In The News

Longtime Rivals Look to Team Up to Confront ISIS

Tim Arango September 11, 2014
Longtime adversaries – the United States and Iran, Kurds and Turks – are teaming up to defeat the self-declared Islamic State. Iraqis who once insisted on complete US withdrawal from Iraq now plead for swift intervention. Not one nation recognizes IS, also known as ISIS and ISIL, as a state, but the brutal group has a formidable military, attracts extremists from around the globe, and controls...

Obama's Legal Rationale for ISIS Strikes

Spencer Ackerman September 11, 2014
With a new Iraqi government in place, urging the United States to intervene against the Islamic State, and wide public support at home, US President Barack Obama announced plans to wage air strikes into Syrian territory against the terrorist group. He will not wait for congressional approval other than the $500 million in funding, instead rely on the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force “...

US Forms “Core Coalition” to Counter ISIS

Phil Stewart and Julien Ponthus September 5, 2014
The United States has organized a “core coalition” and seeks more members to battle Islamic State terrorists. Ground forces are ruled out for now. The coalition was organized at the NATO summit. A campaign to defeat the terrorist group – deemed a threat for the Middle East and western nations, too – could last years. “NATO announced plans for allies to share more information on westerners...

Obama Waits for Lawful Way to Fight Islamic State Terrorists

Harold Hongju Koh September 4, 2014
International observers and critics in the United States repeatedly ask why President Barack Obama does not simply bomb areas controlled by the Islamic State terrorist group inside Iraq and Syria. “Part of the challenge lies in the maze of domestic and international law that must be navigated,” suggests Harold Hongju Koh, Yale professor of law and former legal adviser to the US State Department....

Brutal Efficiency: The Secret to Islamic State's Success

Siobhan Gorman, Nour Malas and Matt Bradley September 4, 2014
The Islamic State group of terrorists, also known as IS or ISIS, is controlling swaths of territory throughout Syria and Iraq, community by community, with coercion, brutal tactics and US-made weapons captured from the Iraqi army. Strategies that include kidnappings with big ransoms and takeover of oil fields as well as extreme support for Islam win over young men from around the globe seeking...

Confronting Islamic State Group: Coalition of Rivals?

Shashank Joshi September 2, 2014
The self-proclaimed Islamic State terrorist group moved swiftly through Syria and Iraq, committing war crimes in two countries ravaged by civil war and sectarian divide. The group’s evolving name and online maps make no secret of the group’s ambitions for restoring a caliphate. ISIS closes in on and threatens borders with Lebanon, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iran. A broad coalition of...

Pakistan, Obsessed Over India, Risks Anarchy

Husain Haqqani August 21, 2014
Hope was brief for easing a long troubled relationship after Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif traveled for the May inauguration of Narendra Modi as India’s prime minister. Sharif, who won in a 2013 landslide victory, now confronts protests from the opposition as the Pakistan military and agitators thrive on the notion of India as a permanent enemy, with many even condoning terrorist activities directed at...