What it’s like to be a Muslim in the CIA
It was the day after the 2009 Fort Hood shooting. I was working as a CIA analyst. I sat in a room with the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, along with several other a...
Kafir
The Islamic State vs. Al-Qaeda: The War Within the Jihadist Movement
Co-authored with Nathaniel Barr and Bridget Moreng The post-Arab Spring period has seen extraordinary growth in the global jihadist movement. In addition to the ...
Op-eds
Perfect Submission Possible
Michel Houellebecq is a sardonic and iconoclastic French novelist, winner of the prestigious Prix Goncourt, and subject of considerable controversy in Europe these days. He deserves to be controv...
Op-eds
Cutthroats of the Holy Land
Over the years, Israelis have had to defend themselves from foreign armies, suicide bombers and missiles. Over recent weeks, they’ve been confronting a new threat: young Palestinians wieldi...
Op-eds
Our Iranian Interlocutor
Antisemitism has never been an easy subject for America’s foreign-policy establishment. Read through State Department telegrams and Central Intelligence Agency operational and intelligence...
Op-eds
Turkey’s False Spring
Turkey’s recent June elections have produced a religiously diverse parliament th...
Op-eds
Meet Saudi Arabia’s Biggest (and Most Controversial) Twitter Star
Saudi Arabia is changing, some say. The authoritarian desert kingdom is becoming more responsive to the will of its people and the demands of the global information economy, say others. This idea...
Op-eds
Analysis: Why Iran’s Failure to Protect Religious Minorities Doesn’t Bode Well For Nuclear Deal
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s tenure has been marked by intensified persecution and incarceration of Baha’is, Jews, Christians and Sunni Muslims, according to a new report from t...
Op-eds
Al Qaeda Is Beating the Islamic State
Co-authored by Bridget Moreng The Islamic State’s lightning offensive through Iraq and Syria last year has dominated the headlines, but the jihadist group that has won the...
Op-eds
The Religious Cleansing of Middle East Christians
The fate of struggling Christians in Muslim-majority countries in the Islamic heartland has shifted from persecution to an existential struggle. Anti-Christian violence in 2014 saw...
Op-eds
Sandstorm
The great medieval historian Ibn Khaldun centered his understanding of history on asabiyya, which is perhaps best translated as esprit de corps mixed with the will to power. In his maste...
Op-eds
A Muslim Identity Crisis
The massive sexual abuse case in Rotherham, England, has revealed again how awkward and self-defeating the Western response often is to matters that touch on religious identity. Although the inde...
Op-eds
An Iranian Moderate Exposed
“To my esteemed enemy, Mohammad-Javad Zarif.” Iran’s former ambassador to the United Nations remains very proud of this dedication in his copy of Henry Kissinger’s ...
Op-eds
Iran’s Continued War on Christians
The Islamic Republic of Iran sentenced&n...
Op-eds
Uncharitable Organizations
Islamist groups are bankrolling terror groups across the Middle East and pretending it's aid work.
Op-eds
AQAP’s Top Sharia Official Killed in Recent Drone Strike
The US killed al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's senior sharia, or Islamic law, official in a drone strike in early October, according to a Yemeni journalist who is closely connected to the...
Op-eds
Why Is the West Ignoring Saudis’ Persecution of Christians?
Saudi Arabia’s deportation of 35 Christian Ethiopian workers last week for holding a private prayer in advance...
Op-eds
The Long, Hard, Surreal Struggle for Women’s Rights in Pakistan
On Saturday night, I appeared as a panelist at the “Message of Peace: Countering Islamophobia&rd...
Op-eds
Syria Debate: I Didn’t Miss the Totalitarian Angle; I Wrote the Book On It
There is not much with which to argue in Michael’s last salvo, but I do think I’m entitled to...
Op-eds
The Pakistan Problem Isn’t Just The Government. It’s The People
Since the Taliban resurgence began gaining force in 2005, a common refrain in the West has been that Pakistan must “do more” to rein in the jihadis who are drawing support from bases...