Intelligence & Counterterrorism the Intelligence Literature Review

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Yaphe compares America's invasion with that of the British experience, at the end of World War I. According to Yaphe, he parallels between the two are remarkable, showing how Iraq's ethno diverse territory gives rise to violence and cruelty against others. What Yaphe saw was a common course of political division that was present in both Britain 1917 incursion in Iraq, as well as in America's 2003 invasion. The different religious interests within the nation compounded the sectarian split. The three political groups, Kurds, Shia and Sunni, each had a claim on the wealth of Iraq, and the formerly empowered Sunni did not give up their power easily.

Yaphe is a senior research fellow for the Institute of National Strategy Studies at the National Defense University, in Washington DC, as well as works with the Department of Defense, and therefore is a solid government source for academic knowledge. Her study is not a traditional academic study, because it seeks to raise more questions and use loose historical comparisons in order to make sweeping arguments about America's involvement in Iraq. Yaphe does not believe that the political situation in Iraq will ever be solved with the standards that the Americans have put into place at this point in the war, which was still in 2003. Still, it is a good analysis of what would come to happen later on, as the sectarian divisions in Iraq would split open to their worst extent from 2004-2006, after the publishing of the article.

The final article to be analyzed is by Menachem Klein, and is entitled 'Hamas in Power', written in 2007 for the Middle East Journal. (Klein, 2007). Klein is a senior lecturer in the department of political science at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. He approaches the topic of terrorism with an Israeli focus, as Israel has been the primary target of terrorist attacks for decades. The article is about the evolving shape of Hamas, from a terrorist organization into a political entity, although Klein is suspicious of Hamas' intentions and ability to give up on its violent history. Fatah, the moderate political party that took power in the West Bank, renounced the radicalism that Hamas took as an oath, and has fared much better as a result. The different voices in the organization of Hamas in the power struggle of 2006 suggested that much of the party was indeed turned away from extreme violence, but that these voices change depending on the current political situation, and that the political motivations of Hamas are fundamentally the same as they had been since the 1980s. Klein is a conservative Israeli author, and takes a position against Hamas due to their acceptance of terrorist tactics against Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Menachem Klein looks at Hamas' political documents for further understanding of Hamas' Islamist ideology, and believes that the organization has not prevented any of its members from moving to fundamentalism or radicalism.

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After Hamas' surprise victory in elections in 2006, the organization had to suddenly figure out how it would fulfill its newfound role in the world. Hamas had to navigate an international boycott on its movements because of the deadly terrorist links that Hamas had cultivated against Israel. Klein is incredibly skeptical of Hamas, taking a standard Israeli stance against the organization's chances at being a legitimate and long-term political force in Israel. Overall, however, the Middle East Journal is a fairly nonpolitical publication, although it is typically biased against Israel, it allows and accepts Israeli authors.

International Security is the most policy focused, strategy focused, and ideological underpinning focused journal based on this research. The purpose of the journal is to advance security standards worldwide, and its articles are edited for this purpose. Foreign Affairs is a far broader publication, with the widest and most public audience. Still, the academic quality of Foreign Affairs is kept intact as the journal is able to receive articles from the most prominent names and individuals in international relations. The Middle East Journal is the least critical of terrorism, since the journal seeks to have interactions between the various states of the Middle East, without much thought to issues of human rights, terrorism, or the advancement of the citizen. The Middle East Journal is a necessary publication in order to allow very different political states to have academic discourse about the region in which each state shares. Flare ups and accusations of misconduct are addressed in this arena, because it allows political actors to justify their actions to the rest of the world in a friendly academic setting without as much press as a publication like Foreign Affairs.

In conclusion, we see several wide samples of authorship in the field of terrorism, analyzing America's strategies and working to compete amongst other authors for ideas. Inevitably, biases form on different sides of each debate, that may or may not be predicted by the authors audience and representative body, either academic, government, or otherwise. Intelligence, counterterrorism, and protection is a field of study that is difficult to approach with academic understanding alone, since the field is so enmeshed with practical realities of lack of data from terrorist networks, and the inability to apply academic rigor to many theories of social acceptance and pursuance of terrorism. Not being able to directly study in the environment of terrorists hinders research on the phenomenon. The best analysis comes from the different schools of thought that come out of the different counterterrorist institutions, whether they be academic or professional, and therefore studying the subject depends on a wide understanding of how research is conducted and for what purpose.

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