IPS Writers in the Blogosphere

One night bombs dropped from the sky, killing 16 members of Ismail’s family. “The war took [...]]]> By Noor Wali Sheenwari

War has ripped apart a majority of families in Afghanistan. Those who were lucky migrated to the West. Uncle Ismail’s family lies buried in a graveyard in Nangarhar. What Follows is a testimony**

One night bombs dropped from the sky, killing 16 members of Ismail’s family. “The war took some people to Europe and America, but it destroyed my family,” Ismail, who is universally addressed as “uncle”, says. From Haska Mena in Nangarhar, he says his parents insisted he go to the only school in the district, in Shpole Baba. The times were tumultuous. The Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan, and Babrak Karmal was installed the leader of the government in December 1979.

The new government’s opponents set fire to Ismail’s school. He remembers going up to the roof of his house to watch the flames. “The fire destroyed my hopes of studying, and being a great man in the future,” he sighs.Ismail started to help his father on the land. “People in our village were surprised that I switched so quickly from being a school boy to a farm worker,” he remembers, a soft smile on his face.

But the war was to change things again for Ismail. He remembers his father and he were ploughing the fields when six Soviet helicopters appeared. They circled the area three times, and then suddenly, started firing. “They shot people in cold blood. Everyone was running helter-skelter. Our bulls broke free of the yoke in panic. My family was sheltering in the village mosque. My grandmother who refused to leave was the only one in the house when I got there.”

Doomed lives

When the sound of machine guns and bombing stopped, Ismail crawled out of his hiding place. The village had been flattened. “Everything was in ruins. The air was full of dust. The big trees were uprooted and broken. I ran towards the mosque. Nothing was left of it. Three of my sisters, mother, grandfather, three of my uncle’s sons, three of their sisters and my uncle’s wife were martyred,” he recounts.

One sister and a cousin survived, he adds. “My sister’s leg had broken in three places. My uncle’s daughter had a wound in her neck. When we poured milk in her mouth she could not swallow. No one could be taken to hospital, but they survived. Now they are both married. They have children but they have never recovered. They suffer from depression and other mental problems,” he explains.

Four more villages were bombed the same day. Rumours of more attacks triggered an exodus. Ismail joined a group of villagers going to Achin. “It was winter. It was raining hard. I did not have even sandals on my feet. We reached the Achin area. We had not eaten any food. I was weeping loudly!”

No one knew why their village was bombed. Ismail wondered if it was because one of his uncle’s was a military officer in the Daud Khan government. Daud Khan was the first president of Afghanistan, from 1973 till his assassination in 1978. “The Russians were bombing our villages based on incorrect information. We had nothing to do with politics. We were just farmers,” he asserts.

Ismail returned home two weeks later. His old grandmother had gone blind. His father had many bullet injuries in his shoulder. He says he went to the graveyard to mourn his family. “They were many new graves. I ran to the grave of my baby sister. People told me her body had been found in a well beside the mosque. I fainted with the news; people had to carry me back home,” he says.

Bright future

The village was targeted again and again. “At the mere sound of a plane we would run for our lives. I made a bunker for my grandmother and father. I used to hide them there,” he says. “One day the Russian aircrafts stopped visiting our village, and the mujahedin brought their war to us.”

Ismail left, like tens of thousands of Afghans, for Pakistan in search of a livelihood. He did all kinds of hard, manual work. “I did not take my family. I was working as a daily wageworker. Sometimes I would be a guard, other times I would push a wheelbarrow, and break stones. My hands would get cut and bruised. I would wrap them up in cloth,” he recalls without emotion.

Part of the money he earned was sent home. His father wanted him to rebuild the village mosque. He also renovated the family home where he now lives with his family along with his half-brother and family.
His old school in Shpole Baba was rebuilt. Now Ismail’s son studies there. “He is in seventh class. He always stands first. My brother says that even if we die of hunger we will make him finish his studies!”

** The testimonies of survivors of war crimes are a contribution to creating greater public awareness about Afghan people’s hopes and claims for justice, reconciliation and peace. These testimonies and life stories are distributed internationally by IPS-Inter Press Service and are the basis for a radio drama that is being broadcast by seven Killid radios.

