A nation must think before it acts.
US working alongside its Arab allies should promote moderate forms of Islam
US working alongside its Arab allies should promote moderate forms of Islam
Since the emergence of Al Qaeda and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), America has shifted its terror-fighting strategy three times — making the exact same error, three different ways.
In the George W. Bush years, policymakers focused on the axis of evil states that supported terrorists with men, money and materiel.
This produced a strategy devoted to killing or capturing militants, staunching financial flows to terrorists and denying extremists access to raw materials for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
While sound, this approach was highly interventionist and allowed critics to frame it as a war between the West and Islam — despite Bush’s many unequivocal statements to the contrary.