February 2, 2015 by Graham E. Fuller • Blog • Tags: Afghanistan, Breaking Faith, fiction, Graham Fuller, novel, Pakistan •
150205 – Trying my hand at a novel on the Middle East I remember some 20 years ago, while writing a RAND study on Sudan, I spent a number of hours with the fascinating and distinguished former Foreign Minister of Sudan, Francis Deng. He is actually from southern Sudan, when it was still part of […]
January 30, 2015 by Graham E. Fuller • Blog • Tags: Graham E Fuller, Islam, Muslim unity, nation-state, nationalism, umma •
150129 –Muslims and Nationalism—a Different Model In the last blog I talked about four key historical reasons for Muslim resistance to the West—apart from the well-known factors of imperialism, and regular western political and military intervention. http://grahamefuller.com/why-is-it-specifically-muslims-who-are-resisting-the-west/ There is at least one more important characteristic of the Muslim world, distinguishing its political philosophy and outlook […]
January 21, 2015 by Graham E. Fuller • Blog • Tags: East-West conflict, imperialism, Muslims, non-western world, West •
150120 – Why Is it Specifically Muslims Who are Resisting the West? Many people ask why it appears to be specifically Muslims who are in confrontation with the West today, as compared to other ethnic groups who also bear historical grievances from treatment at the hands of the West. The question is a valid one, […]
January 12, 2015 by Graham E. Fuller • Blog • Tags: Charlie Hebdo, dissing minorities, freedom of speech, Islam, Islamic Terror •
150111- The Massacre at Charlie Hebdo—And Defining Artistic Responsibility The massacre at Charlie Hebdo in Paris was an unconscionable act of brutal murder, pure and simple, driven by twisted ideological justification where there can be no justification. Yet causes of events always exist that rational beings must grasp—even when they do not provide justification. So […]
January 3, 2015 by Graham E. Fuller • Blog • Tags: Afghanistan, Erdogan, Graham Fuller, Iran, Iraq, ISIS, Russia, Syria, Taliban, Turkey •
Graham Fuller’s Five Middle East Predictions for 2015 Only a fool offers longer term predictions about the Middle East. I offer the following longer terms predictions about the Middle East for 2015. 1- ISIS will decline in power and influence. I have stated earlier that I do not believe ISIS is viable as a state; […]
December 17, 2014 by Graham E. Fuller • Blog • Tags: Iraq, ISIS, Islam, Saudi Arabia, Shi'a, Sunni, Syria •
Why does ISIS hate Shi’a ? ISIS has particularly targeted Shi’a as a key part of their brutal onslaught against any practice of Islam that does not conform to their narrow ahistorical interpretation view of their religion. We hear a lot from western commentators about some “eternal split” between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims. But does […]
December 10, 2014 by Graham E. Fuller • Blog • Tags: Middle East leadership, radical change, sovereignty, Western dominance in the Middle East •
What Is Genuine Leadership in the Middle East? A supreme challenge to US policies in the Middle East—especially in the Arab world—has been dealing with the no-win dilemma of leadership in the Arab world. As we look out across the wreckage of the present scene in the Middle East, many observers, including myself, highlight the […]
December 2, 2014 by Graham E. Fuller • Blog • Tags: Asad, Iraq, ISIS, Islamist, Kurds, Muslim Brotherhood, Syria, Turkey •
141201- Making Sense of The Turkey-ISIS Mess 1 December 2014 Among the many confusing factors swirling around the whole ISIS phenomenon is the role, or roles, of Turkey in the situation. It might be helpful to tick off some of the major salient factors that compete to form Turkish policies towards ISIS under Erdoğan at […]
November 24, 2014 by Graham E. Fuller • Blog •
The ISIS Phenomenon: How Does It End? The ISIS Phenomenon continues to astonish—to notch up innovative new features in Islamist politics that suggest a deepening ability to exploit and feed off long-term accumulated Muslim grievances. What are the logical end-points of extremism at which these forces finally reach terminal collapse? What kind of prognosis […]
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150211 – Three (Encouraging) Cases of Disastrous Political Overreach
February 11, 2015 by Graham E. Fuller • Blog • Tags: ISIS, Israel lobby, radical Islam, Russia, Ukraine •
150211 – Three (Encouraging) Cases of Disastrous Political Overreach There is a saying in classical Chinese: wu ji bi fan: When things reach extremes they must reverse course. That isn’t always true of course. But every once in a while, just when things seem to be getting really dark—and it especially happens in the Middle […]
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