]]> https://www.ips.org/blog/ips/the-mindlessness-of-war/feed/ 0 “I Want to See the Murderers Punished” https://www.ips.org/blog/ips/i-want-to-see-the-murderers-punished/ https://www.ips.org/blog/ips/i-want-to-see-the-murderers-punished/#comments Fri, 11 Jan 2013 01:50:03 +0000 Killid Media http://www.ips.org/blog/ips/?p=13358 The Kabul sky is dotted with kites on summer evenings. For Mohammad Masoud Nassiri, 40, they bring back painful memories of the evening when his parents and sister were killed. Seconds before the blast he had let go his father’s hand to run after a falling kite. What follows [...]]]>

Kids flying kites in Kabul. Credit: Najibullah Musafer / Killid

By Neelab Nassiri/ Killid

The Kabul sky is dotted with kites on summer evenings. For Mohammad Masoud Nassiri, 40, they bring back painful memories of the evening when his parents and sister were killed. Seconds before the blast he had let go his father’s hand to run after a falling kite. What follows is a testimony.**

Kites are a national passion in Afghanistan. Boys grow up learning how to get it into the air and “cut” a rival’s kite. They dart through traffic and jump over boundary walls, risking life and limb, to catch falling kites. The one who gets to it first is the proud, new owner.

Masoud recalls he was with his family, walking to visit an uncle in Dehbori, when he saw a kite floating free.

“Automatically my hand let go of my father’s and I crossed the road. I was running after the kite when I heard a terrible explosion,” he says. “When the dust and smoke settled there was blood everywhere. My parents were both dead. One sister was dead, and another was alive but covered in blood. My brother was calling out to our mother.”

The year was 1990. It was a hot evening in the month of Asad (July-August). The government led by Dr Najibullah was under increasing attack from the US-armed mujahedin. Rockets were being fired from Kohsafi (mountain in the east of Kabul) and Paghman. But Kabul’s youth continued to fly kites from the rooftops.

“I didn’t know much about the political situation of the time,” Masoud says. “All I remember was hearing rockets and knowing people were dying every day. We tried to lead a normal life, and so it was that my parents, brother, sisters and I were going to an uncle’s house.”

Civilian targets

Masoud remembers the wind was strong that evening, ideal for kite flying. Kabul was practically under siege. The forces of Ittihad-e-Islami were positioned in Paghman and in its mountains, while areas such as Logar, Char Asiab, Saroobi and Khak-e-Jabar were under the control of Hezb-e-Islami. The city was constantly being bombarded. Rockets would often miss their targets and land on residential areas.

“When the rocket hit and the dust decreased I found I had lost everything. I was terrified. A taxi stopped, and the driver took my brother to hospital. Another taxi took my sister to hospital. An old man put a shawl over my parents. That was the moment I knew they were dead. I removed the shawl to take another look.”

In a daze the 10 year old started walking back home. On the way he met his eldest brother who had heard the blast. “He did not know what happened. He asked me where was I going, where was my father? I just kept weeping.”

Relatives took the bodies to Aliabad and the ICRC hospitals. They were buried in Shohadaye Salehin graveyard. “Every time I pass Dehbori or the graveyard I remember the deaths. Our neighbour who was a mechanic and his two daughters were also martyred.”

A year later the mujahedin toppled the Najib government and imprisoned the president. But the situation only got worse for Kabul’s residents with rival mujahedin factions fighting each other to gain control. Those who could leave the city did. Others like Masoud, his two brothers and two sisters – one an infant of two months when their parents died – struggled to survive against all odds.

Hard times

“Opposite our house was a correction home for criminal children less than 18 years old. It was managed by the National Security Department during Dr Najib’s government but when the mujahedin came it was captured by the Harakat-e-Islami. A good man called Mohammad Naeem Qazawi was the head commander. One day he summoned my elder brother to find out about our situation. He told him to work as a member of the criminal department in the sixth security district. My brother was not more than 15 years old. He worked for nine months; he was paid 29,000 Afs per month (now roughly 550 USD) which was useful money for our family.”

The battle lines in the never-ending war for Kabul were again being redrawn. Harakat-e-Islami fighters were forced to retreat by the Hezb-e-Wahdat. Masoud’s uncle assumed guardianship of the family, and they moved into his house in Kart-e-Sea.

