ISIS’s propaganda videos are designed to cause a stir. Yet a new one released on Feb. 7 did so for unusual reasons. It showed a truck carrying women with guns, driving towards the battlefield under the ISIS flag, and then another woman, heavily armed, fighting alongside men. This is a shocking break from previous practice in the terrorist group. However, it is perhaps not entirely surprising, like reported by eurasiareview.com.

For every rule there is an exception, and as ISIS’s territory shrank over the last few months, the group was increasingly hinting that it might find some flexibility in its usual ultra-strict codes of female behavior.

But the question of women’s role in jihadist movements does not start and end with ISIS. Rather, what each jihadist group does with female fighters tells us much more about itself than it does about Islamic laws on women and war.

A Women’s Movement within ISIS? 

It is firstly worth confronting some of the widespread assumptions about female jihadists. Despite the tendency in European countries to give female former jihadists more lenient sentences on the assumption that they must have been “brainwashed,”  most women who join these movements know what they’re doing, and make their wishes clear.

And despite the press’s tasteless fondness for the phrase “jihadi brides,”  women in jihadist movements have frequently and publicly voiced their desire to do more than marry. They want to join the fight. One of ISIS’s best-known female poets, Ahlam al-Nasr, wrote in an online essay:

“It is not possible for me to accept any kind of lifestyle except the life of jihad. I strongly desire it. I want to struggle with all types of jihad… and the jihad with weapons also. Both male and female Companions [of the Prophet] did so, so why won’t we do the same?”

This should not be taken to mean that women who join ISIS are fourth-wave feminists. They are not looking for equality with men, and are ready to embrace traditional gender roles, the duties of being a wife and mother, and obedience to their male guardian (mahram).

But, as Ahlam al-Nasr said, in the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammed and his companions, the period that jihadists see as the ideal model for society, women did engage in fighting. Umm ‘Amarah and a number of other women are said to have taken part in the Battle of Uhud, and their names remain lionized by jihadists today, including ISIS.

A Balancing Act 

However, there have always been caveats on women’s participation in battle. Contemporary jihadists have a balancing act to strike. They must address their functional needs, such as the need to recruit women, who might be enticed by the prospect of fighting. However, they also need to showcase a different way of living if they are to offer a real alternative to the world they decry as sinful. For them, this alternative hangs on maintaining the traditional differences between masculine and feminine.

This balance shifts in every new phase of jihadist theology. Abdullah Azzam, the infamous Islamist cleric and founding member of Al Qaeda, is known as the “father of global jihad” for his 1984 treatise Defense of the Muslim Lands. In this text, two radical statements are made that have shaped jihadist theology since.

The first is that jihad to free occupied Muslim lands is a duty of every Muslim around the world. Freeing Palestine and Afghanistan was no longer the duty of Palestinians and Afghans alone. Every Muslim around the world was to take part. And when he said every Muslim, he meant women too. Still, Azzam’s endorsement of female fighters was limited to defensive fighting, rather than giving women an equal status on the battlefield.

ISIS’s forerunner, Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), was much more radical when it came to women in battle. Radicalism, in truth, was something of a trademark for its notorious leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. His deployment of female suicide bombers was a shock to many jihadists, and indeed a controversial line to walk.

But Zarqawi responded that if women’s participation shamed more men into joining the fight, then the move was justifiable. This wasn’t solely Zarqawi’s doing; the ranks of female bombers in AQI actually increased after his death, up until about the American withdrawal.

Integrating the Sexes: How Far Will it Go?

Why, then, has ISIS been more reluctant than its forebear to accept female help in battle? In fact, it has never issued a concrete declaration saying that women could never fight. More confusingly, it has occasionally celebrated the work of female suicide bombers.

An attack perpetrated by female “supporters” of ISIS against a police station in Mombasa, Kenya in 2016 made the front page of one of their magazines, al-Naba’. They also attempted a prisoner exchange, offering to free the captured Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh in exchange for Sajida al-Rishawi, the woman who had attempted to blow up the Radisson Hotel in Amman on behalf of AQI, but who had been captured in the process.

Yet ultimately, ISIS was not trying to build an army, but a state, and it is for that reason that the domestic role assigned to women needed to be obsessively maintained.

Elizabeth Pearson, Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and a PhD candidate at Kings College London, has conducted studies of the role of women in ISIS propaganda. She commented to Al Bawaba:

“The State project needed men to be violent, and women to support Jihad, but primarily to be good citizens, wives and mothers of the next generation of fighters. They had to be ideologues, but not to fight. This was fundamental to the whole Caliphate project. They needed to divide male violence from women’s non-violencein order to recruit, unify and regulate the new State.”

Moreover, on the rare occasion that ISIS did celebrate female participation in suicide attacks, it provoked anxious questions about what that might mean for women’s other freedoms. Terrorism scholar Nelly Lahoud found multiple online responses to ISIS’s magazine praising the female bombers in Kenya. Male ISIS supporters were concerned about where the limits would lie for women’s participation in operations.

Patriarchy vs. Women Fighters

It seems that patriarchal concerns to control female sexuality, if they do not always trump tactical needs, remain of equal or greater importance to battlefield victories. Indeed, the fact that they are now using women in battle may have an impact on ISIS’s ability to recruit men.

Elizabeth Pearson added: “If you want male recruits to join your Caliphate as warriors, those warriors have to have the highest respect. In the strongly patriarchal culture of Jihad, the value of being a warrior would be diluted if women could do it too. For those who do not favor this move to female inclusion, Al Qaeda represents a more conservative approach in this regard, and so a possible alternative. It’s not clear how far ISIS will go with its ‘new era’, but potentially it has the power to provoke schisms, and derail ISIS’s ideology as a whole.”

So even though ISIS has never truly laid down the law against women participating in battle, they are well aware of the risks of including them. When they do celebrate women’s military efforts, they alienate men and gamble with the project of the caliphate. The ideal domestic unit is a small-scale model of the vision for an ideal society.

Upsetting that by forcing difficult questions about women in battle is extremely undesirable for the would-be state. Yet it seems the time has come. Even in this video, women’s involvement is watered down. There is an interview with a disabled man who is also fighting, but no woman speaks to the camera, which suggests that males with disabilities remain a preferable alternative for fighting than women.

