TIME - An Entrepreneurial President in the Age of Extremism
TIME - July 12, 2016
By Brett Bruen
Entrepreneurship will ultimately erode much of the energy fueling ISIS. Just like American music penetrated through the Iron Curtain, so, too, shall innovation steadily infiltrate the ranks of extremism and those who would provide it sanctuary. As in the Cold War, this invisible influence does not work in isolation. It reaches where our weapons cannot. It embeds itself where repressive ideologies took root and slowly shows how to replace fear with hope. When historians look back at what sapped support from our adversaries, President Obama’s work to push the frontiers of entrepreneurship around the world will be credited as a principal accelerator of their demise.
There can be two interpretations of the impact President Obama’s famous 2009 speech in Cairo had on America’s relationship with the Muslim world. One version characterizes it as a case of unfulfilled expectations. Where were the large government programs to match his ambitious rhetoric?