The civil war raged till 1996 when the Taleban captured Kabul. Their harsh rule ended only in 2001 when US forces invaded Afghanistan to oust al Qaeda forces. The Taleban fled to the border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Was there justice for the war victims?

“Those who have shed the blood of Kabul residents before and during the civil war years are now sitting in the government,” says Masoud who is a journalist, like his brother and one sister. “Life is passing well for us,” he adds, “(but) I want to see the conviction and punishment of those who murdered people in public.”

** The testimonies of survivors of war crimes are a contribution to creating greater public awareness about people’s hopes and claims for justice, reconciliation and peace. These life stories are distributed internationally by IPS-Inter Press Service and are the basis for a radio drama that is being broadcast by seven Killid radios.

]]> https://www.ips.org/blog/ips/i-want-to-see-the-murderers-punished/feed/ 0 Iran: the Nuclear Dog that can’t Bark https://www.ips.org/blog/ips/iran-the-nuclear-dog-that-cant-bark/ https://www.ips.org/blog/ips/iran-the-nuclear-dog-that-cant-bark/#comments Mon, 07 Jan 2013 08:25:53 +0000 Guest http://www.ips.org/blog/ips/iran-the-nuclear-dog-that-cant-bark/ via Lobe Log

By David Isenberg

Apart from death and taxes, one other thing has also appeared inevitable, at least for the past two decades: Iran will acquire a nuclear weapons capability.

Yet, despite all the near frantic demands for sanctions, clandestine action, sabotage, and outright military strikes to prevent Iran’s presumed inexorable march [...]]]> via Lobe Log

By David Isenberg

Apart from death and taxes, one other thing has also appeared inevitable, at least for the past two decades: Iran will acquire a nuclear weapons capability.

Yet, despite all the near frantic demands for sanctions, clandestine action, sabotage, and outright military strikes to prevent Iran’s presumed inexorable march towards that capability, one thing keeps getting overlooked: Iran has not managed to develop a nuclear weapon.

How is that possible? As states go, Iran has a reasonably well-developed scientific and industrial infrastructure, an educated workforce capable of working with advanced technologies, and lots of money. If Pakistan, starting from a much lower level, could develop nuclear weapons, why hasn’t Iran?

That overlooked question was the subject of an important but largely ignored past article, “Botching the Bomb: Why Nuclear Weapons Programs Often Fail on Their Own — and Why Iran’s Might, Too” in Foreign Affairs journal.

In the May/June 2012 issue, Jacques E. C. Hymans, an International Relations Associate Professor at the University of Southern California and author of the book Achieving Nuclear Ambitions: Scientists, Politicians, and Proliferation (from which his article was adapted) wrote:

The Iranians had to work for 25 years just to start accumulating uranium enriched to 20 percent, which is not even weapons grade. The slow pace of Iranian nuclear progress to date strongly suggests that Iran could still need a very long time to actually build a bomb — or could even ultimately fail to do so. Indeed, global trends in proliferation suggest that either of those outcomes might be more likely than Iranian success in the near future. Despite regular warnings that proliferation is spinning out of control, the fact is that since the 1970s, there has been a persistent slowdown in the pace of technical progress on nuclear weapons projects and an equally dramatic decline in their ultimate success rate.

To paraphrase Sherlock Homes, Iran is an example of a nuclear dog that has not barked. In Hyman’s view, Iran’s lack of progress can only partly be attributed to US and international nonproliferation efforts.

But the primary reason is:

…mostly the result of the dysfunctional management tendencies of the states that have sought the bomb in recent decades. Weak institutions in those states have permitted political leaders to unintentionally undermine the performance of their nuclear scientists, engineers, and technicians. The harder politicians have pushed to achieve their nuclear ambitions, the less productive their nuclear programs have become.

Conversely, US and Israeli efforts may actually be helping Iran to someday achieve a nuclear weapons capability.

Meanwhile, military attacks by foreign powers have tended to unite politicians and scientists in a common cause to build the bomb. Therefore, taking radical steps to rein in Iran would be not only risky but also potentially counterproductive, and much less likely to succeed than the simplest policy of all: getting out of the way and allowing the Iranian nuclear program’s worst enemies — Iran’s political leaders — to hinder the country’s nuclear progress all by themselves.

