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It is hardly news that the Middle East remains a hell hole, but it is a little surprising that ISIS continues to be a growing force in the region. I imagine many of us thought that ISIS was probably just a little brush fire that got a little out of control, but such thinking only shows that we actually still have a tendency to be overly optimistic about the Middle East. In any case, David Brooks gives us a good consolidating insight about what is going on.
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Writing in The National Interest, Ross Harrison shows how the ISIS wormhole into a different moral epoch is accompanied by a political wormhole designed to take the Middle East into a different geostrategic epoch. For the past many decades the Middle East has been defined by nation-states and the Arab mind has been influenced by nationalism. But these nation-states have been weakened (Egypt) or destroyed (Iraq and Syria). Nationalism no longer mobilizes popular passion or provides a convincing historical narrative.
ISIS has arisen, Harrison argues, to bury nationalism and to destroy the Arab nation-state [in favor of the old idea of the universal caliphate].
“It is tapping into a belief that the pre-nationalist Islamic era represents the glorious halcyon days for the Arab world, while the later era in which secular nationalism flourished was one of decline and foreign domination,” he writes.
-- David Brooks at The New York Times
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Writing in The National Interest, Ross Harrison shows how the ISIS wormhole into a different moral epoch is accompanied by a political wormhole designed to take the Middle East into a different geostrategic epoch. For the past many decades the Middle East has been defined by nation-states and the Arab mind has been influenced by nationalism. But these nation-states have been weakened (Egypt) or destroyed (Iraq and Syria). Nationalism no longer mobilizes popular passion or provides a convincing historical narrative.
ISIS has arisen, Harrison argues, to bury nationalism and to destroy the Arab nation-state [in favor of the old idea of the universal caliphate].
“It is tapping into a belief that the pre-nationalist Islamic era represents the glorious halcyon days for the Arab world, while the later era in which secular nationalism flourished was one of decline and foreign domination,” he writes.
-- David Brooks at The New York Times
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