Colin Clarke, a terrorism analyst at RAND Corporation, said to Al Bawaba: “What the video signals is that ISIS in Iraq and Syria feels like it must do everything it possibly can to stay relevant.Whether or not women bring an additional dimension to the battlefield, what it does accomplish is getting everyone talking about the group again.”

Even if it does spark anger and doubt among some male supporters, it may galvanize more female ones. Everything has a trade-off, and it seems ISIS is now at a point of no return. It must gamble with its core beliefs if it is to survive.

In a recent statement, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the United States is working against the interests of Turkey, Iran and maybe Russia in northern Syria, where it is sending military aid to the Syrian Kurdish militia. “If the United States says they are sending 5,000 trucks and 2,000 cargo planes of weapons for the fight against Daesh (Islamic State), we don’t believe this,” Erdogan told members of his ruling AK Party in parliament. “It means you (the US) have calculations against Turkey and Iran, and maybe Russia.” By galvanizing a common front of anti-U.S. sentiment in all three countries, Erdogan seeks to downplay Ankara’s escalating tension with Russia and Iran and repair ties. If he pulls it off, Washington will have to deal with a less compromising Turkey shortly before Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s visit to Ankara, like reported by nationalinterest.org.

Erdogan’s statement comes at a time as the tension between Turkey, Russia and Iran over Syria is mounting. The three countries forged a partnership in Syria and have been leading the Syria talks in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. Frustrated with the U.S.’s cooperation with the Syrian Kurdish militia, the YPG, Ankara turned to Moscow and Tehran for help. Turkey set up “observation posts” in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province—the last stronghold of the anti-Assad opposition—as part of efforts by the three countries to establish deescalation zones. But Turkey’s real intention was to rein in the YPG, which controls the Afrin region next to Idlib. Turkey hoped that it would move into Afrin and its Astana partners would look the other way. Ankara thought it got its wish when Russia, which controls the skies over Afrin, finally gave the green light to the Turkish military incursion into the Kurdish enclave. Iran and the Assad regime acquiesced to Turkey’s move.

But the recent developments on the ground suggest the way forward might not be as smooth and the partnership with Russia and Iran might not be as strong as Ankara had hoped. Russia is frustrated with Turkey’s failure to roll back the Al Qaeda–linked Hayat Tahrir al Sham’s influence in Idlib while Iran and the Assad regime have grown increasingly uncomfortable with Turkey’s move into Afrin. After Turkey’s recent military incursion into the Kurdish enclave, the Assad regime allowed the YPG to deploy reinforcements to the area through regime-controlled territory. This week, Iran asked Turkey to stop its military offensive in Syria, claiming the operation was a breach of Syrian sovereignty and would increase the tension further. Earlier, the regime and Iran-backed forces attacked a Turkish convoy in Aleppo. Last week, opposition forces downed the Russian plane using a man-portable air-defense system (MANPADS) in Idlib. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham claimed responsibility for the attack. Some in Moscow are blaming Turkey for the attack, pointing to what they see as Turkey’s murky relationship with the militant group.

All these are the latest in a series of incidents that suggest serious cracks in the tenuous partnership between Russia, Iran and Turkey. In December, Russian forces based in Syria’s Khmeimim air base were hit with artillery fire and lost two soldiers. Russian sources pointed the blame at Turkey saying the artillery used in the attack entered Syria from Turkey. After the incident, Russia sent a letter to Turkish Chief of Staff urging Turkey to make sure the armed Syrian opposition groups under its control respect the de-escalation agreement. A few days later, Turkey’s foreign ministry summoned Russian and Iranian ambassadors to criticize what Ankara says Syrian government forces’ escalation of violence in the city of Idlib.

What makes the escalating tension with Russia and Iran particularly troubling for Ankara is Turkey’s growing isolation. The country is fast approaching a military crisis in its relations with its NATO ally: the United States. The tension spiked after President Erdogan threatened military action against Manbij, a Kurdish enclave east of Afrin where there are around 2,000 American Special Forces. If Erdogan follows through, the move could potentially bring Turkish forces into confrontation with those of the United States. Washington is pushing to prevent a Turkish incursion into Manbij. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser H. R. McMaster met with his Turkish counterpart in Istanbul last week to discuss the issue and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is scheduled to hold meetings with his Turkish counterpart later this week.

For its part, Washington faces tough choices too. Turkey demands the withdrawal of Kurdish forces from Manbij. If the United States agrees, it could threaten its plans to stabilize a swath of northeast Syria. If it doesn’t, the relations with its NATO ally could “completely break down” as recently warned by Turkish foreign minister. A compromise solution would be disbanding the Manbij Military Council –providing security to the town. The Council is allied with the YPG. An American effort to replace the MMC with more diverse group of local actors who are not overtly pro-YPG could provide a face-saving exit for President Erdogan who has been publicly warning about the “imminent Manbij operation.” Whether Erdogan will settle on a middle ground depends on improved Turkish relations with Russia and Iran. It is particularly important for Ankara to maintain Russia’s tacit consent for Turkey’s military operation in Syria and the leverage Moscow can use over Iran and the regime to make sure they do not spoil Turkey’s plans.

Erdogan is trying to play down the disagreements with his Astana partners by suggesting that U.S. support for the YPG is an act against Turkey, Iran and Russia. He also hopes this will keep the pressure on Washington at a time when Turkish and U.S. forces might clash in Syria. Erdogan knows that Turkey cannot take on Russia and the United States at the same time. If he manages to ease tensions with Russia, Ankara will be less interested in what Secretary Tillerson has to offer to prevent a Turkish incursion into Manbij.

The extremely complicated situation in the Mideast in the last decades has consolidated patterns of evolution that have accustomed experts to rapidly find their bearings during new developments that occur on such an unpredictable stage. During the Cold War, for instance, when Syria was playing a preponderant role in Lebanon’s domestic politics, it was normal to imagine that in any deterioration of relations between Lebanon and Israel one would immediately detect a certain Syrian political-military agenda. Numerous events were interpreted over the years based on this model of analysis, otherwise extremely fragile but one which in the extremely complicated situation in the Mideast offered a certain premise of logical orientation, like reported by nineoclock.ro.

