I’m better informed after reading the following pieces. I have no value to add to them. I’m still trying to sort out why I was dead set against invading Iraq in 2003, skeptical at best about invading Afghanistan in 2001, yet am ambivalent about what France, the US, or other interested parties should do now.
- Graeme Wood wrote a primer on ISIS, published earlier this year in The Atlantic.
- An anonymous, former official of a NATO country wrote about the baffling nature of the rise of ISIS in The New York Review of Books back in August.
- The Washington Post‘s political science blog has pieces about French Muslims and the Muslim experience in France, the possible trajectories of foreign fighters who join up with ISIS, and lessons we can already draw from the Paris attacks.
- On what to call ISIS: Daesh or ISIS?
- Juan Cole and writers at his website always have informative takes on what is going on in the Middle East.
- Josh Marshall on sorting out priorities after the Paris attacks.
If readers want to recommend any other articles or essays, please leave them in comments. Thanks!
Nonsense Consensus 