place a friendly puppet to control and develop those shitholes,enforce western style education and wait.
You know, that hasn't worked so well before.
I'm going to take Tunisia as an example here, it might seem off-topic but I swear it's actually very relevant, so please bear with me.
Tunisia- where 98% of the population is Sunni Muslim- started implementing Western-style education in the late nineteenth century, before the French protectorate was even created, after breaking away from Ottoman influence. Seventy-five years of French rule solidified that.
When the country became independent, the people that came to power- Bourguiba and his entourage- were Westernised intellectuals that had studied in French universities.
Bourguiba believed that education was very important and he implemented a relatively successful educational system that was by and large based on the French model. He even went so far as dismantling the old Islamic university of Tunis in favour of Western-style institutions. Everyone was taught French alongside Arabic. Even now, a good two-thirds of the population speaks French fluently, universities and academic publications are bilingual etc.
The population has a high literacy rate, and lots of young people have university degrees.
The goverment controlled mosques and what was said in them. There weren't radical Islamists until the 80s-and unlike in neighbouring Algeria, Tunisian Islamists did not resort to armed violence, but rather consistently sought to participate in regular elections and political life.
The religious practice is by and large relatively tolerant- Tunisia's no liberal heaven, that's for sure, but it is a far cry from Saudi Arabia or even Syria or Egypt.
As for foreign policy Bourguiba and his successor Ben Ali were dictators, but they were very friendly with Western powers. Bourguiba was maybe the most US-friendly Arab leader. Ben Ali closely collaborated with French presidents.
Even now, after the revolution, the people in place are well-disposed toward the West. The current president has the same backgound as Bourguiba.
So in short, that seems fairly similar to what
@AN/ALR-56 described.
And yet, not only is Tunisia facing the emergence of radical Islam and religious terrorism on its own soil, but it has also become
one of the main sources of recruitment for Daesh.
The number of Tunisians joining Daesh is
staggering for such a small country, especially one that had virtually no history of Islamic terrorism before the 2000s.
The problem has been speculated to be partly economic in nature- youth unemployment is very high and most jihadis come from the poorest parts of the country- but that's hardly a satisfying explanation.
So Tunisian society is left asking itself questions that aren't so different from the one France or the UK face at the moment.
European countries are wondering "
What did we, as a society, do wrong with the children/grandchildren of immigrants, that they reject our values and become terrorists?"
Tunisia is asking itself "
What did we, as a society, do wrong tat some of or children/grandchildren reject our values and become terrorists?"
TL;DR: Instilling Western values isn't a miracle remedy, even when governments do that on their own accord.
Trying to force them onto other countries via puppet governments seems an even worse solution. No one likes armed missionaries.
