American Nativism and the Newest Surge in Xenophobia

by Paul R. Pillar A couple of days ago President Obama made an appropriate refinement to how he describes the discriminatory and xenophobic tendencies that have become all too obvious in debate and posturing in the United States on issues… Continue Reading →

Splinterlands: The View from 2050

by John Feffer Let me start with a confession. I’m old-fashioned and I have an old-fashioned profession. I’m a geo-paleontologist. That means I dig around in archives to exhume the extinct: all the empires and federations and territorial unions that… Continue Reading →

The Political Foundation of the Islamic State’s Success

by Henry Johnson More so than flaws in the Iraqi army or lack of U.S. support or suicide bombers, the Islamic State (ISIS or IS) owes its stunning victories across Iraq to widespread ambivalence toward violence against the state. This… Continue Reading →

Why Is the Islamic State So Resilient?

by Emile Nakhleh As the Islamic State continues to conquer territory in Iraq and Syria, and as the Assad regime teeters on collapse and the Iraqi government loses credibility, many in the West are wondering why the Islamic State (ISIS… Continue Reading →