10 Items

Analysis & Opinions - The Boston Globe

Building Dumbledore's Army to Fight ISIS

| Dec. 16, 2015

IT’S NEARLY unfathomable that two San Bernardino parents could nonchalantly drop off their six-month-old baby and embark on a shooting spree, murdering 14 people in the name of a terrorist organization. Yet theirs is hardly an isolated impulse. According to FBI Director James Comey, there are currently 300 American-based sympathizers online. The FBI is pursuing 900 active cases in all 50 states, and 71 individuals have been arrested on terrorism-related charges this year alone. As facts like these make clear, American youth are not immune to extremist ideology, and we should be doing far more to protect them.

Belgian army soldiers guard a hospital in Woluwe nears Brussels, Belgium.

(AP Photo)

Analysis & Opinions - Just Security

A World at War With Daesh

| November 20, 2015

They say we are at war.

What does war look like?

Our enemy is violent Islamic extremism. He is Daesh. He is al-Qaeda. The enemy consists of all groups and adherents of violent Islamic extremism. Our enemy is the “global jihad” movement inspired by the 9/11 attack. They seek to impose an aberrant ideology on the world. For Daesh and their allies, coexistence with their enemies is unimaginable. Compromise is impossible. Daesh has adopted the mindset of an apocalyptic cult group.

Lebanese army soldiers and Hezbollah members gather at the scene of twin suicide bombings in Burj al-Barajneh, southern Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 13, 2015.

(AP Photo)

Analysis & Opinions - The Washington Post

The fight against the Islamic State should unite Muslims and the West

| November 16, 2015

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates -- Do Western nations think that Muslim lives matter less? Most of us would resist any such characterization of callousness. But Western outrage about the carnage in Paris, coupled with near-indifference to similar killings in the Arab world, suggests to many Muslims that a double standard exists -- and they find it deeply upsetting.

News

Podcast: "Can the United States 'Manage' the Middle East? Should it Try?" with Stephen M. Walt

| May 5, 2015

An audio recording from Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School.

On April 29, 2015 at MEI, Prof. Stephen Walt assessed U.S. policy and interests in the Middle East, arguing that scaled back involvement might yield better results for the U.S. and the region.

Director of Central Intelligence Agency John Brennan acknowledged December 11, 2014 some agency interrogators used 'abhorrent' unauthorized techniques in questioning terrorism suspects after the 9/11 attacks

Getty Images

Analysis & Opinions - Agence Global

Imperial Crimes in the United States and the Middle East

| December 13, 2014

"This moment is about as American as it gets here in the United States. The exemplary release of a Congressional investigation into the Central Intelligence Agency’s brutal interrogation techniques reflects the finest practice of citizen oversight of government executive and security agencies, truly one of the United States’ great gifts to the world; at the same time, the revelations of torture and deception at the highest levels of government reflect the worst practices of police states and authoritarian despots."

Black flags used by the Islamic State group are seen over their combat positions in the Rashad Bridge, which connects the provinces of Salah al-Din and Kirkuk, 290 kilometers north of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, Sept. 29, 2014.

(AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

Analysis & Opinions - The National Interest

Is America on the ISIS Hit List?

| September 29, 2014

"ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and his organization are unusual among terrorists in their explicit articulation of their ambitions, their agenda, their priorities, and their strategy," writes Graham Allison. "Analyzing their actions, one finds a high level of alignment between what they say and what they do."

To whom, Allison asks, does ISIS pose the most imminent and even existential threat?

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Analysis & Opinions - Politico

A Strategy for Beating the Islamic State

    Author:
  • Dennis Ross
| September 2, 2014

We don’t have a strategy yet.” With those words, President Obama seems to have encapsulated everything that his critics have been alleging for months: that he’s improvising, halting and altogether slow to react to the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, the brutal terrorist group that has seized much of Iraq and Syria and on Tuesday claimed to have beheaded a second American journalist, Steven Sotloff. And certainly, the president’s detractors have pounced on his poorly chosen word

Analysis & Opinions - Los Angeles Times

To Contain ISIS, Think Iraq — But Also Think Syria

    Author:
  • Dennis Ross
| Monday, June 23, 2014

The conflict in Iraq will not be settled any time soon. Although the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, and its Sunni allies may not be about to march on Baghdad, they are continuing to expand their control over much of northern and western Iraq. The military and diplomatic steps that President Obama has ordered reflect the U.S. need to prevent ISIS from embedding itself in more of Iraq. Whether they will work, however, is another matter.