That this model turned out – not seldom – to be presumptuous and did not offer the veritable key to understanding the situation, that is also true, but here we are talking about the extraordinary complexity of globally-determined geopolitical developments, and about the internal developments of local actors and, consequently, about the connection between these two factors that are so unpredictable. In this case, for instance, with the appropriate reservations, anytime Israel is threatened by war one must answer the following questions: 1. Who wants to put in balance Israel’s independence and sovereignty, its right to independent existence within the international system of states? 2. Why and who is the one who wants to unleash a war against Israel now? What must be done for such a possibility to be avoided and for international security to be preserved?

On Saturday, 10 February 2018, military clashes took place in Israel and Syria, foreshadowing this danger of imminent war against Israel. On Israel’s northern border with both Lebanon and Syria, the situation has become extremely hot. A drone, programmed and controlled by Iran from one of its military sites in Syria, was destroyed by the Israeli defence. In response, the Israeli Air Force bombed the sites that were at the origin of this military development. An Israeli fighter jet was hit by the Syrian air defence (the Bashar Assad regime in Damascus) and the pilots were recovered by Israel. In the opinion of competent sources, we are facing the most serious act of war that has occurred between Israel and Iran and the latter’s allied regime in Syria.

The following observations must be made. During the Syrian civil war, which erupted in 2011 and in which numerous external actors intervened, aside from the combatant members of the fragmented domestic camps – including terrorist networks such as Al Qaida and the Islamic Caliphate (IS) –, Israel reserved its legitimate right to carry out military strikes on any arms transports from Iran to Lebanon via the Syrian territory, a legitimate right required by its strategic situation on its northern border, where in the past it had to wage veritable wars against the Lebanon-based Hezbollah (2006), which denies the Israeli state’s right to statehood. This right was exercised every time it was necessary in recent years, including since Russia got involved in the Syrian civil war (September 2015), and it was tacitly accepted.

Hence, let us address the above one by one to see where we stand today. We know for whom Israel’s independent existence is nonsensical for their own future designs, and this reality unleashed all the wars that Israel has waged since its modern establishment (1948). We are not talking solely about the Arab world, even though history energetically encourages such a working hypothesis. It’s just that, since 1948, when Israel proclaimed its independence, this Arab world, whether it was under the leadership of Nasser, President of Egypt (the 1950s and 1960s), or of its successor Anwar Saddat (1970s and 1980s with the ingredients of the asymmetric war of the post-Camp David peace era), all the wars waged in the Mideast sought the destruction of Israel. Why? This is much more complicated to answer, but we do not hesitate to point to a direction of political though in this field: removing the West’s presence in this volatile region of the planet.

The current situation in the Middle East is much more complicated. The yet to be decided result of the civil war in Syria and the evolution of the peace process – “moved” from Geneva to Astana and then to Sochi, with different sponsors (Russia, Iran, Turkey) – is growing even more complicated because of Turkey’s military intervention in Syria, which seeks to eliminate the danger of a Kurdish autonomy taking shape. It is a context in which U.S. President D. Trump announced the decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem – equivalent to recognising this ancient city as the capital of Israel –, but also the fact that the White House deems that the nuclear agreement with Iran (2015), which stopped Iran’s accession to the club of nuclear states, must be revised. Also under the chapter of new developments, one must mention the fact hat an alliance between Israel and the Arab states (Saudi Arabia in particular) is developing in order to block Iran’s access to regional hegemony. Yet another issue is taking shape: the European Union, a major systemic actor, has a near abroad in the Mideast, which compels it to adopt a cautious policy (not just because of the issue of clandestine immigration, whose threatening dimension was clearly shown in 2015), and a potential war in the region would significantly worsen its own security, as well as the foreign policy consensus of its member states. The caution shown so far by the EU clearly outlines that a war in the Mideast region is one of the events endowed with great destabilising potential, from the refugees’ dossier to internal cohesion and traditional alliances. How will the relations between the EU and U.S. evolve in case of a war between Israel and Iran?

The military incidents that took place on Saturday, 10 February 2018, at the border of Israel and in Syria, show that Jerusalem will not accept Iran’s military presence in Syria becoming impressive and hence a threat that it would have to answer appropriately, just as the strengthening of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, an organisation allied with Tehran, would raise the same problem. The same goes in case of similar behaviour on the part of the regime in Damascus. An Israeli armed forces’ spokesperson stated on Saturday that: “Syria and Iran are ‘playing with fire’ and will pay a heavy price. The Prime Minister Office has instructed cabinet ministers not to speak publicly about the events on the northern border.” Regarding the way in which Washington sees the current developments, an official document specifies the fact that Israel has the legitimate right to defend its national independence and sovereignty. On Sunday, an Israeli newspaper (‘Israel Hayom’) published an interview that President Donald Trump gave to its editor-in-chief “before the latest escalation in Israel’s North.” The Israeli journalist’s assessment in what concerns the White House’s position is the following: “it was painfully clear that Syria and Iran are testing the U.S., checking how far they can push the Americans (including reports of chemical attacks and hospital bombings in recent days).When I asked Trump if Israel is free to operate in Syria and in Lebanon against Iranian targets, he adopted an air of uncharacteristic ambiguity. But the message was clear – when it comes to Iran, it is best to let actions do the talking. The U.S. is keeping its cards close to the chest.” http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/02/11/trump-to-israel-hayom-palestinians-are-not-looking-to-make-peace/. In this interview, D. Trump also assessed that the inexistence of an Israeli-Palestinian peace process is a negative aspect of such a complex regional picture.

The Middle East is now at high risk of regional war. The situation on Israel’s northern border, where it borders Lebanon and Syria, is today the “hottest” border zone on the globe. Avoiding a war with consequences that are difficult to calculate must become a systemic priority.

Turkey is recruiting and retraining Isis fighters to lead its invasion of the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northern Syria, according to an ex-Isis source, like reported by counterpunch.org.

“Most of those who are fighting in Afrin against the YPG [People’s Protection Units] are Isis, though Turkey has trained them to change their assault tactics,” said Faraj, a former Isis fighter from north-east Syria who remains in close touch with the jihadi movement.

In a phone interview with The Independent, he added: “Turkey at the beginning of its operation tried to delude people by saying that it is fighting Isis, but actually they are training Isis members and sending them to Afrin.”

