In Brussels, Europe Is Struck at Its Heart
By Roger Cohen
March 22, 2016
I generally agree with Mr. Cohen when he writes about European affairs - he has lived there and knows and understands the "European Dream".
But whenever he opines about terrorism, he is, in my view, way off base. It is easy, cheap, to criticize the "inadequacy" of Obama's policies against ISIS, but what alternative can Mr. Cohen, and indeed all the current batch of GOP candidates offer?
The implication is that the US (talk about a coalition is, for the most part, wishful thinking) can mount a military campaign (boots on the ground), and "quickly" defeat ISIS. But there is not a smidgeon of evidence that military action can solve the problem - Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya should be ample evidence of that.
In my view ISIS will burn itself out and any lasting solution will involve a very slow process of bringing a semblance of stability back to the Middle East, and the Islamic world itself dealing with the religious schism and the fanaticism of its religious leaders.
We need to remember that the bloodshed brought about by the Christian Reformation took several centuries to burn itself out.
In the meantime we, the West, need to protect ourselves the best we can, but not throw all our democratic, liberal traditions overboard in the process.
The immediate source of the terrorist scourge are not the newly arrived refugees, but the offsprings of legal immigrants, more often than not with a petty criminal record. Surely we can learn a lesson from that.
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