Generally examining the progress of contemporary aspiring nuclear weapons states, Hymans notes that seven countries launched dedicated nuclear weapons projects before 1970, and all of them succeeded in relatively short order. By contrast, of the ten countries that have launched dedicated nuclear weapons projects since 1970, only three have achieved a bomb. And only one of the six states that failed — Iraq — had made much progress toward its ultimate goal by the time it gave up trying. (The jury is still out on Iran’s program.) What’s more, even the successful projects of recent decades have required a long time to achieve their goals. The average timeline to the bomb for successful projects launched before 1970 was about seven years; the average timeline to the bomb for successful projects launched after 1970 has been about 17 years.

In the case of Iran, Hymans notes:

Iran’s nuclear scientists and engineers may well find a way to inoculate themselves against Israeli bombs and computer hackers. But they face a potentially far greater obstacle in the form of Iran’s long-standing authoritarian management culture. In a study of Iranian human-resource practices, the management analysts Pari Namazie and Monir Tayeb concluded that the Iranian regime has historically shown a marked preference for political loyalty over professional qualifications. “The belief,” they wrote, “is that a loyal person can learn new skills, but it is much more difficult to teach loyalty to a skilled person.” This is the classic attitude of authoritarian managers. And according to the Iranian political scientist Hossein Bashiriyeh, in recent years, Iran’s “irregular and erratic economic policies and practices, political nepotism and general mismanagement” have greatly accelerated. It is hard to imagine that the politically charged Iranian nuclear program is sheltered from these tendencies.

Hymans accordingly derived four lessons.

The first is to be wary of narrow, technocentric analyses of a state’s nuclear weapons potential. Recent alarming estimates of Iran’s timeline to the bomb have been based on the same assumptions that have led Israel and the United States to consistently overestimate Iran’s rate of nuclear progress for the last 20 years. The majority of official US and Israeli estimates during the 1990s predicted that Iran would acquire nuclear weapons by 2000. After that date passed with no Iranian bomb in sight, the estimate was simply bumped back to 2005, then to 2010, and most recently to 2015. The point is not that the most recent estimates are necessarily wrong, but that they lack credibility. In particular, policymakers should heavily discount any intelligence assessments that do not explicitly account for the impact of management quality on Iran’s proliferation timeline.

The second is that policymakers should reject analyses based on assumptions about a state’s capacity to build nuclear programs in secret. Ever since the mid-1990s, official proliferation assessments have freely extrapolated from minimal data, a practice that led US intelligence analysts to wrongly conclude that Iraq had reconstituted its weapons of mass destruction programs after the Gulf War. The US must guard against the possibility of an equivalent intelligence failure over Iran. This is not to deny that Tehran may be keeping some of its nuclear work secret. But it is simply unreasonable to assume, for example, that Iran has compensated for the problems it has faced with centrifuges at the Natanz uranium-enrichment facility by hiding better-working centrifuges at some unknown facility. Indeed, when Iran has tried to hide weapons-related activities in the past, it has often been precisely because the work was at the very early stages or was going badly.

The third is that states that poorly manage their nuclear programs can bungle even the supposedly easy steps of the process. For instance, based on estimates of the size of North Korea’s plutonium stockpile and the presumed ease of weapons fabrication, US intelligence agencies thought that by the 1990s, North Korea had built one or two nuclear weapons. But in 2006, North Korea’s first nuclear test essentially fizzled, making it clear that the “hermit kingdom” did not have any working weapons at all. Even its second try, in 2009, did not work properly. Similarly, if Iran eventually does acquire a significant quantity of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium, this should not be equated with the possession of a nuclear weapon.

The fourth lesson is to avoid acting in a way that might motivate scientific and technical workers to commit themselves more firmly to the nuclear weapons project. Nationalist fervor can partially compensate for poor organization. Accordingly, violent actions, such as aerial bombardments or assassinations of scientists, are a loser’s bet. As shown by the consequences of the Israeli attack on Osiraq, such strikes are liable to unite the state’s scientific and technical workers behind their otherwise illegitimate political leadership. Acts of sabotage, such as the Stuxnet computer worm, which damaged Iranian nuclear equipment in 2010, stand at the extreme boundary between sanctions and violent attacks, and should therefore only be undertaken after extremely thorough consideration.