An estimated 6,000 Turkish troops and 10,000 Free Syrian Army (FSA) militia crossed into Syria on 20 January, pledging to drive the YPG out of Afrin.

The attack was led by the FSA, which is a largely defunct umbrella grouping of non-Jihadi Syrian rebels once backed by the West. Now, most of its fighters taking part in Turkey’s “Operation Olive Branch” were, until recently, members of Isis.

Some of the FSA troops advancing into Afrin are surprisingly open about their allegiance to al-Qaeda and its offshoots. A video posted online shows three uniformed jihadis singing a song in praise of their past battles and “how we were steadfast in Grozny (Chechnya) and Dagestan (north Caucasus). And we took Tora Bora (the former headquarters of Osama bin Laden). And now Afrin is calling to us”.

Isis suffered heavy defeats last year, losing Mosul in Iraq after a siege of nine months and Raqqa in Syria after a four-month siege. The caliphate, declared by its leader Abu Baqr al-Baghdadi in 2014, was destroyed, and most of its experienced commanders and fighters were killed or dispersed.

But it has shown signs of trying to revive itself in Syria and Iraq over the last two months, assassinating local opponents and launching guerrilla attacks in out-of-the-way and poorly defended places.

Isis fighters are joining the FSA and Turkish-army invasion force because they are put under pressure by the Turkish authorities. From the point of view of Turkey, the recruitment of former Isis combatants means that it can draw on a large pool of professional and experienced soldiers. Another advantage is that they are not Turks, so if they suffer serious casualties this will do no damage to the Turkish government.

Isis and Turkey are seeking to use each other for their own purposes. Faraj, 32, an Arab from the mixed Kurdish-Arab province of Hasakah in north-east Syria, says that he does not like the YPG, but he is suspicious of Turkey and believes that it is trying manipulate Isis. “Turkey treats Isis like toilet tissues,” he says. “After use they will be thrown away.”

Turkey is evidently aware that using Isis fighters as the spearhead for the assault on Afrin, even if they relabelled as FSA, is likely to attract international criticism.

Faraj says that Turkish commanders have discouraged Isis from using their traditional tactics of extensive use of suicide bombers and car bombs at Afrin because this would make the Isis-Turkish cooperation too blatant.

He says that the FSA men are “professional in planning car-bomb attacks as they have experience before with Isis in Raqqa and Mosul”.

But he cites Turkish officers as discouraging such identifiable tactics, quoting one as telling an FSA group in training that “we leave the suicide attacks for the YPG and the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party which carries on guerrilla warfare in Turkey), so that the world will be convinced that they are terrorists”.

Turkey has had an ambivalent relationship with jihadi groups since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011. At first, it allowed foreign jihadi fighters and military supplies to cross into Syria, though this tolerance ebbed after the fall of Mosul in June 2014.

Nevertheless, Ankara made clear by its actions during the siege of the Kurdish city of Kobani that it would have preferred victory to go to Isis rather than the YPG.

As the YPG advanced after Kobani with the support of US air power, Turkey’s priority became to reverse the creation of a de facto Kurdish state in Syria under US military protection.

The US is in a particularly difficult position. It was the YPG who provided the ground troops who, backed by US air strikes, have defeated Isis in many battles.

Without them there would have been no victory over Isis as was claimed by President Trump in his State of the Union message. But the YPG is now facing some of the same Isis fighters in Afrin with whom it fought over the past four years. It will not look good if the US abandons its proven Kurdish allies because it does not want a confrontation with Turkey.

Such a confrontation could be just around the corner. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened at the weekend to expand the Turkish invasion to include the Arab town of Manbij, captured from Isis by the YPG in 2016 after a long siege. He said that the Americans “tell us, ‘Don’t come to Manbij.’ We will come to Manbij to handover these territories to their rightful owners.”

The fighting between Turks and Kurds and the growing confrontation between the US and Turkey are all in the interests of Isis. It does not have the strength to recover from its crushing defeats last year, but the opponents it faced then are now fighting other battles.

Eliminating the last pockets of Isis resistance is no longer their first priority. The YPG has been transferring units that were facing Isis in the far east of Syria to the west where they will face the Turks.

Turkey is not in a very strong position militarily almost three weeks after its invasion of Afrin. It can only win by bombing round the clock, and for this it will need Russian permission, which it probably will not get. If it is going to expand its attacks, it will need more combat soldiers and this will provide an opportunity for Isis to join in a new war.

The Turkish embassy in the UK has been approached for comment but had not responded by the time of publication.

The Turkish military said on Feb. 6 that one soldier was killed and five more were wounded in a mortar attack while attempting to set up a military outpost in northwest Syria. The Turkish military statement did not include any details about who had attacked its soldiers, but Arab News – an English-language daily based in Saudi Arabia – claimed that the attack had been carried out by “Iranian militias.” A Saudi media outlet has an interest in playing this up, but various other reports simply noted that “pro-regime forces” had carried out an attack on Turkish forces. Either way, Turkey and Iran are on a collision course, like reported by geopoliticalfutures.com.

The two countries started down this path after Iran and Russia supported an offensive by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime into Idlib province, one of the de-escalation zones whose security Turkey was supposed to guarantee. That offensive, and the regime’s apathy in response to repeated Turkish objections, forced Turkey’s hand and resulted in last month’s Turkish incursion into Afrin. Despite stiff resistance, the incursion is making steady progress, to the extent that Turkey has been trying to set up a military outpost southwest of Aleppo for more than a week.

Turkey has already clashed with pro-Assad regime forces in this same location. On Jan. 29, a Turkish convoy of almost 100 armored vehicles, backed by the Turkish air force, attempted to establish a position between pro- and anti-Assad regime forces southwest of Aleppo. According to the Institute for the Study of War, the convoy met heavy resistance from Assad regime forces, halting the initial Turkish advance. At the time, the only report out of Turkey came from the Turkish General Staff, which noted that a Turkish soldier and a civilian support worker had been killed by a car bomb attack on a military convoy.

The Assad regime has consistently criticized the Turkish incursion without doing much about it. Aside from a few small-scale attacks and some leaks to Reuters claiming deployment of “new air defense and anti-aircraft missiles,” Assad’s forces have focused more on repositioning to defend Aleppo than on directly engaging Turkish forces. This was in part because Turkey’s incursion did not pose an immediate threat. The invasion of Afrin was beneficial to Turkey, however, because it allowed Ankara to connect previously isolated anti-Assad rebel groups and also put Turkey in a better position to threaten Aleppo directly should Assad continue his advance into Idlib. This was not an ideal circumstance for Assad by any means, but it was a limited incursion within tolerable boundaries.

