Recommended: Nonsense about terrorism's 'root causes'

I have made the case several times that the root cause, or at least one of the root causes, of the current Middle Eastern radicalism is the great mass of unemployed and unemployable young men in that part of the world.  But Peter Bergen's recent CNN article Nonsense about terrorism's 'root causes' poses an interesting, and persuasive, counterargument.  As he points out, the mass of foot soldiers may come from the poor and unemployed, but a number of studies have shown that the leaders almost all come from middle-class or wealthy families with good educations.

So I may be wrong about my proposed root cause, but Bergen's article does support my argument that this battle will be won in a clash of ideas, not armies. Anyway, this is a good article to throw into the mix as we try to figure out how to handle this mess.