16Colin Clarke, “Expanding the ISIS Brand,” RAND Corporation, February 19, 2018, https://www.rand.org/blog/2018/02/expanding-the-isis-brand.html.
17Audrey Kurth Cronin, Power to the People: How Open Technological Innovation Is Arming Tomorrow’s Terrorists (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 161–239.
18Anna Borshchevskaya, “Will Russian-Saudi Relations Continue to Improve? What Their Recent Summit Means for the Relationship,” Foreign Affairs, October 10, 2017, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/saudi-arabia/2017-10-10/will-russian-saudi-relations-continue-improve.
19Judah Ari Gross, “IDF Says It Has Bombed over 200 Iranian Targets in Syria Since 2017,” Times of Israel, September 4, 2018, https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-says-it-has-carried-out-over-200-strikes-in-syria-since-2017/.
20Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, “The Way Forward in Syria,” speech, Hoover Institution, Stanford, CA, January 17, 2018, https://www.hoover.org/events/tillerson_11718.
21On the “safe zone” decision, see Julian E. Barnes and Eric Schmitt, “Trump Orders Withdrawal of U.S. Troops from Northern Syria” New York Times, October 13, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/13/us/politics/mark-esper-syria-kurds-turkey.html.
22Kareem Khadder, Jennifer Deaton, and Sharif Paget, “Kurdish Politician and 10 Others Killed by ‘Turkish-Backed Militia’ in Syria, SDF Claims,” CNN, October 13, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/13/middleeast/syria-turkey-kurdish-politician-intl/index.html.
23Alissa J. Rubin, “Iraqis Rise Against a Reviled Occupier: Iran,” New York Times, November 4, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/world/middleeast/iraq-protests-iran.html.
24Tim Arango and Neil MacFarquhar, “Grief and Fear in Sacramento over a Death That Set the World on Edge,” New York Times, January 15, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/us/contractor-killed-in-iraq-sacramento.html.
25DeirezZor 24, “Al-Sha’itat Massacre in Deir Ezzor . . . the 5th Anniversary,” DeirezZor 24 News, September 8, 2019, https://en.deirezzor24.net/al-shaitat-massacre-in-deir-ezzor-the-5th-anniversary/.
26Michael Shear, “Obama Administration Ends Effort to Train Syrians to Combat ISIS,” New York Times, October 9, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/world/middleeast/pentagon-program-islamic-state-syria.html; World Bulletin News Desk, “Syrian Opp Withdraw from U.S. ‘Train and Equip’ Program,” World Bulletin, June 23, 2015, https://www.worldbulletin.net/middle-east/syrian-opp-withdraw-from-us-train-and-equip-program-h161073.html;Ibrahim Hamidi, “Syrian Opposition Fighters Withdraw from U.S. ‘Train and Equip’ Program,” Syrian Observer, June 22, 2015, https://syrianobserver.com/EN/news/29743/syrian_opposition_fighters_withdraw_from_us_train_equip_program.html.
27Marc Lynch, “Welcome to the Syrian Jihad,” Foreign Policy, June 6, 2013, https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/06/06/welcome-to-the-syrian-jihad/.
28“Readout of the President’s Call with Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi of Iraq,” The White House (The United States Government), March 29, 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/readout-presidents-call-prime-minister-haider-al-abadi-iraq-2/.
29Gonul Tol and Omer Taspinar, “Erdogan’s Turn to the Kemalists,” Foreign Affairs, November 10, 2016, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/turkey/2016-10-27/erdogans-turn-kemalists.
30On Erdogan and the AKP, see Adam Withnall @adamwithnall, “Erdogan Just Made His Most Worrying Claim Yet over the Attempted Coup in Turkey,” Independent, August 2, 2016, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/erdogan-turkey-coup-latest-news-blames-us-west-terrorism-gulen-a7168271.html; Ihsan Yilmaz and Galib Bashirov, “The AKP After 15 Years: Emergence of Erdoganism in Turkey,” Third World Quarterly 39, no. 9 (2018), https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01436597.2018.1447371#_i9. On the hostage taking, see Karen DeYoung and Kareem Fahim, “U.S.-Turkey Tensions Boil over After Arrest of Consulate Employee,” Washington Post, October 9, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/turkey-summons-another-us-consulate-employee-as-crisis-deepens/2017/10/09/5fbaecf6-ac7b-11e7-9b93-b97043e57a22_story.html.