Turkey’s recent moves in southwest Aleppo are more ambitious than the initial incursion, as they are increasing the threat to Assad forces. The position the Turkish military is reportedly attempting to establish is well outside of the Afrin region. The Kurdish-dominated Afrin region does not extend all the way to Aleppo; the regional capital, also named Afrin, is about 23 miles (37 kilometers) north of Aleppo. But Turkish forces have pushed well beyond this, reportedly attempting to establish an outpost in al-Eis, a Syrian town of roughly 5,000 that is about 12 miles from Aleppo – but southwest of the city. Furthermore, al-Eis is not in Idlib province – where Iran and Russia had agreed, at least in principle, that Turkey should be responsible for security – but in Aleppo province itself.

It makes sense, then, that the Assad regime and its Iranian backers have twice attacked this extension of Turkey’s incursion. Taking Afrin meant shortening the distance from Turkish territory to Aleppo. Setting up an outpost in al-Eis means preparing for a potential assault on the regime’s position in Aleppo. This is why Iran, in particular, has reacted with such hostility to Turkey’s recent moves, with President Hassan Rouhani saying on Feb. 5 that Turkey had flagrantly violated Syria’s sovereignty, and Iran’s foreign minister saying that Turkey’s actions were creating “insecurity, instability, and terrorism.”

Silence From Russia

Noticeably quiet in this squabble-turned-shelling is Russia, without whose tacit approval Turkey could not have entered Afrin in the first place. (Russia still controls the Syrian skies and would have had to approve any Turkish air deployments across the border.) Russia had a fighter jet of its own shot down by Syrian al-Qaida last week and in response has intensified air raids on jihadist targets in Idlib province. But Russia has not gone so far as to denounce in public Turkey’s invasion of Afrin. Still, Russia may very well have given equally tacit approval to Assad and Iran to attempt to block Turkey from ensconcing itself so far into Assad-controlled territory and so far outside of the stated purview of its Afrin operation. (It also bears mentioning that Turkey has carried out fewer airstrikes this past week, perhaps indicating Russian disapproval behind the scenes.)

On the one hand, Russia gains from all of this. It has decent relations with Turkey and an even stronger partnership with Iran, but that is an ephemeral state of affairs. Russia has long-term problems with both. The more Turkey and Iran are focused on competing with each other, the less focused they are on competing with Russia. Still, this is too much, too soon from the perspective of Russia, which is relying on a diplomatic settlement to the Syrian civil war so it can withdraw its military assets from the country in glory. Bringing home a fighter pilot in a coffin, watching its trade mission get bombed in Damascus and seeing the situation on the ground around Aleppo deteriorate to this extent was not part of the plan, and might necessitate new and more substantial Russian commitments to protect Assad.

None of this is a foregone conclusion yet. Turkey can still pull back, or at least reach a tense if workable arrangement with Assad and Iran about drawing temporary borders that satisfy the interests of both sides. But military operations like this, once underway, begin to take on a momentum of their own. All it takes is one serious miscalculation of the other side’s intention for a minor skirmish to turn into a more significant battle that would be hard to walk away from. Our view had been that 2018 would not be the year Turkey and Iran confronted each other directly; we expected their partnership, however uneasy, to continue throughout the year. That forecast is now being put to the test.

There is growing consensus among terrorism analysts that the battle of Marawi in Mindanao, the Philippines (May to Oct last year), is a watershed moment in the evolution of the terrorist threat in the Asean region, like reported by nst.com.my.

Reportedly, the militant groups driving that conflict, such as the Maute Group and Abu Sayyaf, had in mind to turn Mindanao into a Wilayat (or province) of the Islamic State (IS). This is not a particularly novel goal in itself since the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) has long aspired to establish an Islamic caliphate in Southeast Asia.

What surprised analysts most about the conflict was the readiness of the militants to take the fight to the Philippine military by engaging in a drawn-out urban war and employing tactics — including transforming densely packed buildings in the city into improvised tunnels — that initially confounded the government troops.

Needless to say, the emergence of IS in Southeast Asia — with the attacks in Jakarta in January 2016 widely seen as the first conducted in its name — is but the latest addition to a complex story of terrorism in the Asean region.

Some analysts have cautioned against undue exaggeration of the IS threat because they see the greater, long-term threat arising from a rejuvenated JI, which has a larger network and is better funded.

Against this backdrop, what is most sobering about the Marawi episode is the prospect that it could inspire and embolden other groups, if they have the requisite men and materiel, to emulate or even outdo Marawi in scale, style and substance in other Asean cities and urban areas.

Such a likelihood would also warrant the involvement of the armed forces of the Asean countries, whose force capabilities match or exceed that of the Marawi insurgents.

Much as Marawi could alter the way terrorism in Southeast Asia would, henceforth, be conducted, the manner in which Asean countries respond to the terrorist threat could also change in a number of ways.

First, Asean countries and their defence establishments are likely to deepen their collaboration in counterterrorism, not only among themselves, but with their external partners. They will do so through conducting joint exercises, sharing information and enhancing their force capabilities within existing frameworks such as the Asean Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (or ADMM+).

In this respect, joint counter-terrorism exercises such as the one that took place in Singapore in May 2016, involving 40 special forces teams from all 18 ADMM+ countries could well increase.

Second, the Marawi conflict memorably led to separate offers of military assistance from Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore to their imperilled Asean neighbour.

This implies that Asean countries are likely to seek new ways to collaborate against terrorism.

But, it should be said that Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore — the “core countries” of Asean — have had a long history of security cooperation among themselves, including the Malacca Straits Sea Patrols and the “Eyes in the Sky” initiative.

More recently, Indonesia and Malaysia established the Trilateral Maritime Patrol with the Philippines in June last year to guard the Sulu-Sulawesi seas, a hub for transnational organised crime and militancy.

Going forward, the Asean defence establishments are likely to leverage on these existing forms of cooperation in their quest for new and innovative approaches in response to the growing scale and complexity of the terrorist threat in their region.

