A nation must think before it acts.
What to Do about ISIS? FPRI’s 2016 Champagne Brunch for Partners
This year we offered a new format featuring a discussion moderated by WHYY’s Marty Moss-Coane, with guests Trudy Rubin, the renowned columnist of the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Clint Watts, FPRI’s own “online jihadi hunter” and Robert A. Fox Fellow. In this discussion, we explored the threat posed by ISIS at home and abroad, the interconnection with the Syrian civil war, the phenomenon of foreign fighters, and the question of radicalization.
Marty Moss-Coane is host and executive producer of WHYY’s Radio Times, one of the most respected weekday interview programs on regional radio. In addition she is WHYY’s principal moderator for community town meetings and candidate forums and debates, both on FM, TV, the Web and in the community. She has been recognized locally, regionally and nationally for her skills as an interviewer and radio host, including awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Pennsylvania Associated Press Broadcasters Association, American Women in Radio and Television, and the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters.
Trudy Rubin is an award-winning foreign affairs columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer and a member of The Inquirer’s editorial board. She has traveled frequently to the Middle East, spoken at length to high-level officials and members of the opposition, often placing herself in danger to get at the truth. In 2001 she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary and in 2008 she was awarded the Edward Weintal prize for international reporting. In 2010 she won the Arthur Ross award for international commentary from the Academy of American Diplomacy. Prior to joining The Inquirer in 1983, she was Middle East correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, covering Israel and the Arab world, and lived in Jerusalem and Beirut.
Clint Watts served as a U.S. Army infantry officer, an FBI Special Agent on a Joint Terrorism Task Force, and as the Executive Officer of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. His blogs on counterterrorism have made him FPRI’s “go-to” specialist on counter-terrorism, foreign fighters, and radicalization, and he regularly briefs law enforcement and homeland security personnel. The Boston Globe described him as part of a new generation of “online jihadi hunters.”