Given the scale of the threat posed by the Islamic State to Iraq and the Middle East, focusing on the implications of US policy is understandable. But whether the current crisis will have a happy ending – or even a tolerable one – depends far more on what the region’s players decide to do. Read […]
According to theannual Global Peace Index report, released on Wednesday, there are more than 50 million refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) around the globe right now. Put another way, that’s one in every 133 people worldwide and 0.75 percent of the world population. Put yet another way, that’s roughly the equivalent of the entire […]
The appearance of Colonel Gulmurod Khalimov in an Islamic State propaganda video on May 27 sent a chill across Central Asia. The head of Tajikistan’s Special Assignment Police Unit (OMON), a key element in President Emomali Rahmon’s security apparatus, had disappeared shortly before. In the video he promised to return to wage violent jihad. Read […]
Saudi nationalism can be defined as the idea of a single identity that acts as the social glue across the divisions within the kingdom. The Saudi historian Abd Allah Al Uthayman said it best: “In the first circle, I am a son of the Arabian peninsula. The regions of the peninsula were united under the […]
U.S. policy debates about the Middle East suffer from the fallacy that there is an American solution to every problem. Washington does not have a silver bullet for the region, but it can preserve its core interests there Read Here – cfr.org
It’s certainly not for lack of power. From 1846 to 1945, the United States had a minuscule peacetime army, but won almost every major campaign. After World War II, Washington constructed the most expensive military machine that ever existed and endured seven decades of martial frustration. Indeed, power is part of the reason the United States […]
On October 11, 2014, according to Islamic State-affiliated Twitter accounts a woman going by the name Ahlam al-Nasr was married in the courthouse of Raqqa, Syria, to Abu Usama al-Gharib, a Vienna-born jihadi close to the movement’s leadership. ISIS social media rarely make marriage announcements, but al-Nasr and al-Gharib are a jihadi power couple. Al-Gharib […]
In an interview, the U.S. president defends his pact with Tehran, argues ISIS is not winning, warns Saudi Arabia not to pursue a nuclear-weapons program, and anguishes about Israel. Read Here – The Atlantic
Arab countries are in the midst of violent convulsions that are fundamentally reshaping the region. While it’s impossible to predict exactly how the chaos will unfold, there are three major trends that will define the future. All three promise more catastrophic scenarios over the next few years unless governments reverse course. Read Here – The […]
Over the past month, two members of the Obama administration have made public statements regarding different aspects of America’s ongoing “war on terror.” The second has (understandably) received much more public attention than the first, but the first says something more important about the ultimate course of that long struggle. Read Here – The National […]
looking beyond borders 