanding-the-nature-of-affairs/#.U9Sf7fldVDQ
I would say that this guy has little idea about Islamic scholarship if he sees conservative movements in Islam as little more than emulations of Christian movements. The fact that he lumps all Salafis together and even a traditional, non-Salafi movement called the Deobandis with them exposes his bias.
Salafis are varied in not just belief, but even their expression of this belief. There's a reason that Salafis are one of the most divided groups in Islam. It is highly likely that one Salafi probably thinks of another as a disbeliever or deviant for this or that reason. That is why that despite the fact that there are a lot of Salafis in the Middle East, there are way too many divisions and way too many different groups that call themselves Salafi or would fall under the Salafi banner.
He also conflates what the majority of Muslims, Salafi or not, yearn for (i.e. returning to the practices and beliefs of the Golden Age of Islam) with "a cultural blank slate and start over". Most Muslims do believe that the Golden Age of Islam, which was the time of the Prophet PBUH and the rule of the four rightly guided caliphs, to be the best time for Islam and want to bring the ideals of that time into their lives as much as possible. That is what the term "Sunni" is derived from in "Sunni Islam" - those that follow the Sunnah (the path) of the Prophet PBUH, which includes the way it was exemplified in the life of the Prophet PBUH and the lives of his companions.
He says: "Salfism is predicated on a radical delusion, that modern Muslims have access to the arrangement of life of the first generations of Muslims, and can recreate that way of life." Does he not realize that the foundation of Sunni Islam is the Qur'an and the Sunnah, which in conjunction, do provide traditional Muslims (let alone Salafis) access "to the arrangement of life of the first generations of Muslims"?
It would probably surprise this guy to know that many Salafis (and Deobandis) were against the destruction of the house of the Prophet PBUH. They were against the destruction of the house of his closest companion and the first caliph Abu Bakr as well. A simple cursory look on Islamic forums that are run by Salafis will also show that.
There are Salafis that want the Green Dome over the grave of the Prophet PBUH to be destroyed as well. And then there are Salafis (and Deobandis) that are against this. There are Salafis who were proponents of turning Makkah into a Las Vegas knockoff. There are Salafis who are against it.
It is not a simple, black and white issue. He says that what Salafis are practicing is "infantile iconoclasm" yet he is sweeping centuries of scholarly differences within Islamic tradition under the label of Salafism. Iconoclasm is not the same as Salafism. Iconoclasm existed during the Golden Age of Islam. There are even Sufi groups that are iconoclasts. It might surprise the author to know that the Taliban are not Salafi (for the most part), but Hanafi Sufis! Even the Barelvi group (Hanafi Sufi as well) in the Indian subcontinent, although declaring ALL Salafis to be outside of Islam, is iconoclast if there is any inkling of saint worship/grave worship (the exact same position as the Deobandis, except most Deobandis see Salafis as deviants from Islam, not outright heretics). It should be noted that Barelvis also deem Deobandis to be heretics (but not because of any differences in iconoclasm; the issue is a lot more nuanced here and has to do with the nature of the Prophet PBUH but that is a completely different topic).
The core of Salafism is not adhering to the four established schools of thought (Hanafi/Hanbali/Maliki/Shafi'i) and/or rejection of the two schools of Islamic philosophy (Ash'ari/Maaturidi). That is the definition of a Salafi, according to Islamic scholars. If someone follows one of the four schools of thought and one of the two schools of philosophy, that person is not Salafi, but a traditional Sunni.