Peter Bergen

“For Islamist terrorist groups such as ISIS, the holy month of Ramadan - a time of fasting and prayer for the vast majority of Muslims - is seen as a particularly auspicious time to launch terrorist attacks.”

“Certain Gulf Arabs support proxy jihadist Sunni groups such as al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, while Iran supports Shia militant forces such as Hezbollah.”

“The Bush administration's approach to the war on terror collided badly with another of its doctrines, spreading democracy in the Middle East as a panacea to reduce radicalism.”

“Using vehicles as weapons is a tactic that has often used by Palestinian terrorists to target Israelis, but in 2014, an ISIS spokesman had encouraged such vehicular attacks in the West, saying of ISIS' enemies, 'Run him over with your car.'”

“What bin Laden had hoped to achieve in Afghanistan in the post-9/11 period, which was to drag the United States into a protracted guerrilla war like the one he had fought against the Soviets, never happened. Instead, that protracted guerrilla war is now playing out in Iraq, in the heart of the Middle East.”

“While the story about the hunt for bin Laden has been exhaustively reported and the key sources and witnesses are in agreement about the main points of the narrative, of course, it's still possible that we could learn new details about the story that would add to the narrative.”

“The Turkish government will never tolerate the creation of a Kurdish state.”

“Bannon should never have had a permanent seat on the NSC, as he is a political operative, and the NSC has traditionally been a place where American interests are considered rather than narrow Republican or Democratic interests.”

“The centerpiece of the Bush administration's case for going to war in Iraq was Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the U.N. Security Council on February 5, 2003, six weeks before the invasion.”

“In quiet ways far too complex to hold Trump's interest, Muslims in the United States and around the world are helping every day to prevent massacres such as Orlando from happening.”

“Osama bin Laden fervently hoped that attacking the United States would create pressure on American leaders to reduce their support for Middle Eastern regimes. Bin Laden believed that without that American support, the Arab regimes would collapse and would be replaced by Taliban-style rulers.”

“Adding to your list of enemies is never a sound strategy, yet ISIS' ferocious campaign against the Shia, Kurds, Yazidis, Christians, and Muslims who don't precisely share its views has united every ethnic and religious group in Syria and Iraq against them.”

“The diagnosis that poverty, lack of education, or lack of opportunities have much to do with terrorism requires a fundamentally optimistic view of human nature. This diagnosis leads to the prognosis that all we need to do to solve the terrorism problem is to create societies that are less poor, better educated and have more opportunities.”

“Occasionally, Donald Trump says something that is politically incorrect but which also happens to be true.”

“Seymour Hersh is one of the giants of investigative journalism.”