... confronting Obama: one for intervention, one against intervention, with the Administration considering both.
In the for column, the former al-Qaeda in Iraq/Mesopotamia groups calling themselves first the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/the Levant/al-Sham (ISIS or ISIL) and now just Islamic State (IS) might possibly have been the worst, most brutal, most powerful terrorist organization in the history of the world at that point. The group now controlled huge swaths of Syria and had taken over huge swaths ...
... train bombing, or the London Underground kamikazes. After those major attacks and before this shooting, most attacks that had taken place in the West have been perpetrated by "Lone Wolves", with the latest trend being that of the self-declared ISIS supporters. The latest event though reveals that the danger has not only increased, but as the analysis is about to suggest, it has been sit on in the Western societies as the result of the underestimation of critical factors and insufficient prevention....
1. More cohesion in NATO?
According to the balance-of-threat assumption the lack of unambiguous threat decreases cohesion of military alliances, whereas the free-rider problem increases in inverse proportion. Even if one doesn't consider the geostrategical mischief of NATO eastward expansion there is nevertheless another problem. It seems to be clear that the Europeans reducing their military expenditures as well as Uncle Sam tired of his burden are not able and willing to pay for worries...
Dr. Glen Segell
(Fellow – The Ezri Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies,University of Haifa, Israel)
The Southern flank of Europe is the Mediterranean Sea. It is a small sea and many countries rely on the freedom of both sea and air traffic for their economy. On the one hand there was optimism that the Arab Spring would bring greater freedom for the individual in countries on the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. There was further optimism that the North African countries of Tunisia...
... took place in Chechnya in 1999-2000 involved approximately 80,000 Russian troops and cost the Russian government billions of dollars to raise its economy from the ashes. By comparison, Chechnya is nearly ten times smaller than the area controlled by ISIS.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria went far beyond the operational scope of its predecessor, Al-Qaeda, establishing control over a large territory in northwestern Iraq and northeastern Syria, and creating proto-state institutions of authority....
By Zhyldyz Oskonbaeva (RIEAS Senior Advisor & Eurasian Liaison)
On a number of levels, the situation between the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the ethnic Kurds of Syria, Iraq and Turkey is creating a power shift that no one is discussing. In this article, I will explain why: 1) The Kurds have an unprecedented opportunity to achieve a political homeland; 2) Tehran's strategy ...
Patrick Adams (Strategic Analyst & RIEAS Research Associate)
A victory for the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria would have a wide range of economic, social and political consequences. Economically, there would be a significant and damaging effect on the world's oil supply. Socially, not only would Iraq and Syria be affected but any country with a sizable Muslim population. Politically, there would be consequences due to the forming of new alliances between former foes and the type of...
Quentin de Pimodan
(Author based in the Middle East)
Al Baghdadi's major strategic failure has been his choice of the Fertile Crescent as the region for the establishment of his Khilafa. His dream of reestablishing a Sunni caliphate with roots in Iraq and Syria will eventually be crushed by the field's realities and only exposes his own lack of knowledge about the region. Not that a Sunni leadership would be impossible to carry on the lands of the ancient Omayyad and Abbasid's...
... recent NATO summit in Wales, common external threats for Russia and the West such as Islamic State, and the odds of success for the Russia-Ukraine ceasefire agreement.
Although Russia and Ukraine seem to have begun taking steps to resolve the Ukraine crisis on a diplomatic level, a new wave of sanctions imposed on Russia’s energy companies and major banks may become another serious challenge for relations between Moscow and the West.
Although a faint light at the end of the tunnel of the Ukrainian ...
An attempt to move beyond the traditional system of high-level meetings
A high-level international conference on the situation in Iraq is taking place today in France, discussing cooperation in the fight against the fundamentalist militants of the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant”. The importance of this event can scarcely be exaggerated: it’s not just about the fate of the long-suffering country of Iraq but about the future of the Middle East as a whole. In this case, moreover...