- David Isenberg runs the Isenberg Institute of Strategic Satire (Motto: Let’s stop war by making fun of it.). He is author of the book Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq and blogs at The PMSC Observer and the Huffington Post. He is a senior analyst at Wikistrat, an adjunct scholar at the CATO Institute, and a Navy veteran.

Photo: Iran’s first nuclear power plant in Bushehr, Iran, on August 21, 2010. UPI/Maryam Rahmanianon.

]]> https://www.ips.org/blog/ips/iran-the-nuclear-dog-that-cant-bark/feed/ 0 David Petraeus and the Militarization of the CIA https://www.ips.org/blog/ips/david-petraeus-and-the-militarization-of-the-cia/ https://www.ips.org/blog/ips/david-petraeus-and-the-militarization-of-the-cia/#comments Wed, 14 Nov 2012 16:27:18 +0000 Jasmin Ramsey http://www.ips.org/blog/ips/david-petraeus-and-the-militarization-of-the-cia/ via Lobe Log

The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill injects some badly needed context into the media frenzy over David Petraeus’s CIA resignation by examining the four-star General’s legacy against the backdrop of an increasingly militarized intelligence agency:

As head of US Central Command in 2009, Petraeus issued execute orders that significantly broadened the ability [...]]]> via Lobe Log

As head of US Central Command in 2009, Petraeus issued execute orders that significantly broadened the ability of US forces to operate in a variety of countries, including Yemen, where US forces began conducting missile strikes later that year. During Petraeus’s short tenure at the CIA, drone strikes conducted by the agency, sometimes in conjunction with JSOC, escalated dramatically in Yemen; in his first month in office, he oversaw a series of strikes that killed three US citizens, including 16-year-old Abdulrahman Awlaki. In some cases, such as the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, commandos from the elite JSOC operated under the auspices of the CIA, so that the mission could be kept secret if it went wrong.

]]> https://www.ips.org/blog/ips/david-petraeus-and-the-militarization-of-the-cia/feed/ 0 Unfinished Business Awaits Obama’s Second Term https://www.ips.org/blog/ips/unfinished-business-awaits-obamas-second-term/ https://www.ips.org/blog/ips/unfinished-business-awaits-obamas-second-term/#comments Thu, 08 Nov 2012 21:53:57 +0000 Emile Nakhleh http://www.ips.org/blog/ips/unfinished-business-awaits-obamas-second-term/ via IPS News

Several critical issues of unfinished business in the Middle East face President Barack Obama as he begins his second term. Washington must become more engaged come January because these issues will directly impact regional stability and security and U.S. interests and personnel in the region.

The issues include the Syrian [...]]]> via IPS News

The issues include the Syrian uprising and increasing atrocities by extremist elements within the uprising, the Arab Spring and the future of democratic transitions, the growing influence of radical Salafi “jihadism” across the Arab world, Bahrain, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran, Pakistan, and Guantanamo and global terrorism.

The Obama administration’s engagement in these issues in the past year has been marginal and uneven, influenced largely by domestic politics and to some degree the ghost of Libya. Washington’s public support for democracy following the start of the Arab Spring was welcomed in the region, especially as dictators in Tunisia and Egypt fell precipitously.

The U.S. image became more tarnished, however, as repression escalated in Bahrain against the Shia majority and as Assad’s killing machine became more vicious, and Syria descended into a civil war.

Washington’s benign response to repression and torture in Bahrain, according to advocates of this policy, is justified by the presence of the U.S. Fifth Fleet and the special relationship with Saudi Arabia. Yet, the U.S. and its Western allies have not used their significant leverage in either country to advance democracy. Nor has the Fleet deterred the Al Khalifa regime from repressing the pro-democracy movement.

The ghost of Libya and the U.S. presidential election also drove Obama’s hesitancy to act against the Syrian dictator. During the foreign policy presidential debate before the U.S. elections, President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney argued lamely that Syria was different from Libya, and therefore the U.S. military even under the NATO umbrella should not be used against Assad.

The fate of emerging Arab democracies and the legitimate aspirations of millions of Arab youth, which the U.S. and many countries worldwide have endorsed, should not be held hostage to political expediency or become a casualty of electoral politics.

