Letting freedom fade
Whatever happened to Charlie Hebdo? For years, the French satirical magazine threw spit balls at polite society. Its writers and cartoonists particularly delighted in ridiculing religions and pie...
Muhammad
Spiritual Ardor and Military Might: The Story of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards
This past September in an audience hall in Tehran, a prominent vocalist named Sadegh Ahangaran took to a microphone to j...
Op-eds
Muslims in America
One of the most striking features of the British cemetery at Gallipoli is the attention given to honoring the diversity of the dead. Final farewells from loved ones carved upon stone plaques line...
Op-eds
Rizvi’s Reformation
The Atheist Muslim opens with snow in Saudi Arabia. The author, Ali Rizvi, is in fifth grade at the American school in Riyadh, where students are folding glittery snowflakes out of construction p...
Op-eds
Analysis: Attacks show radicals retain foothold in Saudi Arabia
A wave of suicide attacks Monday in Saudi Arabia, especially one near the burial site of the prophet Mohammed, shows that radicals are increasingly challenging the Al Saud royal family and its ro...
Op-eds
The Orlando Shooter’s Desire for ‘Martyrdom’
After each jihadist attack in the West, our society rehearses the same ritualistic debate over what the terrorists' motivations really are. It is true that "radicalization," as it is often d...
Op-eds
The Mr. Rogers Doctrine
Barack Obama last week visited Saudi Arabia, an unusual nation with which the United States has had a relationship that can be accurately characterized as both strategic and strange — and o...
Op-eds
The Middle East’s Conflicts Are About Religion
A meme is gaining traction within American government and media, and it goes like this: The conflicts of the Middle East aren’t about religion. Jihadist violence? Garden-variety ...
Op-eds
Iran is Complicit in Attacks on Saudi Missions
Saudi Arabia executed a prominent anti-government Shiite cleric on Saturday, prompting angry mobs in Iran to storm the Saudi consulate in Mashhad and set ablaze Riyadh’s embassy in Tehran....
Policy Briefs
Fixing How We Fight the Islamic State’s Narrative
Co-authored by Nathaniel Barr Over the past couple of years, counter-messaging has been driven to the forefront of countering violent extremism (CVE) efforts undertaken by...
Op-eds
More of the Same
On December 6, Barack Obama addressed the nation from the Oval Office for just the third time in his tenure. The president sought to reassure the American people that he has a strategy for defeat...
Op-eds
Not a Conspiracy
In May, the London Review of Books published a 10,000-word exposé by veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh on the killing of Osama bin Laden. It was widely read online, receiving...
Op-eds
Words Have Consequences: Palestinian Authority Incitement to Violence
Download full testimony here....
Legislative Testimonies
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
Analysis: Rouhani’s Anti-Gay Policies Mirror His Predecessor
Shortly after the election of Iran’s self-described moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani as president in 2013, the gay Iranian poet Payam Feili concluded, prophetically and pessimistically: &ldqu...
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
When Israel Helped Yemen’s Shiites
Yemen’s Houthi rebels accuse Israel of standing behind the Saudi-led military campaign launched against t...
Op-eds
Violent Extremist vs. Holy Warrior
Is Barack Hussein Obama wrong to avoid appending “Islamic,” “Muslim,” “Islamist,” or even “jihadist” to the terrorism that has struck the West with...
Op-eds
Europe Needs Straight Talk About Radical Islam
BERLIN – Europe’s timid approach to Islamic terrorism imploded last week with the horrific jihadi-animated murder of 17 men and women in Paris, including most of the cartoonists...
Op-eds
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Claims Responsibility for Charlie Hebdo Attack
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), an official branch of al Qaeda's international organization, has claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack on C...