Surely. And the answer to that question would be to double their support for said terror groups, to appease the mobs in the streets and stave off their own overthrow.
Our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan who are befriending local children and showing them a different face of America are the only ones who seem to get it. Nothing can be done to scare today's generation of terrorists - they are just going to have to be identified and killed. The key is to deny the imams the next generation of recruits by countering the massive anti-Western Arab propaganda industry. Bombing the holy cities would be a big step in the opposite direction - it would just confirm the lies of the imams.
And consider what Christianity "holds dear". Did anyone in the Vatican care when the Palestinians desecrated Joseph's Tomb? Southern Baptist leaders would probably do a tap dance if Muslims assassinated the Pope. Mormons aren't too interested in the results of the peace process in Northern Ireland. Similarly, Sunni Muslims aren't going to shed a tear if Qom gets bombed in the the course of a retaliatory strike on Iran, and Al Qaeda isn't going to worry too much about the fate of Mecca and Medina as long as they can successfully detonate a nuclear bomb in New York City.
"Islam" is too broad a concept to be seriously wounded by such symbolic strikes - great as the idea's appeal is to the egos of many observers.
How hard is it top understand that NO Mecca means NO islam?
All muslims MUST visit mecca once in their life or they are not muslims. What happens to the 100s of million believers who haven’t been to Mecca after it’s nuked? Its one of the 7 tenants of the faith that must be followed.
And frankly your statmement about Southern Bapists is peyond the pale.