31On Turkey and Russia, see Kirişci Kemal, Turkey and the West: Fault Lines in a Troubled Alliance (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2018), 175–78. On the 2020 refugee influx, see France 24, “Fighting Continues in Idlib as Turkey Talks End Inconclusively,” February 11, 2020, https://www.france24.com/en/20200211-fighting-continues-in-idlib-as-turkey-russia-talks-end-inconclusively. Kareem Fahim and Robyn Dixon, "Turkey Vows to Escalate Military Action After 33 Soldiers Die in Syria," Washington Post, February 28, 2020.
32Eric Schmitt, “Killing of Terrorist Leader in Yemen Is Latest Blow to Qaeda Affiliate,” New York Times, February 10, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/us/politics/al-qaeda-yemen-qassim-al-rimi.html.
33On the deaths of Baghdadi and al-Muhajir, see Ben Hubbard and Karam Shoumali, “Likely Successor to Dead ISIS Leader Also Reported Killed,” New York Times, October 27, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/world/middleeast/al-baghdadi-successor-reported-killed.html. On Assad’s release of jihadist terrorist prisoners, see Daniel Byman, “The Resurgence of Al Qaeda in Iraq,” Brookings, December 12, 2013, https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/the-resurgence-of-al-qaeda-in-iraq/.
34Wahhabism was named for an eighteenth-century Najdi cleric, Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab, who developed an ideology foundational to twenty-first-century radicalization and terrorist recruitment. Wahhabism and Salafism, a related nineteenth-century radical theology, reject Islam’s tolerance for “people of the book”—Jews and Christians—who worship the same God based on the teachings of prophets who predated Mohammed. Wahhabism traditionally has opposed taqlid, or blind following of schools of law, instead asking followers to go directly to a puritanical and literalist interpretation of the Qur’an and Sunnah itself. The Great Mosque in Mecca used to have four maqamat, or prayer stations, each one representing one of the four schools. In 1926, King Abdulaziz and the Wahhabis got rid of the maqamat representing the four different Sunni schools and this practice and imposed one prayer. MBS’s reference to the four schools was therefore of major significance for a Saudi leader. For a discussion of maqamat in Arabic, see Al Masjid al Haram, Makkawi, https://www.makkawi.com/Article/872/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D8%B1%D8%A8%D8%B9-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B3%D8%AC%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%85.
35On the proliferation of Saudi religious textbooks, see David Andrew Weinberg, “Textbook Diplomacy,” Foundation for Defense of Democracies, October 24, 2018, https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2014/03/21/textbook-diplomacy/; David D. Kirkpatrick, “ISIS’ Harsh Brand of Islam Is Rooted in Austere Saudi Creed,” New York Times, September 24, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/world/middleeast/isis-abubakr-baghdadi-caliph-wahhabi.html.
36For more on the growth of Shia extremism, see chapters 9 and 10.
37Donald J. Trump, “President Trump’s Speech to the Arab Islamic American Summit,” Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Statements and Releases, The White House, May 21, 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-trumps-speech-arab-islamic-american-summit/.
38Julian E. Barnes, “C.I.A. Concludes that Saudi Crown Prince Ordered Khashoggi Killed,” New York Times, November 16, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/us/politics/cia-saudi-crown-prince-khashoggi.html.
Chapter 9: A Bad Deal: Iran’s Forty-Year Proxy Wars and the Failure of Conciliation
1“Nuclear,” Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, U.S. Department of State, July 14, 2015, 6–9, https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/245317.pdf.
2Barack Obama, “Statement by the President on Iran,” Speech, The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, July 14, 2015, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/07/14/statement-president-iran.
3On inspections, see William Tobey and Judith Miller, “Are Iranian Military Bases Off-Limits to Inspection?” RealClearPolitics, September 8, 2015, https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/09/08/are_iranian_military_bases_off
-limits_to_inspection_128007.html; Olli Heinonen, “The IAEA’s Right and Obligation to Inspect Military Facilities in Iran,” Foundation for Defense of Democracies, April 4, 2018, https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2018/04/04/the-iaeas-right-and-obligation-to-inspect-military-facilities-in-iran/.
4Glenn Kesler, “President Trump’s Claim That Democrats Gave Iran $150 Billion,” Washington Post, December 13, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/13/president-trumps-claim-that-democrats-gave-iran-billion/.
5Matthew Levitt, “Iran’s Support for Terrorism Under the JCPOA,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, July 8, 2016, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/irans-support-for-terrorism-under-the-jcpoa.
