Such is the oft-repeated assertion of the current presidential administration. After all, Islamic State (IS) and its ilk are driven by a murderous ideology, directly opposed to the animating ideas of America. But, writes Reuel Marc Gerecht, history gives little reason to believe that anything but hard power will be efficacious:
Islamic history offers no sure strategy for defusing zealotry, but it certainly records the methods that Muslims, and non-Muslims, have used to combat the fanaticism of believers at war with the status quo. And the principal method has always been military. . . .
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the caliph of Islamic State, explicitly claims that by establishing a new jihadist realm in the heart of Iraq and Syria, core lands of classical Arab Islam, he has proved himself most virtuous by the gold standard in Islamic history—military conquest. Like the leader of any society so formed, Baghdadi runs the risk that others will see themselves as equally deserving through battlefield victories or, worse, see him as compromised if he starts losing. . . .
Both Democrats and Republicans want to believe that the Islamic militancy developing in Syria will stay localized. Syria’s Islamic militants have a huge war to fight against enemies near at hand. Modern jihadism of the type we see in Islamic State, however, will surely take aim, with increasing seriousness, at the United States and Europe. . . . We may choose to absorb future terrorist strikes by IS and respond just with bombs and drones. But if we decide we need to stop them, to deny them caliphates where they can conspire and multiply, we will have to put boots on the ground. We will not be able to leave prematurely, as we did from Iraq. Islamic history suggests we will have no other choice.
Read more on Weekly Standard: http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/victory-without-soldiers_1046241.html