Op-Ed: ISIS Crisis According to Thomas L. Friedman
THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Thomas L. Friedman
There is a tension at the heart of President Obama’s campaign to confront the Islamic State, and it explains a lot about why he has so much trouble articulating and implementing his strategy. Quite simply, it is the tension between two vital goals — promoting the “soul-searching” that ISIS’s emergence has triggered in the Arab-Muslim world and “searching and destroying” ISIS in its strongholds in Syria and Iraq. Get used to it. This tension is not going away. Obama will have to lead through it. The good news: The rise of the Islamic State, also known and ISIS, is triggering some long overdue, brutally honest, soul-searching by Arabs and Muslims about how such a large, murderous Sunni death cult could have emerged in their midst. Nurturing this soul-searching is a vital — and smart — part of the Obama strategy. [link]
By Thomas L. Friedman
There is a tension at the heart of President Obama’s campaign to confront the Islamic State, and it explains a lot about why he has so much trouble articulating and implementing his strategy. Quite simply, it is the tension between two vital goals — promoting the “soul-searching” that ISIS’s emergence has triggered in the Arab-Muslim world and “searching and destroying” ISIS in its strongholds in Syria and Iraq. Get used to it. This tension is not going away. Obama will have to lead through it. The good news: The rise of the Islamic State, also known and ISIS, is triggering some long overdue, brutally honest, soul-searching by Arabs and Muslims about how such a large, murderous Sunni death cult could have emerged in their midst. Nurturing this soul-searching is a vital — and smart — part of the Obama strategy. [link]
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