Research & Commentary Results

Over the past five years, the focus of U.S. counterterrorism strategists has remained on the Middle East, especially after the emergence of ISIS in 2014, while Islamist terrorist organizations operating in South Asia have been considered a secondary threat. However, the fact remains that South Asia is home to more Islamist terrorist organizations than any other region of the world. Al-Qaeda was born there, in Afghanistan, and ISIS has roots in the region. But at the turn of the decade both global jihadist groups are now facing major challenges and the critical question is whether they will manage to survive this period of crisis amid a severe leadership vacuum following the death of ISIS’s supreme leader and caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the killing of al-Qaeda heir apparent Hamza bin Laden. 

Trump has taken such a forward-leaning and aggressive position now that he has set himself, and the U.S., in a conflict trap that he might not be able to defuse.

While yesterday’s vote in the Iraqi Council of Representatives on a decision to remove U.S. forces is not legally binding, it creates dynamics inside the U.S. and Iraq that make a U.S. decision to remove its forces all but inevitable.

Tehran will do what it can to avenge Soleimani’s death, to save face at home and abroad, but it will not seek a direct military confrontation.

The commitment by its foreign benefactors to underwrite the Afghan regime’s viability and ability to withstand Taliban insurgency is in serious doubt.

For almost 40 years, American national security officials have looked down the barrel of the gun of war with Iran. I sat in rooms in the White House and Pentagon several times as small groups of senior officials considered what such a war would look like, how it would end, and whether we would be better off for having fought it.

The answer was always the same: It would be highly destructive in several nations, it would end in a stalemate with the Iranian regime in place, and nothing positive would have been accomplished.

Seven MEI experts weigh in with their views on what the killing of Iran’s Qassem Soleimani means for the region

The killing of Qassem Soleimani is one of the biggest developments in the Middle East in decades — it far eclipses the deaths of Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in terms of strategic significance and implications.

Just when we thought we had a good understanding of President Donald Trump’s Middle East policy — which boils down to “get out of the region and avoid another endless war there” — he pulls off something dramatic like this.

We must keep in mind that Iran exercises what Barack Obama liked to call “strategic patience.” They pursue strategies and tactics that serve their interests, not emotions. Their interests remain to get Trump to ease off on crippling economic sanctions; to maintain or increase their influence in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon; and to maintain regime security at home. The death of a senior military officer of theirs is significant but doesn’t change their institutional relations, their interests, or their overall strategy. 

After a career in the military with a lot of time spent in this region, I have learned that you must respect your adversaries and their ability to hurt us.

In the wake of the airstrike, there have been many calls inside Iraq for restraint among Iraqis and between the Americans and the Iranians, most notably from the Shi’a clerical establishment in Najaf. There is a wide consensus in Iraq that the country should not be at the center of an American-Iranian military fight.

The killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, was a major and unexpected blow to the Iranian leadership. It punctured the aura of invincibility and the hubris that have characterized Soleimani and his colleagues’ behavior.

No one in Tehran can now afford to test the limits of Donald Trump’s unpredictability. He is the man who for years lamented American interventions in the Middle East only to shock the Iranians by killing the leading symbol of Iran’s regional agenda. 

Afghan security forces, working in concert with U.S. airpower, have launched a series of successful attacks in eastern Afghanistan on ISIS forces, which operate locally under the banner of ISKP. Simultaneously, the Taliban has conducted its own military campaign against ISKP in the same region. These campaigns have significantly degraded ISKP’s position in eastern Afghanistan, a development that may well increase the likelihood of an eventual U.S.-Taliban peace deal.