Azeem Ibrahim

AP Photo

January 14, 2010

"Banning Islam4UK is Playing into Its Hands"

Op-Ed, The Scotsman

By Azeem Ibrahim, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2008–2010

"And yet the media bear some responsibility. Not only do they give Islamists a very large platform to air their views, they also often make them seem more authoritative by referring to uneducated preachers as 'clerics'. That gives the impression that they speak for Islam, when in fact they only speak for themselves. A journalist would not dream of calling someone a surgeon or a general just because they had put on the right clothes, and yet they throw titles such as 'Muslim cleric' around like confetti."

AP Photo

January 6, 2010

"Tackling the Real Causes of Islamic Extremism"

Op-Ed, The Scotsman

By Azeem Ibrahim, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2008–2010

"...[T]here is only one way to beat terrorism over the long term: reduce the motivation for young people to radicalise in the first place. It is no good trying only to dismantle terrorist networks. As the Christmas Day attack shows, a determined terrorist does not need a group to stage an attack — they just need the kind of know-how they can access online."

AP Photo

January 4, 2010

"When the Frontline is Three Thousand Miles Away"

Op-Ed, politics.co.uk

By Azeem Ibrahim, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2008–2010

"...[P]oliticians are able to reach senior positions without the experience of having ever negotiated a contract in the private sector. Defence procurement is even harder to manage than other government procurement, as the nature of the market is such that few buyers — governments — buy from few defence firms, which means that competition is not as fierce as in other markets. This is combined with defence inflation which always far exceeds civilian inflation...."

AP Photo

December 9, 2009

"Afghanistan's Way Forward Must Include the Taliban"

Op-Ed, Los Angeles Times

By Azeem Ibrahim, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2008–2010

"President Obama, in spelling out the new U.S. strategy on Afghanistan this month, said that the United States will countenance dialogue with some elements of the Taliban....This is not as startling as it might seem, and it is vital to understand why it is so important. First, many Taliban fighters are simply peripheral Taliban militants. They joined the Taliban as a pragmatic opportunity for advancement in a country where most power comes from conservative Islam or guns. They typically fight close to the village where they live and grew up, and so lack the mobility of a true militia."

AP Photo

December 1, 2009

"Karadzic Trial a Reminder of EU Responsibilities"

Op-Ed, The Scotsman

By Azeem Ibrahim, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2008–2010

"As we once again become accustomed to seeing his [Karadzic's] face in the news and hearing updates on his case at the UN Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, many will be tempted to see the crimes of which he is accused as just more violence from a violent region, and dismiss the whole Bosnian war as a local Balkan problem, for which blame can be confined to a part of the map which we have associated with violence for centuries.

But that is a self-serving half-truth. The other half is much more disturbing: we — mainstream Europe and its foreign policy establishment of the time — could have stopped the worst of his excesses, but decided not to."

AP Photo

November 20, 2009

"Why Israel is Safer (from Iran) Than it Might Seem"

Op-Ed, The Huffington Post

By Azeem Ibrahim, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2008–2010

Most of the arguments that Iran is a threat to Israel center around Iranian President Ahmadinejad's anti-Semitism and holocaust denial. But he does not make Iranian foreign policy, Khameini does. Khameini has been in office since 1989, throughout the period of relative detente with the West during Khatami's presidency, and through the violent and volatile Ahmadinejad years. Yes, there is evidence that Khameini is a tyrant comfortable sanctioning violence to hold onto power in Iran; no, there is no evidence that he is a psychopath whose hatred of Israel would drive him to order the murder of millions. Yes, there is evidence that he sanctions the sponsorship of anti-Israel terrorism to increase his influence in the region, but no, there is no evidence that he values a confrontation with Israel the reprisal from which would inevitably cause Iranian casualties and threaten the regime's already weak power structure (from within even if not from without).

AP Photo

Summer 2009

"Testing the NATO Alliance: Afghanistan and the Future of Cooperation"

Op-Ed, Harvard International Review, issue 2, volume 31

By Azeem Ibrahim, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2008–2010

"...[O]n the ground, Afghanistan does not look like a NATO mission, but a deployment of an ad hoc alliance. This impression is bolstered given that eight non-NATO countries are also contributing troops. This arrangement calls into question how genuine and useful the alliance will be in the future. It is no good to argue that NATO countries should share the burden more equally. That will not be enough to persuade skeptical governments to offer more troops. The truth is that the differences in deployment levels reflect real differences of public and political opinion. Unfortunately, there is no reason to expect that they should agree in the future either, as there is no longer agreement on what constitutes NATO's mission in Afghanistan."

AP Photo

September 2009

"The Next Government Must Fund Britain's Armed Forces to Match the Many and Growing Threats to National Security"

Policy Brief

By Azeem Ibrahim, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2008–2010

"The choice facing the next Prime Minister and government is clear. On the one hand, he can continue the policy of the present Government. This will result in a slow slide down the second division of nations, an inability to defend the sea passages on which our global trade and standard of living depend (ninety per cent of our trade still comes by sea), an inability to secure our growing imported energy supplies and the vital food supplies which we in this country take for granted.

Or, the next Government can resist this decline, hold firm against the pressure to reduce defence funding, and provide an adequate defence provision with contingency reserve capability for all three Services. If this decision is made, it should be done as a deliberate and well researched policy."

AP Photo

September 25, 2009

"Long-term Defence Strategy Cannot be Based on the News"

Op-Ed, The Scotsman

By Azeem Ibrahim, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2008–2010

"...[W]e cannot make defence decisions only on those threats which are foreseeable. History shows that the biggest threats are actually those we do not foresee. It is no good making defence policy decisions based on the news cycles of 2009, and then complaining that we cannot adequately defend ourselves and our interests in 2020."

AP Photo

August 17, 2009

"The Cruelty of Britain's Extradition Policy"

Op-Ed, politics.co.uk

By Azeem Ibrahim, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2008–2010

"[T]o stay as close to America as possible, Britain signed a new extradition treaty with the US which gave more protection to Americans than to Brits. Passing into law as the Extradition Act 2003, it made it easier for America to extradite British suspects than it was for Britain to extradite American ones. As things stand today, if Britain accuses an American of plotting a terrorist attack against London, the US government will only allow him on a plane to face justice if Britain shows that it has enough evidence to mount a good case against him. But if America accuses a Brit of plotting an identical attack against New York, Britain must put him on a plane to the States without so much as asking America to show that it has a good case at all. It is a lopsided legally-sanctioned double standard, and previous ministers have admitted as much."