6Spencer Ackerman, “U.S. Central Command Nominee Has ‘Concerns’ About Progress Against Isis,” Guardian, March 9, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/09/us-isis-syria-strategy-central-command-nomination-joseph-votel.
7Lou Barletta, “H.R.1191—Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015: 114th Congress (2015–2016),” https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/1191/text.
8Rex W. Tillerson, “Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Press Availability,” U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Russia, April 19, 2017, https://ru.usembassy.gov/secretary-state-rex-tillerson-press-availability/.
9President Donald J. Trump, “President Donald J. Trump Is Ending United States Participation in an Unacceptable Iran Deal,” Fact Sheets, The White House, May 8, 2018, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-ending-united-states-participation-unacceptable-iran-deal/.
10See “Treasury Targets Persons Supporting Iranian Military and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” Press Center, U.S. Department of the Treasury, July 18, 2017, https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/sm0125.aspx; Jesse Chase-Lubitz, “Trump Slaps Sanctions on Iran While Keeping Nuclear Deal in Place—for Now,” July 18, 2017, Foreign Policy (blog), https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/18/trump-slaps-sanctions-on-iran-while-keeping-nuclear-deal-in-place-for-now/.
11“Excerpts: Donald Trump’s Interview with the Wall Street Journal,” Wall Street Journal, July 25, 2017, https://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2017/07/25/donald-trumps-interview-with-the-wall-street-journal-edited-transcript/.
12Donald J. Trump, “Statement by the President on the Iran Nuclear Deal,” speech, Washington, DC, Statements and Releases, The White House, January 12, 2018, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-iran-nuclear-deal/.
13Trump, “Statement by the President on the Iran Nuclear Deal.”
14Donald J. Trump, “Statement from the President on the Designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a Foreign Terrorist Organization,” Statements and Releases, The White House, April 8, 2019, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-designation-islamic-revolutionary-guard-corps-foreign-terrorist-organi zation/.
15Mullahs are scholars of Islamic teaching who wield considerable political and societal power in the Islamic Republic’s theocracy.
16On the effects of the sanctions, see “How Renewed U.S. Sanctions Have Hit Iran Hard,” BBC News, May 2, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-48119109. On Europe and the sanctions, see Kenneth Katzman, “Summary,” Iran Sanctions, Congressional Research Service, April 22, 2019, 1, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RS/RS20871/291.
17On the Mr. Rouhani quote, see Alastair Gale, “Iran Presses Japan to Break with U.S. Sanctions on Tehran,” Wall Street Journal, June 12, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/japans-abe-looks-to-mediate-between-u-s-iran-11560340410. On the letter episode, see “I Don’t Consider Trump Worth Sending a Message to, We Won’t Negotiate with U.S.,” Khame nei.ir, June 13, 2019, http://english.khamenei.ir/news/6844/I-don-t-consider-Trump-worth-sending-a-message-to-we-won-t-negotiate.
18On the Kokuka Courageous incident, see “Gulf of Oman Tanker Attacks: What We Know,” BBC News, June 18, 2019, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-48627014; Amanda Macias, “U.S. Military Releases New Images of Japanese Oil Tanker Attack,” CNBC, June 17, 2019, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/17/us-military-releases-new-images-of-japanese-oil-tanker-attack.html.
19On President Trump’s decision to halt strikes, see Patrick Wintour and Julian Borger, “Trump Says He Stopped Airstrike on Iran Because 150 Would Have Died,” Guardian, June 21, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/21/donald-trump-retaliatory-iran-airstrike-cancelled-10-minutes-before; Luis Martinez, Elizabeth McLaughlin, and Meredith McGraw, “Trump Says Iranian Shootdown of U.S. Military Drone May Have Been a ‘Mistake,’” ABC News, June 20, 2019, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/iran-shoots-american-drone-international-airspace-us-official/story?id=63825990.
20On the Obama quote, see Thomas L. Friedman, “Iran and the Obama Doctrine,” New York Times, April 5, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/opinion/thomas-friedman-the-obama-doctrine-and-iran-interview.html. On the Rhodes quote, see Gardiner Harris, “Deeper Mideast Aspirations Seen in Nuclear Deal with Iran,” New York Times, July 31, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/01/world/middleeast/deeper-mideast-aspirations-seen-in-nuclear-deal-with-iran.html.
21The Learning Network, “Jan. 20 1981: Iran Releases American Hostages as Reagan Takes Office,” New York Times, January 20, 2012, https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/jan-20-1981-iran-releases-american-hostages-as-reagan-takes-office/.
