The Islamic State remains a puzzle to U.S. policymakers and analysts. The national security community in the United States and the West neither predicted the Islamic State’s rise, nor has been able […]
Historic sites serve every purpose to the Islamic State except actual preservation of cultural heritage. The beheading by the Islamic State of “Mr. Palmyra,” Khalid al-Asaad, the retired chief of antiquities for […]
A poll indicates that Saudi citizens seem to find the Islamic State’s repressiveness and barbarism less objectionable than the House of Saud’s corruption. In a New York Review of Books review of […]
By burning alive Jordanian fighter pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh, the Islamic State reinforced an apparent commitment to behave like a terrorist organization, not a state. It’s well known that revolutionary movements and/or terrorist […]
Nor does glossing over the Islamic State’s ultraviolence help make the case for non-intervention. On Dec. 18, the Guardian published a report by a team of reporters, including Focal Points contributor Ali […]
For the Islamic State to preside over a caliphate takes money — lots of it. In an invaluable article at the Barcelona Centre for World Affairs site titled How Long Will ISIS […]
Progressive Culture | Scholars & Rogues 