What is Causing Radicalism in the MENA?

The emergence of Al-Qaeda as a global terrorist organization carrying out devastating strikes across the USA, Europe, Middle East and Africa shed a spotlight on terrorism, and by extension on radicalism. The attention has intensified with the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), its atrocities and the regional surge in terrorist groups pledging allegiance to it. This in turn has pushed the issue of radicalism to the top of the international agenda. Current efforts to defeat violent extremist groups such as ISIL are dominated by hard security measures, with no guarantees that military action alone can ensure permanent solutions to the specter of terrorism. Assuming the current wave of terrorist groups can be defeated militarily, foreign terrorist fighters may disperse to the rest of the world, creating new problems. Even in the case that foreign fighters are contained; radicalism will not disappear but will find ways to manifest itself.