It's not the movie. It's not al Qaeda.

Pankaj Mishra  thinks it's mainly history that is working itself out in the Middle East.  The people of the region have reached the point where they are totally fed up with getting the short end of the stick.  They are moving and have moved against tyrannical leaders.  Since the West has, by and large, fully supported these leaders, the people are moving against the West.  And, because we are the leading Western nation, they are now moving against us.  

The killings of NATO troops by Afghans is one manifestation of the movement.  The demonstrations in Arab countries is another.  But, Mishra says we can't see it, "It is as though the United States, lulled by such ideological foils as Nazism and Communism into an exalted notion of its moral power and mission, missed the central event of the 20th century: the steady, and often violent, political awakening of peoples who had been exposed for decades to the sharp edges of Western power." 

Mishra feels we're repeating our experience with Vietnam.  Interestingly, he claims that Ho Chi Minh tried to get three presidents - Wilson, Roosevelt and Truman - to help him free Vietnam from France.  He was unsuccessful.  As were nationalists from India, Egypt, Iran and Turkey who met with Wilson.

Mishra concludes

It is the world’s newly ascendant nations and awakened peoples that will increasingly shape events in the post-Western era. America’s retrenchment is inevitable. The only question is whether it will be as protracted and violent as Europe’s mid-20th century retreat from a newly assertive Asia and Africa. 

I think Mishra makes a strong case. We can't see how much the world is changing. Yet, at the same time history does have lessons for us, one of which is that every empire has eventually been replaced.