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I don't think that they're beyond Western understanding, just that they don't subscribe to it - or reject it outright. Besides, most Westerners don't understand - or agree - on economic theory, so Orientalism does really figure into it.
But anyway, I'm not denying that there's an economic component to any of this, just that the nuts and bolts of it remain elusive, given that it is, as far as I understand, run as a sort of black market economy. In other words, there may well be plenty more money where the present stash came from.
The_Kindness_of_Trees
h2o
I get that people don't buy into aspects of economic theory - I write about markets for a living, and I think some economic theory is hokum at worst, or misleading at best. But on the other hand, some of it - much of it - is a very useful tool by which to understand how the world works.
In this instance, I think the extent of the economic theory involved is that: if you want to try to be a state, to hold ground, to provide services, have a bureaucracy - or just a propaganda arm - this takes resources. In simple terms, cash money.
If you don't have enough cash money, you can't buy guns. You can't buy food, or fuel. You can't pay salaries. It's harder to run your pseudo-state. And the cracks begin to show.
If you look at studies over what draws people to Daesh, you get stuff like this
If Daesh struggles to offer this promise because it struggles to find the resources just to hold itself together, then maybe the appeal of the thing fades.
I, for one, don't believe that most of the people living in Daesh-controlled territory subscribe to its ideals. And I don't believe that even the most devoted ideological movements can subsist on air and faith. I'd go so far as to argue that any suggestion that people living under Daesh or involved in Daesh are beyond western understanding is just another form of Orientalist thinking.