Middle East & North Africa

NPR's All Thing Considered talked to Amanda Sloat, Fellow at the Belfer Center's Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship, about Turkey's investigation into the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

"What happens when, after another dozen major attacks, the chain of their barbarism outpaces the chain of our human solidarity? When is the permissible moment to start asking if we can muster as much wisdom and realism to fight terror as we do to harness emotions of solidarity? The recent increasing pace and widening geographic scope of terror suggest we are dealing with a qualitatively new kinds of terrorists — but the policy responses of governments and the emotional responses of entire societies suggest we have no idea how to respond to quell this monster."

"As 2015 comes to a close, the annual numbers of migrants smuggled to Greece and Italy and asylum claims lodged in Germany have passed a million, as well as the number of additional displacements produced this year by the conflict in Syria. Moreover, Europe’s Mediterranean shore has now the unchallenged title of the world’s most lethal border. Not only this. The migrant crisis is also putting to the test some of Europe’s most fundamental values, from the freedom of circulation within its territories, to international protection beyond..."

"Regional actors will no doubt try to pass the buck and get Americans to do their fighting for them. U.S. leaders should reject such ploys politely but firmly and pass the buck right back. ISIS is not an existential threat to the United States, to Middle Eastern energy supplies, to Israel, or to any other vital U.S. interest, so U.S. military forces have no business being sent into harm's way to fight it."

"The agreement between Turkey and the United States on a yet-to-be-defined plan to establish a 60-mile-long zone in northern Syria adjacent to the frontier with Turkey anticipates that their troops, artillery, drones and jet fighters, working with selected Syrian rebels on the ground inside Syria, will keep the area free of “Islamic State” (IS) control. This move is at once decisive and dangerous. It positions two of the world’s and the region’s leading military powers, and NATO members, within half a dozen major local fighting forces of very different ideologies, and hundreds of smaller units with equally kaleidoscopic goals, identities and allegiances."

This week witnessed contrasting stories of two Americans caught in the tornado of violence in the Middle East: the savage murder of journalist James Foley and the joyous release of Peter Theo Curtis. Nicholas Burns examines the question at the forefront of many minds: Why do some hostages die, and some are released?

In this installment of “Inside the Middle East: Q&A,” Maria Fantappie, Iraq analyst at the International Crisis Group, discusses the current situation in Iraq, ongoing sectarian conflict in the country, and prospects for Iraq's future.