22On the marine barracks attack, see Lynn Maalouf, Luc Cote, and Theo Boudruche, “Lebanon’s Legacy of Political Violence,” International Center for Transitional Justice, September 2013, 53. The scandal known as the Iran-Contra affair began with illegal arms sales to Iran to gain the freedom of hostages and expanded when the profits from those sales were used for another purpose: buying arms for the anticommunist rebels known as the Contras, who were fighting to topple a Marxist government in Nicaragua. On hostage releases, arms deal exposure, use of arms by Contras, see David Crist, Twilight War: The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict With Iran (New York: Penguin House, 2012), 197–98.
23Richard N. Haass, “The George H. W. Bush Administration,” The Iran Primer, United States Institute of Peace, https://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/george-hw-bush-administration.
24Crist, Twilight War, 382–85.
25On the murder of prominent Kurdish Iranians, see Claude Moniquet, “The Recent Iranian Terrorist Plots in Europe,” European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center, February 2019, http://www.esisc.org/upload/publications/analyses/the-recent-iranian-terrorist-plots-in-europe/IRAN%20-%20RECENT%20TERRORIST%20PLOTS%20IN%20EUROPE.pdf. On the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, see Patricia Bauer, Carola Campbell, and Gabrielle Mander, “The Satanic Verses: Novel by Rushdie,” Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Satanic-Verses.
26“Iran,” Heritage Foundation, October 30, 2019, https://www.heritage.org/military-strength/assessing-threats-us-vital-interests/iran.
27“Transcript of interview with Iranian president Mohammad Khatami.” CNN Archive, January 7, 1998, http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9801/07/iran/interview.html. U.S. decision making in the immediate aftermath of the bombing was complicated due to Saudi Arabia’s position that Al-Qaeda was responsible for the bombing. The Saudis knew this to be false but did not want the United States to believe that a significant Saudi Hezbollah organization existed in Saudi Arabia.
28Mir Sadat and James Hughes, “U.S.-Iran Engagement Through Afghanistan,” Middle East Policy 17, no. 1 (2010): 35, https://mepc.org/us-iran-engagement-through-afghanistan.
29On Khatami’s speech, see Michael Rubin, “Khatami and the Myth of Reform in Iran,” The Politic (Spring 2002), Washington Institute for Near East Policy, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/khatami-and-the-myth-of-reform-in-iran. On the Natanz facility, see Kelsey Davenport, “Timeline of Nuclear Diplomacy with Iran,” Fact Sheets and Briefs, Arms Control Association, updated November 2018, https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheet/Timeline-of-Nuclear-Dip
lomacy-With-Iran.
30Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Cook, “Al-Qaeda Has Rebuilt Itself—with Iran’s Help,” The Atlantic, November 11, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/11/al-qaeda-iran-cia/545576/.
31Crist, The Twilight War, 521, 529.
32On the Bush administration’s reasoning, see Michael Rubin, “Iran’s Revolutionary Guard: A Rogue Outfit,” Middle East Quarterly 15, no. 4 (Fall 2008), https://www.meforum.org/1990/irans-revolutionary-guards-a-rogue-outfit; George W. Bush, “Press Conference by the President,” The White House, February 14, 2007, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/02/20070214-2.html.
33Kyle Rempfer, “Iran Killed More U.S. Troops in Iraq Than Previously Known, Pentagon Says,” MilitaryTimes, April 4, 2019, https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/04/04/iran-killed-more-us-troops-in-iraq-than-previously-known-pentagon-says/.
34On the Karbala attack, see Crist, Twilight War, 529. On the plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, see Charlie Savage and Scott Shane, “Iranians Accused of a Plot to Kill Saudis’ U.S. Envoy,” New York Times, October 11, 2011 https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/us/us-accuses-iranians-of-plotting-to-kill-saudi-envoy.html?_r=1. On U.S. law enforcement disrupting plot, see “Iranian Plot to Kill Saudi Ambassador Thwarted, U.S. Officials Say,” CNN, October 12, 2011, https://www.cnn.com/2011/10/11/justice/iran-saudi-plot/index.html. On two men charged in plot, see “Two Men Charged in Alleged Plot to Assassinate Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States,” Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs, October 11, 2011, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-men-charged-alleged-plot-assassinate-saudi-arabian-ambassador-united-states. On the British embassy attack, see Robert F. Worth and Rick Gladstone, “Iranian Protesters Attack British Embassy,” New York Times, November 29, 2011, https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/world/middleeast/tehran-protesters-storm-british-embassy.html.
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