Azeem Ibrahim
Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 20082010
AP Photo
March 6, 2009
"Pakistan in Denial is its Biggest Security Obstacle"
Op-Ed, Middle East Times
By Azeem Ibrahim, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 20082010
"...[M]ost of the Pakistani elite are in denial. Too many authoritative figures simply refuse to face the extent to which the terrorist threat from Islamist radicals comes from within Pakistan....Many Pakistanis believe that America wants the destruction of Pakistan because it is the only Muslim country with nuclear weapons, and that it is trying to enlist Pakistani help in Afghanistan only in order to trap it in a pincer movement between India and American troops there."
AP Photo
February 18, 2009
"Power and Energy Priorities Must Include the Nuclear Option"
Op-Ed, The Scotsman
By Azeem Ibrahim, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 20082010
"Our international competitors are beginning to realise that no other technology will make up the energy shortfall. Social democratic Sweden has just ended a thirty-year ban, partly because nuclear is the only way it can meet its climate change targets. Finland, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are moving in the same direction. Environmentalists are beginning to realise the same thing. George Monbiot now says that opposing nuclear is now less important than preventing the harm from a radically changing climate...."
AP Photo
February 5, 2009
"Behind the Headlines: Azeem Ibrahim, Research Fellow at the International Security Programme at Harvard University"
Op-Ed, The Scotsman
By Azeem Ibrahim, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 20082010
"ALL the attention on Barack Obama's attempts to increase international troop numbers in Afghanistan threatens to obscure the grave situation facing Pakistan. Increasing threats to its integrity on the economic, political, and military fronts may constitute the biggest existential risk it has faced in its 61-year history. The Obama administration must factor this into its foreign policy strategy...."
AP Photo
January 21, 2009
"Obama's 'Troops in' Movement Will Not Force the Taleban Out"
Op-Ed, The Scotsman
By Azeem Ibrahim, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 20082010
"The bottom line is that our war aims can still be achieved, but not by force alone. Lasting stability in Afghanistan will only be achieved by negotiating with moderate elements in the Taleban and opening the way for them to share power. That will bolster the legitimacy of national government in Afghanistan, and ultimately divide and weaken the insurgents. Troops will be necessary to reduce the insurgency. But this should be seen as a means to the end of ending the conflict by enabling us to negotiate from a position of relative strength. Only a power-sharing government which includes the least extreme elements of the Taleban will be able to achieve the other three war aims — ensuring that Afghanistan remains a legitimate state, ensuring that it can handle its own security, and keeping core al Qaeda out of the country."
AP Photo
January 8, 2009
"We Have Military to be Proud of So Give Them Money They Need"
Op-Ed, The Scotsman
By Azeem Ibrahim, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 20082010
"As a country, we must face the fact our armed forces have reached the limit of what they can afford to do. Aside from Afghanistan and Iraq, we have troops deployed in large numbers in Germany and defence and peacekeeping duties in Bosnia, Kosovo, Cyprus, Northern Ireland, Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands. As a country, we claim to be proud of the dedication and professionalism of ourarmed forces, but we spend half as much on them per head as the Americans do."
AP Photo
December 20, 2008
"They Grew Up Half an Hour Away from Each Other. They Both Faced a Choice. One Became a Successful Entrepreneur and Prominent Thinker. One Bombed Glasgow Airport"
Op-Ed, Sunday Herald, (Scotland)
By Azeem Ibrahim, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 20082010
"...[B]oth he and I faced a choice between seeing Islam as setting us against our country, or as setting us up to be a part of it. Equally clearly, we made different choices. However, that is the same choice facing half a million Muslim young people growing up all over Britain, and about half a billion more all over the world."
AP Photo
December 3, 2008
"Islamist Terrorism Goes Freelance"
Op-Ed, Chicago Tribune
By Azeem Ibrahim, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 20082010
"Intelligence services in the U.S., United Kingdom, Holland, Denmark and Sweden agree that the main threat now comes mainly from freelance cells. Islamist terrorism has changed and the atrocities in Mumbai show that failure to grasp that change is dangerous....Freelance radicals can move across borders easily, disband and regroup at will and can be coordinated remotely. Inspiration and know-how can be disseminated, and plans formed, online between radicals who need not even have met. But the crucial difference is that any given terrorist can be replaced with another. That means any terrorist group cannot be conclusively defeated. This fact calls for a change in how Western governments address terror."
AP Photo
November 13, 2008
"The Relationship between Culture and Security Has Changed"
Speech
By Azeem Ibrahim, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 20082010
"Three years ago, police raided a flat in West London and arrested one of the world's top jihadi internet operatives. Under the name Irhabi007 — terrorist 007 — he had posted videos of beheadings and other attacks on the official sites for the George Washington University and the state of Arkansas. He had given many jihadi networks around the world online lessons in hacking, propaganda, and weaponry. And Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq — Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — had recruited him to spread knowhow, footage of terrorist attacks, and inspirational messages from Osama bin Laden himself.
But perhaps the most remarkable thing about him was that at the time of his arrest, he was a twenty-three year old IT student who had done all this alone from his bedroom...."
AP Photo
October 27, 2008
"Reducing Terrorism over the Long Term"
Policy Memo
By Azeem Ibrahim, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 20082010
The UK will be at the center of an increase in extremism caused by geostrategic and population trends over the next few decades, Azeem Ibrahim said during a powerful keynote speech to the Leaders' Summit on Security and Cohesion at Portcullis House, Westminster, London, on October 7, 2008. He added that radicals should be re-educated by reformed jihadi fighters and that the key to preventing violent extremism is minimizing the motivation to radicalize.
This policy memo is based on Mr. Ibrahim's speech.
