War on Terror – rue saint-jacques

‘Walking us on a Rickety Bridge’: assessing President Obama’s legacy in the Muslim world.

July 13, 2016

At the 2010 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, President Barack Obama engaged in a classic piece of repartee with his audience. The President announced that ‘the Jonas Brothers are here. They’re out there somewhere’, and went on to notify the band that his daughters ‘Sasha and Malia are huge fans, but boys, don’t get any ideas. … More ‘Walking us on a Rickety Bridge’: assessing President Obama’s legacy in the Muslim world.

Islamic State in Iraq – a brief history.

July 11, 2016

‘You don’t slip into a civil war overnight. You don’t go to sleep and the following day there is civil war. Civil war creeps forward insidiously in very subtle ways, and we need to detect its early signs’ – Mowaffak al-Rubie, Iraqi statesman and civil rights campaigner. On 10th June 2014 Mosul fell to Islamic … More Islamic State in Iraq – a brief history.

Islamist mobilisation and state failure: an unholy alliance?

July 11, 2016

In his first foreign policy speech after announcing his candidacy for the 2007 Democratic primaries, Barack Obama highlighted the threat to US and international interests posed by state failure: claiming that al-Qaeda ‘operate freely in the disconnected corners of our interconnected world – the weak and ungoverned states that have become fertile breeding grounds for … More Islamist mobilisation and state failure: an unholy alliance?