Needless to say, the prospects of a growing regional role for Asean’s militaries raises questions over how national governments are to avoid overstepping regional sensibilities and civil liberties even as they work to protect their citizens from terrorism and violence.

The likelihood of militarisation is especially poignant for countries with a complicated military past, such as Indonesia.

For instance, the Indonesian military’s establishment of its counter-terror unit, Koopssusgab, immediately re-ignited fears, unjustified or otherwise, over potential interference by the military once again in the country’s civilian affairs.

On the other hand, the possibility that Asean countries may soon find soldiers from other nations, including external powers, operating on their home soil cannot be ruled out.

How affected countries and societies in need of external assistance are able to host foreign troops and facilitate counterinsurgency operations without jeopardising their sovereignty is likely to emerge as a key concern as Asean countries and militaries cooperate to tackle the common challenge of terrorism in their neck of the woods.

The Trump administration has laid out several new sanctions designations over the last month that target individuals and entities connected to Hamas and Hezbollah who have strong links to the Iranian government, like reported by jpost.com.

The newly aggressive posture against Tehran’s proxy network are part of the administration’s broader strategy to push back against Iran’s activities in the region, which it views as hegemonic and destabilizing to the greater Middle East. The Treasury Department is leading the way, while the State Department hopes to persuade European powers to adopt a tougher approach toward Tehran for its regional behavior and ballistic-missile program. The US says Iran was emboldened by a 2015 international agreement on the Islamic republic’s nuclear program.

Last month, Attorney-General Jeff Sessions announced the creation of a team to combat Hezbollah’s drug-trafficking operations. Last week, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin announced new sanctions against six people and seven businesses associated with Hezbollah, in what Mnuchin characterized as the “first wave” of many sanctions to come.

“We will be relentless in identifying, exposing and dismantling Hezbollah’s financial support networks globally,” Mnuchin said.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders put it more bluntly, writing on Twitter: “We will no longer allow corrupt Hezbollah and other Iranian regime cronies to hide their crimes behind front companies. More to come.”

Also last week, the State Department said that Ismail Haniyeh, the leader and president of the Hamas’s political bureau, and Harakat al-Sabireen, an Iranian- backed group operating in Gaza and the West Bank, were “sponsored and directed by Iran.” It designated both as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists,” a classification that comes with some of the government’s harshest sanctions.

These sanctions against the proxies are in addition to a slew of new sanctions that have directly targeted the Iranian government over human-rights abuses, missile work and support for terrorism. In short, the Trump administration has in the past year “more than tripled the number” of US sanctions on Iran and its proxies, US Vice President Mike Pence told the Knesset during his visit to Israel last month.

The interagency effort has even brought in Jason Greenblatt, the president’s special representative for international negotiations, who is squarely focused on restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Greenblatt is not involved in Iran policy, but is involved in efforts to forge Israeli-Arab peace, inseparable from concerns over Tehran’s regional ambitions.

“Imagine what the people of Gaza could do with the $100 million Iran gives Hamas annually, that Hamas uses for weapons and tunnels to attack Israel,” Greenblatt tweeted this week. “Iran spends almost a billion dollars a year sponsoring terrorism in Lebanon, Israel and West Bank/ Gaza. This blood money only increases violence and does nothing to help the Palestinian people.”

Congress is doing its part as well. Last October it passed with bipartisan support three bills that address Hezbollah activity. One encourages the European Union to fully designate all of Hezbollah a terrorist organization, after the transcontinental body listed only its “military wing” as such in 2013. Another would sanction individual members of Hezbollah for war crimes for their use of human shields. The third would beef up a 2015 sanctions law targeting Hezbollah’s financing, requiring the president to report annually to Congress on the net worth of the group’s leaders.

US officials say this is just the beginning of a concerted effort to stop Iran’s push toward dominance by creating a “Shi’a crescent,” reaching from Tehran to the Mediterranean and up against Israel’s northern and eastern borders. The Israeli government welcomes this newly proactive strategy and now hopes Europe will get on board.

In a message to Britain, France and Germany, Trump threatened to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal if the allies fail to join him in targeting Iran’s proxies. “They should designate Hezbollah – in its entirety – as a terrorist organization,” Trump said, echoing the congressional bill.

On January 12, the president started a 120-day clock on talks with Europe to negotiate an addendum to the Iran nuclear deal. Trump’s aides say he is willing to remain a party to the agreement, for now, if Europe takes concrete actions against Iran’s “malign activities” and ballistic-missile work and agrees to seriously discuss his concerns with the deal.

“They should join us in constraining Iran’s missile development and stopping its proliferation of missiles, especially to Yemen,” Trump continued. “They should join us in countering Iran’s cyberthreats. They should help us deter Iran’s aggression against international shipping. They should pressure the Iranian regime to stop violating its citizens’ rights. And they should not do business with groups that enrich Iran’s dictatorship or fund the Revolutionary Guard and its terrorist proxies.”

On the 11th of February, the Iranian Revolution will celebrate the 39th anniversary of its victory and commence its 40th year. We can imagine the map of the region wide open on the table of current and former Revolutionary Guard generals; General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jaafari, commander of the Guards, General Rahim Safavi, military adviser to the spiritual leader and former IRGC chief, General Mohsen Rezaee, secretary general of the Expediency Discernment Council and former commander of the Guards, like reported by aawsat.com.

If it is possible to avoid describing the Guards as the “ruling party”, one cannot ignore the overwhelming presence of the “IRGC State” at the core of the Iranian regime and its decision-making process.

The four generals are likely to be relieved if they look at the map. Iran has the leading role in Iraq. Through its militias and in partnership with Russia, it has prevented the collapse of the Syrian regime. In Lebanon, there are those who believe that the parliamentary elections scheduled for May would consolidate, through legitimate means, the country’s presence within the Iranian Crescent. As for Yemen, the Houthis continue to assume their role in the Iranian program, undaunted by the terrible adventure into which they have driven the country.

The Guards Generals’ boasting of the Iranian influence in the four Arab capitals does not eliminate the bad conditions witnessed in the respective countries.  Iraq, where Iran is strongly present in the decision-making process, is unfortunately a broken country confused between Sunnis and Kurds, despite its significant victory over “ISIS”, with the support of the “International Alliance”.

