In the battle against IS, military force is necessary along with police efforts to stop recruitment. But these steps are insufficient, argues Elliott Abrams. Opponents of IS must also understand its appeal for young Muslims, and persuade them that theirs is a false dream:

IS holds an ideological appeal for some young Muslims, and we need to identify and counter it to defeat the group. We see it as a despicable, medieval group that engages in beheadings, uses women as sex slaves, and embraces endless violence. Such facts are often denied by young Arabs attracted to IS, who believe these accounts of IS brutality are manufactured by Western governments. Instead they see something very positive. In part it is simply an escape from poverty or a life without opportunity and purpose. But it’s also more . . . IS represents for them an opportunity to build a true Islamic society and state. In this ideal state, sharia would be the law of the land, Muslims would make their own way, foreign powers would be excluded, and justice would prevail. Government would not allow European or American interference, and the state and society would truly be theirs and would reflect their own values more purely. Instead of being marginal, lost figures in European societies or Arab states, they would be at the heart of an historic effort to build a new and just society. Of course this is all false.

Between the explosion of thousands of Hizballah pagers on September 17 and now, Iran’s geopolitical clout has shrunk dramatically: Hizballah, Iran’s most important striking force, has retreated to lick its wounds; Iranian influence in Syria has collapsed; Iran’s attempts to attack Israel via Gaza have proved self-defeating; its missile and drone arsenal have proved impotent; and its territorial defenses have proved useless in the face of Israeli airpower. Edward Luttwak considers what might happen next:

The myth of Iranian power was ironically propagated by the United States itself. Right at the start of his first term, in January 2009, Barack Obama was terrified that he would be maneuvered into fighting a war against Iran. . . . Obama started his tenure by apologizing for America’s erstwhile support for the shah. And beyond showing contrition for the past, the then-president also set a new rule, one that lasted all the way to October 2024: Iran may attack anyone, but none may attack Iran.

[Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s] variegated fighters, in light trucks and jeeps, could have been stopped by a few hundred well-trained soldiers. But neither Hizballah nor Iran’s own Revolutionary Guards could react. Hizballah no longer has any large units capable of crossing the border to fight rebels in Syria, as they had done so many times before. As for the Revolutionary Guards, they were commandeering civilian airliners to fly troops into Damascus airport to support Assad. But then Israel made clear that it would not allow Iran’s troops so close to its border, and Iran no longer had credible counter-threats.

Now Iran’s population is discovering that it has spent decades in poverty to pay for the massive build-up of the Revolutionary Guards and all their militias. And for what? They have elaborate bases and showy headquarters, but their expensive ballistic missiles can only be used against defenseless Arabs, not Israel with its Arrow interceptors. As for Hizballah, clearly it cannot even defend itself, let alone Iran’s remaining allies in the region. Perhaps, in short, the dictatorship will finally be challenged in the streets of Iran’s cities, at scale and in earnest.