If a full-scale, full-theater, total war in the Middle East, involving Israel defending itself against Iran and its proxies comes to fruition, the security and stability of the world will be affected in ways that would eclipse the impact of the 9/11 attacks 22 years ago.

Released on August 18, 1988, the original Hamas covenant spells out clearly Hamas’s genocidal intentions. What happened in Israel on Saturday is completely in keeping with Hamas’s explicit aims and stated objectives.

Israel will seek to eliminate the threat posed by the Palestinian militant group for good, but its campaign in Gaza could draw in other adversaries, including Hezbollah and al-Qaeda.

How the United States Became a Leading Exporter of White Supremacist Terrorism

Broadening the NCTC’s mission to include homegrown terrorism will require bold executive leadership and congressional action.

The terrorist threat today is growing increasingly diverse, and although counterterrorism no longer sits atop the United States’ national security hierarchy, it remains an omnipresent challenge. The danger, now, is that in its prioritization of other national security issues, the United States becomes complacent in its counterterrorism fight. Our longstanding extremist adversaries stand prepared to strike, and eternal vigilance is essential.

In 1993, Bruce Hoffman sat on a plane writing what would soon become a pivotal piece of literature in the Terrorism Studies community. That high-altitude work began life as a lecture Hoffman was in route to give to the Special Operations and Irregular Warfare (SOLIC) conference. His lecture entitled, Holy Terror: The Implications of Religiously Motivated Terrorism was a wake-up call across the academic, policy, defense, and enforcement communities.

For extremists seeking to sow chaos and speed up some cataclysmic societal collapse, high-profile politicians provide an attractive target, as symbols of the mainstream liberal political order. We must ensure that we take this threat seriously and are doing everything possible to deter any future American assassin through a combination of prudently robust defenses and proactive law enforcement engagement with this dire potentiality.

The longstanding focus on targeting terrorist leaders and groups without effectively addressing the ideology that motivates and animates them has thus far proven powerless to halt the spread of Salafi-Jihadism. A new, more balanced, strategy and approach that better melds the variety of vital non-kinetic tools along with kinetic ones is needed to turn the current cul-de-sac the US and its allies find themselves into a more meaningful and productive crossroads.