Requiem for the Arab Spring

[rjmacs]

Ted King wrote:
[quote=rjmacs]
[quote=Ted King]
It's true that many jihadists are not economically disaffected, but I think they do draw a great deal of strength from young men who are. I wonder if anyone has done a study on that.

What does it mean, exactly, to "draw a great deal of strength from young men who are [economically disaffected]"? I would think that the arguments from the jihadists would focus on economic development and opportunity if this were the case, but that hardly touches on their ideology which emphasizes the restoration of Islamic order in an increasingly colonized and corrupted society.
Before you can focus on alternative economic development, you have to take out the ruling power structure first.
Theoretically, but theoretically lots of things could be sources of strength. Is there evidence, or just supposition, behind this notion?

Edit: i ask because there's lots of theorizing about the Arab Spring that draws mostly on Western ideas of what's going on there, based more on our biases and models than on empirical observation. To understand what's happening there requires a great deal of cross-cultural investigation and exploration. The American mind can never understand the Egyptian rationale without abandoning the American ways of making sense of things first.