There is an article on my desk that I tore out of the Economist several months ago. The title is “The shadow of the caliphate”. I’ve been thinking about it since I first read it. As you can guess, it’s about the Islamic State’s pull on so many potential followers and the difficulty countering it.
In the article, the author, Banyan, uses quotes from two prime ministers, Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore and Tony Abbott of Australia, to suggest that “the appeal that IS holds for ‘troubled souls’ is incomprehensible to the leaders of prosperous modern states. And it is hard to marshal good arguments against a point of view you do not begin to understand.”