U.S. prestige and Obama’s credibility at home and abroad will be tested by whether Washington stands with the peoples of the region against their entrenched dictators, regardless of the so-called Libyan model. Calls for justice and dignity in the Arab uprisings signaled a historic moment that resonated across the globe. The U.S. should embrace this moment and place itself on the right side of history.

President Obama was hailed across the Arab Muslim world in June 2009 when he called for engaging credible indigenous communities on the basis of common interests and mutual respect. A retreat from those ideals would be disastrous for the U.S. and its allies, especially as regime remnants and radical Salafis endeavour to derail the democratic process.

An autocratic tribal ruler in Manama, who has just revoked the citizenship of 31 Bahraini nationals, or a brutal dictator in Damascus should not turn the clock back on the moral inroads that Washington made in the region in the post-Bush era.

The unfolding of events at a dizzying speed and increasing threats to U.S. interests and personnel demand serious attempts to address theses critical issues. In his second-term, President Obama cannot remain oblivious to rising sectarianism, growing Salafi extremism, continued repression, and suppression of minorities and women.

On day one after taking office, the president must turn his full attention to Syria.

Assad must be forced out, and soon. Over 25,000 Syrians have been killed since the uprising began in early 2011, and equal numbers have been “disappeared” by the regime. Hundreds of thousands have become refugees. Atrocities committed by the regime and by some of the rebels are inflicting untold suffering on innocent civilians in Syria.

The Syrian uprising, like those in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, started peacefully. Regime intransigence and repression, however, forced the uprising to become violent. Lawlessness and the porous borders have opened Syria to radical “jihadists” from neighbouring Arab countries.

Whereas, the uprising was initially non-ideological and non-religious, the incoming “jihadists” are Sunni Salafis bent on fighting a religious war against an “infidel” dictator. These “jihadists” have exploited the factionalism of the opposition for their intolerant religious extremism.

They also gained acceptance by the poorly armed rebels because they brought in weapons and money from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and elsewhere. The rise of violent “jihadism” in Syria had been a direct consequence of continued regime intransigence.

A prolonged proxy war between Iran, which supports Assad, and Saudi Arabia, which supports the uprising, over Syria and a resurgent radical Salafi “jihad” within the insurgency cannot be good for regional stability and for the international community.

How to speed up Assad’s exit? Short of putting boots on the ground, Washington and its NATO allies, especially the UK, France, and Turkey, should declare a no-fly zone and provide the Free Syrian Army with adequate anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons to fight the regime’s military machine. NATO should seek the consent of Arab and Asian countries for the Syria initiative, including patrolling the no-fly zone.

Media reports reveal that Turkey, with U.S. approval, has deployed Patriot missiles close to the Syrian border. This action seems to signal Turkey’s intention to create and possibly defend a no-fly zone. President Obama and other NATO leaders should vigorously push this action forward.

Syrian refugees cannot spend another winter in tents and under intolerable conditions.

NATO partners also should help streamline the opposition groups and recognise whatever group emerges as a legitimate political representative of Syria. Admittedly, factionalism among the rebel groups on the ground and within the Syrian National Council outside the country is a major impediment to diplomatic recognition and international action.

Once a unified leadership emerges, NATO should provide it with logistics, intelligence, and command and control training. Furthermore, Washington and London should put the Assad regime on notice that attacking Syria’s neighbours or using chemical and biological weapons in any form against any target will result in a massive military response.

Lakhdar Brahimi’s U.N.-Arab mission to Syria has failed to persuade Assad to stop the killing, and any talk of a temporary ceasefire is no more than wishful thinking. Russian and Chinese obduracy in the U.N. Security Council on Syria justifies an immediate and more robust NATO action against the regime. The Syrian dictator has already rejected British Prime Minister David Cameron’s offer for a safe passage out of Syria.

It’s morally reprehensible for the international community to remain insensitive to the continued atrocities against the Syrian people, whether by the regime or the opposition. Moral platitudes no longer cut it.

Once the regime is toppled, the international community should help the post-Assad government with economic recovery and empower the Syrian business community and entrepreneurial civil society to start creating jobs. When that happens, the “Arab Spring” would rightfully claim its fifth trophy.

*Emile Nakhleh is former director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program at CIA and author of A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim world.

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