Middle East

Where are all the Islamic terrorists?

By Charles Kurzman

Last month, a few hours after a bomb exploded in downtown Oslo, I got a call from a journalist seeking comment. Why did Al Qaeda attack Norway? Why not a European country with a larger Muslim community, or a significant military presence in Muslim societies? I said I didn’t know.

A second media inquiry soon followed: Given NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the number of disaffected Muslims in Europe, why don’t we see more attacks like the one in Norway? This question was more up my alley. I recently

Egypt: Her Excellency, Madame President?

By Bassem Sabry
In early April, Bothaina Kamel, a female television presenter and media figure, announced that she would run for the office of the presidency. In a society where the idea of a woman leading a country, the judiciary, or serving any similar role is discouraged by both culture and religion (indeed, it is often outright banned), the presence of a woman in elections stirs up strong reactions from the public. A cursory glance at the news articles that have mentioned her after she declared her candidacy feature such statements as: “Are we so out of men that we would be run by a woman?”

Arab Spring, Israeli reality

By Edward Zelinsky
The world watches events in Libya, Egypt, Syria and other parts of the Arab world with a mixture of hope and trepidation. Slogans promising the quick and easy reform of an Arab Spring have given way to the harsh reality that violent autocracies are not easily overthrown. A fundamental, but politically incorrect, truth of this combustible situation is that only one Middle Eastern nation has created a functioning democratic society: Israel. Arab reformers, if they wish to create free, modern states, must terminate the Arab boycott of Israel and must instead emulate Israel.

Six Iraqis in Strasbourg

By Marko Milanovic
Last week the European Court of Human Rights produced a landmark decision in Al-Skeini v. UK, a case dealing with the extraterritorial application of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). What a mouthful of legalese this is, you might think – so let me try to clarify things a bit. The main purpose of human rights treaties like the ECHR is to require the states that sign up to them, say the UK, France or Turkey, to respect such things as the right to life and legal due process, and prohibit the torture, of people living within the UK, France or Turkey.

5 habits of highly effective terrorist organizations

By Daniel Byman
On paper, Egyptian jihadist Ayman al-Zawahiri, who just formally filled Osama bin Ladin’s shoes as al Qaeda’s emir, seems a perfect replacement for the late Saudi terrorist. Zawahiri formed his own terrorist group as a teenager, and ever since he has fought autocratic Muslim regimes and the United States with both tenacity and intelligence. As bin Ladin’s number two, he learned at the feet of the master, and by some accounts taught his boss much of what he knew about how to run an underground organization.

Israel – Episode 17 – The Oxford Comment

Are Israel and the United States still a dynamic duo? According to Daniel Byman the debate isn’t about whether or not the United States should support Israel, but how we can encourage them with “tough support.”

The battle for “progress”

By Gregory A. Daddis
David Ignatius of The Washington Post recently highlighted several “positive signs in Afghanistan,” citing progress on the diplomatic front, in relations between India and Pakistan, and on the battlefield itself. Of note, Ignatius stressed how U.S.-led coalition forces had cleared several Taliban strongholds in Kandahar and Helmand provinces. The enemy, according to the opinion piece, was “feeling the pressure.”

Calling Hamas the al Qaeda of Palestine isn’t just wrong, it’s stupid

By Daniel Byman

In a rousing speech before Congress on May 24, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected peace talks with the newly unified Palestinian government because it now includes — on paper at least — officials from the terrorist (or, in its own eyes, “resistance”) group Hamas. In a striking moment, Netanyahu defiantly declared, “Israel will not negotiate with a Palestinian government backed by the Palestinian version of al Qaeda,” a statement

A Sisyphean fate for Israel (part 2)

By Louis René Beres
Today, Israel’s leadership, continuing to more or less disregard the nation’s special history, still acts in ways that are neither tragic nor heroic. Unwilling to accept the almost certain future of protracted war and terror, one deluded prime minister after another has sought to deny Israel’s special situation in the world. Hence, he or she has always been ready to embrace, unwittingly, then-currently-fashionable codifications of collective suicide.

A Sisyphean fate for Israel (part 1)

By Louis René Beres
Israel, after President Barack Obama’s May 2011 speech on “Palestinian self-determination” and regional “democracy,” awaits a potentially tragic fate. Nonetheless, to the extent that Prime Minister Netanyahu should become complicit in the expected territorial dismemberments, this already doleful fate could quickly turn from genuine tragedy to pathos and abject farce.

Slouching toward “Palestine”: Anti-Israel terrorism, aggression, and the law of war

OPINION · Tweet By Louis René Beres Intra-Palestinian politics remain on a steady course.  Following a carefully-choreographed rapprochement with Hamas, the more “moderate” Fatah forces, still trained and funded by millions of U.S. tax dollars,  will quickly resume their ritualized terror attacks against Israel. More or less simultaneously, Hamas will do the same. In Lebanon, […]

Osama’s dead. Now what?

By John Esposito

The killing of bin Laden in Abbottabad is a major psychological blow to al Qaeda, who lost a charismatic leader, viewed by both his supporters and his enemies as the true symbol of global terrorism and militancy. For many around the world it is a victory in the war against extremist violence which has resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent people.

‘Nobody should doubt the importance of the killing of Osama bin Laden’

By Richard English
There has been much talk of revenge attacks in the wake of bin Laden’s death, and doubtless there will be both the desire and the labelled actions to follow, on occasion. But the truth is that jihadi terrorists represent a largely limited threat to the west, in practice. They certainly show no signs of succeeding in their central war aims.

Assassinating terrorist leaders: A matter of international law

By Louis René Beres

Osama bin Laden was assassinated by U.S. special forces on May 1, 2011. Although media emphasis thus far has been focused almost entirely on the pertinent operational and political issues surrounding this “high value” killing, there are also important jurisprudential aspects to the case. These aspects require similar attention. Whether or not killing Osama was a genuinely purposeful assassination from a strategic perspective, a question that will be debated for years to come, we should now also inquire: Was it legal?

What matters now is how the succession battle within Al-Qaeda pans out

By Elvin Lim

Osama bin Laden was reported to have been killed by US forces late Sunday night EDT at a compound in Abbottabad, just outside Islamabad. This will be a tremendous morale boost for the US, and it would be a crushing blow to Al Qaeda’s. Sure, bin Laden is just a figurehead of an organization which has now sprouted branches all over the world, and sure his death will likely provoke retaliatory attacks by his followers seeking to revenge his “martyrdom,” but there is little doubt that this development is a net gain for the US.

Dividing the Spoils

In Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander’s Empire Robin Waterfield revives the memories of Alexander the Great’s Successors, whose fame has been dimmed only because they stand in Alexander’s enormous shadow. Alexander’s legacy was turmoil, and in the videos below Waterfield explains firstly what happened to the Empire after Alexander’s death and why the book came to be written, and secondly, the role of women in the war for Alexander’s Empire.