People with American and European passports are joining the Islamic State (ISIS) because they view the group as standing for a cause, however warped it may be in most people's eyes, says Daniel Hannan, a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party and the European Parliament.

"It has this apocalyptic self-confidence. And there are some young men, particularly, in every age, in every nation, who are attracted by that confidence," Hannan said Monday on Fox News Channel's "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren."

"They contrast it with the kind of milk-and-water insipid values that they see propagated in state education in the West. And lacking a powerful patriotic identity at home, they grope around for an alternative."

Hannan posted a column on his website Monday titled "They'll Like Us When We Win," in which he said President Barack Obama set the tone soon after winning the White House when he went on a "world apology tour."

"When you go around saying that we have been too warlike and too militaristic and too arrogant, sure you get all the Euro-pantywaists applauding you. But they're not the only people listening to the speech," he told Van Susteren.

That makes it harder for people in America or Europe to feel a common bond if they see the values of their countries systematically derided by the intellectual elite, he said. Instead, leaders should stand up for the good things their countries have done, he added.

"Is there a worse idea out there than the theocracy favored by these madmen in Iraq or Syria?" Hannan said. "Is there a better idea out there than freedom on the Western model?"

He said Muslims in America and Europe will back their home countries if they see us winning.

He noted that when Britain and France fought in World War I, any fears that Muslims would side against their own countries were eventually quelled.

"It was no problem at all," Hannan said, noting that 400,000 British Muslims flocked to  volunteer because "the British brand was stronger than the Ottoman caliphate."

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