Syria, where Moscow and Tehran have managed to salvage the regime, has turned into a jungle of flags of states and militias in a rare and unprecedented abuse of a fractured country. It is certain that any viable political solution in Syria will lead to a decline in the role of Iran, which was completely dominant before the outbreak of confrontations in this country. It is hard to believe that Lebanon is at its best. As for Yemen, nothing suggests that this challenging country will be an easy celebration for the Houthi adventure.

In contrast to breakthroughs and achievements, it is difficult for the four generals to ignore the fact that recent days have revealed that the Iranian Revolution is beginning to suffer from the symptoms of turning forty. The open letter addressed by prominent opposition figure Mehdi Karroubi to the spiritual leader is very significant. He said: “I urge you, before it is too late, to make room for structural reforms of the regime with accurate diagnosis of the country’s political, economic and foreign situation, and through the evaluation of policies adopted in recent years.”

One day later, the regime received a new warning; this time from President Hassan Rouhani. “All the leaders of the country must listen to the demands and wishes of the people. The former regime lost everything, because it did not hear the voice and criticism of the citizens,” he stated.

It is clear that Rouhani and Karroubi are aware of the growing resentment in the Iranian street and the disappointment of new generations with domestic policies and regional adventures that drain the energies of the country and put them in constant conflict with the people of the region and most of the world.

The two men realize that the nuclear deal was not a final salvation for the regime; and that the US administration is preparing to impose a painful package of sanctions that will deprive Tehran of reaping the fruits of the Obama agreement, because it will convince investors that the time to return to Iran has not come yet.

The sanctions are aimed at making Iran pay the price of violating countries, disrupting stability, supporting terrorism, manufacturing ballistic missiles and threatening the security of waterways.

Time is the fiercest enemy of revolutions. It caresses them and later entangles them. It sympathizes with them and then attacks them. It tests them and destroys their auras. Time is ruthless. It separates fantasies from dreams and drags them into the Court of Numbers. The peculiarity of a revolution is not enough to immunize it against fixed rules. Change is the only salvation. Refusing to reconcile with time is the shortest way to collapse, no matter how late it is.

There are no ideas that fit all times and places. The ideas are the fruit of their time and carry with them the features of the place as well. Time, like a river, carries with it new and different ideas, and question marks. The “KGB” Empire was unable to protect Lenin’s revolution from committing suicide. The massive Communist Party of China (CPC) was unable to protect Mao Zedong’s revolution from the needs and winds of the times. Nothing suggests that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards will succeed where others have failed.

In this month, 40 years ago, the Iranian Revolution achieved victory, reverberating across the region and the world; a revolution that was born from outside the ideology of these two camps. Back then, Lenin’s party resembled Lenin himself, and Mao’s party reflected Mao’s beliefs. But time has changed, and here is Khomeini’s revolution facing the troubles of turning forty, in a world very different from the one in which it was born.

The IRGC generals must know that there are new generals, who represent more threat to the Iranian regime than US generals. Generals, who came from scientific, technological and digital revolutions… Generals, who cannot be intercepted at the border, nor can they be faced by rockets and the mobilization of militias. The Iranian youth is more likely to be turning towards these generals they see in their smartphones. They want to be neutral citizens in a normal country busy with investment and stability. Here I mean Google Gen. Larry Page, Microsoft General Satya Nadella and his predecessor Bill Gates, Amazon General Jeff Bezos, Facebook General Mark Zuckerberg, Apple General Tim Cook and Telegraph General Pavel Durov.

If the Iranian revolution fails to capture the deep meaning of the pains of turning 40 in a world of change, Khamenei must truly reflect on what time has done with the revolutions of Lenin and Mao.

About 90-minutes before dawn broke on Jan. 28, Kabul residents woke to the sound of explosions and gunfire. A group of insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifles had stormed an army post near a military academy in Afghanistan’s capital, like reported by time.com.

Monday’s pre-dawn raid lasted an hour and ended in the death of 11 soldiers, as well as four of the five militants who instigated it. It was the fourth brazen attack in a little over a week that saw more than 140 people killed in around Kabul and exposed gaping holes in Afghanistan’s security structure.

For many, the four atrocities—two claimed by the Taliban and two by a local ISIS affiliate—also underscore the futility of a 16-year United States military campaign (the longest war America has been involved in). Despite a threefold increase in aerial ordinance dropped on the Taliban in 2017, the insurgent group made considerable territorial gains and is now openly active in 70% of Afghanistan, according to a recent BBC study.

For all the talk of the Taliban resurgence in the countryside, the latest spate of attacks shows that urban spaces remain highly vulnerable and lay bare the intelligence gathering frailty of the country’s Western-backed government, says Michael Kugelman, an Afghanistan specialist at the Wilson Center.

“Afghanistan simply is in no position to preempt large-scale attacks, even in supposedly more highly secured areas,” Kugelman tells TIME.

Here’s more.

What did insurgent groups target in the latest wave of violence?

On January 20, Taliban fighters in suicide vests laid siege to Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel, killing more than 20 people over the course of a 13 hour-long gun battle. At least 14 foreigners, including four Americans, were among the dead, according to the U.S. State Department. The Taliban struck again on January 27. This time the death toll breached 100 after attacker blew up an explosives-laden ambulance on a busy Kabul street.

“How are we to live? Where should we go? We have no security. We don’t have a proper government. What should we do?” a local shopkeeper told the Guardian in the aftermath of the ambulance attack.

Five day after the Taliban hit Kabul’s Intercontinental, suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the Jalalabad offices of international NGO Save the Children, about 100 miles east of downtown Kabul. “Incidents like this have a direct impact on the children and communities we work to protect and yesterday programs across the country were brought to a halt,” Save the Children said in a statement confirming a fourth member of its staff had died after the attack.

That attack, as well as the Jan 28 assault on the military outpost, was claimed by local ISIS affiliate Islamic State Khurusan (ISK).

The brazen nature of the assaults—and the way in which they came in such quick succession—has thrust Afghanistan back into the headlines. Sadly, it is never far from them. A little more than a month ago ISK claimed responsibility for killing 41 people at a Shia cultural center; in May last year a truck bomb near Kabul’s presidential palace killed more than 150 people, the majority of them civilians.

Is the insurgency entering a bloodier phase?

