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Working with the Iranian, Russian and Syrian regimes to address Middle Eastern problems and fight ISIS is a sure way to alienate Middle Eastern moderates.

Author J.M. Berger discusses ISIS's strategy on Twitter, comparing their highly skilled techniques on this platform to the likes of a P.R./ marketing team working for a Western corporation. Berger goes on to discuss programs that automatically post tweets to users accounts, an app they developed that provides updates, and an intricate system able to surpass Twitter's spam and security teams.

Tests are being Conducted to see what the best strategy the US should take in Fighting ISIS.

Tests are being Conducted to see what the best strategy the US should take in Fighting ISIS.

Syria's allies, Russia, Iran, and China, all stand by them despite western powers opposing the Syrian government. There are different reasons to why these powers seem to stay with Syria such as Russia's ideologies, Iran's strategy, or China's trading. Either way, these government will stand by them until there is nothing left to lose. 

The US had been partnered with the Yemeni government in implementing drone attacks against AQAP members, but now with the decentralization of Yemen's government, the future of US drone operations is uncertain. The political upheaval has caused the US to close their embassy in Yemen, and the departure of US special forces.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has shown great interest in the Middle East over recent months. His involvement with both Sunni and Shiites put him in a place of diplomatic mediator for the two groups.

"The Saudis have initiated a major campaign to undermine Iran's ally Hezbollah, which they believe is vulnerable today. Riyadh is likely to have considerable but not complete success. It's a characteristically risky strategy. The Saudis branded Hezbollah a terrorist organization earlier this year and then persuaded their Gulf Cooperation Council allies to do the same on March 2. Then Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef pressed a summit of Arab interior ministers to join in lambasting Hezbollah in Tunis in early March. The Arab League formally agreed to label Hezbollah a terrorist group at a Foreign Ministerial in Cairo later in the month. Only Iraq and Lebanon abstained. "

Though many of the youth leaders who participated in the 2011 revolution are in prison, youth-driven political campaigns will continue under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. A new movement that has risen, called the "We have had enough" campaign has several demands from the Egyptian youth. These include holding accountable anyone who was involved in killing any Egyptian, a debate about implementing separation of powers, setting minimum and maximum wages, and amending the protest law. These demands have led the state to release some of the prisoners of conscience, in an attempt to prevent any chaos before parliamentary elections. A similar movement, called the Dhank movement, arose in protest of the living conditions for the poorest Egyptians. The leaders of this movement encourage protests like refusing to pay electric bills because of a lack of service. The activists describe the need for the Dhank movement coming from Sisi's poor treatment of the lower class that included removal of subsidies and raising prices of commodities. The "We have had enough" campaign spokesman says they insist on the implementation of 14 human rights amendments. He ends by reiterating the consistent suspicion the youth groups have of the state and a lack of confidence that their demands will be met. This shows that there is no clear strategy or realistic possibility to ending the tension between youth groups and the state.

This article basically lays out the faults in US intervention in Libya during the fall of Gaddafi and condemns the US officials for their lack of hindsight in their agenda. The US claimed that they could not "turn a blind eye" to atrocities and human right violations in other countries and to intervene in Libya was a matter of upholding "universal values." After the successful ousting of Gaddafi, the US hypocritically turned their back on the country as a whole, leaving them to pick up the pieces and re-build themselves in the midst of socio-political and economic chaos. The US claims that military intervention is sometimes necessary to address human right violations, but in the case of Libya more violations have occurred as a result of a fallen regime rather than because of its reign. The author basically says that the US should have predicted that short-term intervention strategies achieves nothing without years of sustained support for rebuilding the civil institutions. 

The U.S. should no long really solely on air-strikes to bring down the ISIS group in Syria but it needs other strategic plans. They need to work with the people in Syria and gain their support and trust in order to defeat ISIS.

This article discusses the strategies of the FBI in trying to arrest potential jihad recruits. The article discusses several cases of individuals arrested for attempting to join ISIS and the implications involving each case.

Although ISIS has been able to successfully use social media platforms to cater to their agenda, they have recently changed their strategies to deter US intelligence from intercepting crucial information. They have issued a new instruction manual to members regarding online behavior in order to circumvent data collection from digital postings.

This article briefly addresses the current global petroleum market, outlining the top national producers and their current import/export strategies. The article is a good overview of the global politcs affecting oil prices.

Iran is developing a new cyberstrategy to protect against the intrusion of important government programs, and to oppose any anti-iranian cyber warfare and fight back. Under their new strategy they have already launched attacks on Saudi Arabia and companies in the U.S. such as Bank of America and Citigroup which gives the U.S. reason to concern on Iran's cyber warfare development.

This article contrasts communication techniques of Al-Qaida and ISIS. It outlines how ISIS communication strategy uses more dominant forms of social media such as facebook, youtube, and twitter while Al-Qaida still uses web pages, forums, and their own magazine they publish to speak to their audience.

AQAP has developed effective social media to create support for their cause. One of these strategies in creating a Reddit-esk Ask Me Anything page.