The Middle East Policy Council is a tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nonpartisan, educational organization founded in 1981 to provide policymakers and the public with credible, comprehensive information and analysis on political, economic, and cultural issues pertaining to U.S.-Middle East.
Yousef Al Otaiba | The Wall Street Journal
Over the past few weeks the international community has been stirred to action against the rising threat of extremism—the most destabilizing and dangerous global force since fascism. From Libya to the Levant and from Iraq to Yemen, violent Islamic extremists are overwhelming the broader popular will and menacing those committed to moderation and tolerance. It may not yet be a new world war, but it is already a raging war of competing world views.
In Iraq, Yazidi girls become war prizes to be sold as wives to fighters of the Islamic State, sometimes known as ISIS. In Syria, “infidels” are beheaded in the streets. In Egypt, rampaging jihadists massacre police recruits. In Libya, extremist groups launch the country toward anarchy. In Nigeria, Boko Haram kidnaps 200 schoolgirls. In the United Kingdom, college students are recruited online to take up jihad.
Islamic extremism has long been a Middle East problem but it is now the world’s problem too. It is a transnational cancer that has already metastasized into sub-Saharan Africa. Radicalized fighters returning home present a security threat to every country from the Americas to Asia. At the NATO summit and again this week, President Obama and other Western leaders have described their interests in this struggle. But no one has more at stake than the United Arab Emirates and other moderate countries in the region that have rejected the regressive Islamist creed and embraced a different, forward-looking path.
Now is the time to act. The international community needs an urgent, coordinated and sustained international effort to confront a threat that will, if unchecked, have global ramifications for decades to come.
Any action must first begin with a clear assessment of the enemy. The Islamic State may be the most obvious and dominant threat at present, but it is far from the only one. An international response must confront dangerous Islamist extremists of all stripes across the region. This includes many groups already designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government: Al Nusra Front in Syria, Ansar al Shariah in Libya and Tunisia, Ansar Bayt al Maqdis in Egypt, AQAP in Yemen and AQIM in North Africa.
The Middle East Policy Council is a tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nonpartisan, educational organization founded in 1981 to provide policymakers and the public with credible, comprehensive information and analysis on political, economic, and cultural issues pertaining to U.S.-Middle East.
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Yousef Al Otaiba | The Wall Street Journal
Over the past few weeks the international community has been stirred to action against the rising threat of extremism—the most destabilizing and dangerous global force since fascism. From Libya to the Levant and from Iraq to Yemen, violent Islamic extremists are overwhelming the broader popular will and menacing those committed to moderation and tolerance. It may not yet be a new world war, but it is already a raging war of competing world views.
In Iraq, Yazidi girls become war prizes to be sold as wives to fighters of the Islamic State, sometimes known as ISIS. In Syria, “infidels” are beheaded in the streets. In Egypt, rampaging jihadists massacre police recruits. In Libya, extremist groups launch the country toward anarchy. In Nigeria, Boko Haram kidnaps 200 schoolgirls. In the United Kingdom, college students are recruited online to take up jihad.
Islamic extremism has long been a Middle East problem but it is now the world’s problem too. It is a transnational cancer that has already metastasized into sub-Saharan Africa. Radicalized fighters returning home present a security threat to every country from the Americas to Asia. At the NATO summit and again this week, President Obama and other Western leaders have described their interests in this struggle. But no one has more at stake than the United Arab Emirates and other moderate countries in the region that have rejected the regressive Islamist creed and embraced a different, forward-looking path.
Now is the time to act. The international community needs an urgent, coordinated and sustained international effort to confront a threat that will, if unchecked, have global ramifications for decades to come.
Any action must first begin with a clear assessment of the enemy. The Islamic State may be the most obvious and dominant threat at present, but it is far from the only one. An international response must confront dangerous Islamist extremists of all stripes across the region. This includes many groups already designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government: Al Nusra Front in Syria, Ansar al Shariah in Libya and Tunisia, Ansar Bayt al Maqdis in Egypt, AQAP in Yemen and AQIM in North Africa.