Back to basics with ISIS

As the psychiatrist Abraham Maslow put it, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” America and its allies enjoy overwhelming superiority when it comes to air power and drones. But ISIS seems to be winning the war for the hearts and minds of the young and impressionable, whether with images of Nutella jars or beheadings.

In a world where the Internet functions as the great rhetorical equalizer, what’s a superpower to do? Last December, the State Department launched its Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, which seeks to parry ISIS tweet for tweet, under the hashtag “ThinkAgainTurnAway.” If you haven’t heard much about this campaign, that’s precisely my point. “One of the challenges that the State Department faces,” laments one of its creators, “is how do we get enough eyeballs on what we are saying without drawing attention to people that shouldn't be drawn attention to.”

If and when the U.S. government is ready to engage with ISIS on some cerebral level, here’s my contribution.

Ten Questions for ISIS

1. You’ve declared yourself a caliphate, claiming religious authority over all the world’s Muslims. Yet many Muslims reject your leadership. Whence springs your religious authority? What scriptural passages justify your claim?
2. Your caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is said to hold a Ph.D. in Islamic studies from the Islamic University of Baghdad. What else, if anything, justifies his claim to speak for 1.6 billion Muslims?
3. Who directs and edits those nifty propaganda videos you’ve been posting on the Internet? Where did these folks learn their craft? Is such training likely to be freely available to citizens of your caliphate, as it is in the West?
4. Your videos and tweets have amply demonstrated your ability to terrify and silence dissenters. But is there any positive reason why people should follow you?
5. Assuming you establish your caliphate, what then? What’s your vision for the future? How will the world become a better place under your leadership?
6. You’re probably mystified by the centuries of mutual slaughter between Catholic and Protestant followers of Jesus Christ. How is that struggle any different from the violent hatred between Sunni and Shi’ite followers of Muhammad? Whom should the rest of us root for, and why?
7. Moses preached a doctrine of change through laws. Confucius stressed the virtue of reciprocity. Jesus stressed love. In your view, how do Muhammad’s teachings differ from and/or improve upon these earlier philosophers?
8. Do you think the world would be a better place if everyone practiced the same religion — specifically, yours?
9. Over the past generation, nonviolent passive resistance has overthrown tyrannical regimes in such places as the Soviet Union, Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, South Africa, the Philippines, and Tunisia. How come this strategy hasn’t occurred to you folks?
10. Aside from your caliph (who’s 43), how many of your leaders are past the age of 30?