Recommended: The Nationalist Solution

Another good piece to read, in this discussion about how best to counter the Islamic State, is one by David Brooks in the New York Times a couple of days ago, The Nationalist Solution.  Brooks argues, as have several other writer in the past few days, that American foreign policy has been ineffective in the Middle East crisis because our politicians and ruling elites, whatever foreign policy "school" they adhere to, all make the fundamental mistake of assuming everyone wants what they want, everyone has the same aspirations as they do and the same values that they do.  That clearly isn't true, as any student of history can plainly see, and one wonders why it hasn't become apparent yet to all these supposedly bright, well educated leaders of ours.

As Brooks says:

"But people don’t join ISIS, or the Islamic State, because they want better jobs with more benefits. ISIS is one of a long line of anti-Enlightenment movements, led by people who have contempt for the sort of materialistic, bourgeois goals that dominate our politics. These people don’t care if their earthly standard of living improves by a few percent a year. They’re disgusted by the pleasures we value, the pluralism we prize and the emphasis on happiness in this world, which we take as public life’s ultimate end.

They’re not doing it because they are sexually repressed. They are doing it because they think it will ennoble their souls and purify creation."

He proposes that what will divert all these young extremists from their current apocalyptic theological views is something equally heroic, an intense commitment to nationalism.  It is an interesting proposal.

Young Arab men are not going to walk away from extremism because they can suddenly afford a Slurpee. They will walk away when they can devote themselves to a revived Egyptian nationalism, Lebanese nationalism, Syrian nationalism, some call to serve a cause that connects nationalism to dignity and democracy and transcends a lifetime.