It depends on who you ask. Responding to reporters questions about how attackers penetrated ostensibly well-defended urban sites with apparent ease, the head of Afghanistan’s spy agency Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai said that the terrorists were “changing their tactics,” according to Agence France Presse.

The ambulance attack in the city center did “not mean a lapse (in security). We have foiled many attacks but some are difficult to control,” Stanekzai said.

However, Taliban-led campaigns of violence in cities have long accompanied the group’s advances in the countryside.

What has changed is the insurgents’ willingness to claim responsibility for attacks targeted at civilians, rather than police and the military. That is likely a product of the insurgents’ desire to heap pressure on the state that it wishes to overthrow.

Says Kugelman: “[The Taliban] wants to make the state look weak, and what better way of doing so than making it clear that the state is unable to protect its own people?”

How have Afghanistan and U.S. leaders responded?

The Taliban has made some diplomatic overtures, including the 2013 establishment of an unofficial embassy in Qatar. But the group has long publicly maintained that the peace talks depend on the withdrawal of foreign forces.

A spokesman for Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani has said that with its recent attacks the Taliban had “crossed a red line and lost the opportunity for peace,” but Ghani continues to leave the door ajar for peace talks with the insurgents.

U.S. President Donald Trump noted that a change in circumstances could eventually precipitate talks. “There may be a time, but it’s going to be a long time,” he said.

There seems scant incentive, however, for an ascendant Taliban to talk or change tack. Analysts argue that the U.S. military, which could not secure Afghanistan with 100,000 troops on the ground in 2010, is unlikely to be able to turn the tide now with 15,000.

“These attacks should prompt a sobering reminder that after nearly two decades of war, U.S. policy options are limited in Afghanistan,” Kugelman tells TIME.

Seven years into a relatively peaceful political transition that has given Tunisia a reputation for stability, protests have again spread across the country. The successful adoption of an inclusive constitution, the enactment of laws prohibiting violence against women and girls, and the holding of free and fair elections have in themselves not been enough to address underlying structural problems that have persisted since the 2011 transition. While the political and social reality that demonstrators are responding to does require serious attention, there are also reasons to hope that the current juncture is an opportunity to build on Tunisia’s successes, like reported by isnblog.ethz.ch.

The protests began at the beginning of January in Tunis and rapidly spread throughout the country. Thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets, leading to a heavy-handed response from the authorities. Some 900 people, including many minors, have been arrested since the protests began. While demonstrations have been generally peaceful, some have turned violent—particularly those at night—leading to clashes with the police and injuries among their ranks. Numerous people have been injured and one person has died.

The immediate trigger of the protests was the new 2018 Finance Act that has raised taxes and the price of basic goods and services, in a move designed to reduce the government deficit and satisfy international lenders. The government has said the measures are necessary to reverse a deteriorating economic situation. The political opposition, who have organized the protests alongside civil society actors, argue that the austerity budget instituted by the act will overwhelmingly hurt the already struggling poor and middle classes.

In a bid to ease tensions, President Beji Caid Essebsi announced measures to reduce the impact of the tax hikes, including improved assistance and healthcare provisions for the most needy to help offset the price increases. These measures, however helpful, are unlikely to quell the anger of the people. While economics was the spark of the protests, the source of the discontent is much deeper and stems from the core grievances that prompted the 2010-2011 uprising.

When demonstrations erupted in Tunisia seven years ago, citizens were not simply calling for the removal of Ben Ali, but also for an end to corruption, what they perceived as disregard for the people by the governing elites, and for greater job opportunities. After the uprising, free and fair elections and the laying of the foundations for a democracy gave people hope that their concerns would be heard and that their lives would improve.

What has transpired since that time has in some important ways not met expectations nor has it translated into improved socio-economic conditions for many Tunisians. Since 2011, unemployment has come down slowly across the general population, but remains stubbornly high among youth at about 35 percent. The situation in Tunisia’s interior and south—regions from which many of the country’s foreign jihadi fighters hail—is particularly dire due to decades of neglect. According to a recent poll, 68 per cent of Tunisians view their situation as “very bad.” Against this backdrop, a general dissatisfaction with the result of the democratic transition has been steadily mounting.

There is, nevertheless, cause for hope. Though there is much visible anger and frustration, a critical mass of people is also engaged in building on the successes of the past seven years, especially women. One key factor is the strength of civil society. Civil society actors that have helped to organize the current wave of protests appear aware of the need to keep pressure on the government to develop a more comprehensive strategy for inclusive growth. These actors also have the support of opposition political parties, such as the leftist Popular Front and the centrist Republican Party. The powerful UGTT trade union has yet to take an official position, yet some of its branches have already participated in the demonstrations, adding to the weight of the people’s cause.

On the side of the government there is also reason for optimism. Although the government did initially revert to repressive tactics and sought to portray the demonstrators as rioters, there are reasons to believe that a drift towards authoritarian is not inevitable. Tunisian politicians have proved capable of putting the transition above parochial interests and infighting whenever the country has seemed close to the precipice. In 2013, when Tunisia was thrust into a political crisis, governing political elites were able to act in the interest of the country and allow a technocratic government to take the helm and restore confidence in the transition. This same spirit could avert a deterioration of the situation in the current circumstances.

Establishing a technocratic government, as some are calling for, will not in itself be enough to address the problems at the root of the current unrest. A robust set of policies are needed that can generate jobs in the formal economy and increase the development of Tunisia’s neglected regions. A critical step in implementing the provisions of the new constitution is establishing the constitutional court. Progress also needs to be made towards greater decentralization following the municipal elections in March. If carried out effectively, decentralization could help ensure that the voice of the people is heard and met at the local level. Communication and collaboration between political parties and leaders at the national level and civil society and younger populations across the country will also improve public perception that the government is interested in listening to and addressing the needs of the people.

The current protests could well be the needed wake-up call for the government—as well as Tunisia’s international partners—to realize that the grievances from years ago linger and must be addressed. Taking advantage of the opportunity in the aftermath of these protests will boost confidence in the transition and avert further instability. As the last few years have demonstrated, free and fair elections are not enough; they need to work for the people. A key determinant of Tunisia’s fate will be the extent to which the government can develop strategies to increase both socio-economic and political inclusion in the country for everyone.