WAR ON ISIS - The Battle as Seen Form the 'West'

"How should the West battle the Islamic State’s shifting strategy?" PBS NewsHour 11/16/2015

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SUMMARY:  The attacks in Paris have raised concern about the threat posed by the Islamic State around the world, and how to counter it.  Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff talk with William McCants, author of “The ISIS Apocalypse,” Juliette Kayyem, former assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Hassan Hassan of Chatham House and Richard Barrett, a former British intelligence official.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  We focus now on the changing nature of the threat from the Islamic State group and how to counter it.

For that, we turn to four people with deep expertise.

Juliette Kayyem was an assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security during the Obama administration.  She now has her own security consulting firm.  William McCants is director of the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic world at the Brookings Institution.  His most recent book is “The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State.”

Richard Barrett is a former director of global counterterrorism operations for the British government.  He’s a founder of the United Nations’ Counter-Terrorism Task Force.  And Hassan Hassan is a Middle East analyst at Chatham House in London.  He co-authored the book “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror.”

And we welcome you all to the program.

Will McCants, I’m going to start here in Washington with you.

What have we learned from the Islamic State group from these attacks?  What new do we know about them now?

WILLIAM MCCANTS, Brookings Institution:  Well, they seem to have shifted and taken on a strategy of global jihad.

They have always had the rhetoric of global jihadism, similar to Al Qaeda.  They have always talked about hitting the far enemy, the United States, France, and others.  But for most of their history, they have focused on state-building.  And for the past few years, they have been pretty successful at it.

But with the attacks over the past two weeks, taking down the Russian airliner, the attack in Beirut, and now in Paris, we believe that its attention has shifted abroad.

"Paris attacks bring migrant crisis, Islamic State strategy to U.S. political forefront" PBS NewsHour 11/16/2015

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SUMMARY:  From the campaign trail to the halls of Congress, leaders weighed in on the fallout of the Paris attacks.  Gwen Ifill speaks to Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report and Tamara Keith of NPR about how responses to the tragedy are playing out in the presidential race, calls from some lawmakers to change U.S. policy toward Syrian immigrants, as well as takeaways from the Democratic debate.

"Sanders:  Turning our backs on refugees destroys the idea of America" PBS NewsHour 11/17/2015

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SUMMARY:  How would Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders handle terror threats at home and abroad, in light of the Paris attacks and the shifting threat of the Islamic State?  Sanders joins Gwen Ifill to discuss his views on combating terrorism and the anti-refugee backlash in the U.S.

"Carson:  Our first responsibility is U.S. safety, not refugees" PBS NewsHour 11/17/2015

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SUMMARY:  What’s Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson’s views on bringing Syrian refugees to the U.S., in light of the Paris attacks and the shifting threat of the Islamic State?  Carson joins Judy Woodruff to discuss his stance on fighting the militant group.