OpEd - SubScribe14

The commentators 27-08-14

...on Islamic militants

It may be that the reintroduction of Control Orders is needed, and the suspects will obviously need monitoring by the security services. But the Government must take any steps with the greatest caution, because it is traversing a minefield and the detonations if it puts a foot wrong could be horrendous. But what Boris Johnson reminds us with his faux-naif showboating is that the single most important quality in a political leader - judgment.
- Matthew Norman, The Independent

Britain’s response to the rise of Islamic State may look like a mess of ambivalence, hesitation and all-round cluelessness – for which the prime minister’s antics with that surfboard probably stand as some kind of grim metaphor. But at the core of our politicians’ reaction to events in Syria and Iraq and the recruitment of British-born fighters, there are the remains of a familiar script: the one written by Tony Blair 13 years ago, when the events of 11 September 2001 began the disastrous phase of geopolitical history in which the then prime minister believed his moment had arrived.
- John Harris, The Guardian

If our politicians want to do something about the men going to fight for Isil then there are a number of things they can do. They can grant them their dearest wish and kill them on the battlefield. They can arrest them, try them, and put them in prison. They can, under appropriate judicial safeguards, prohibit their movement and their ability to communicate with others. They can keep them under surveillance until we have sufficient evidence to prosecute. But they can’t try to take their citizenship. Because then they are taking my citizenship. And your citizenship.
- Dan Hodges, Daily Telegraph

It should be a priority to convene a meeting of all the relevant governments – which, if initial discussions with other countries show promise, should include the Assad regime – to determine whether a common policy towards Syria and Isis can be forged.
- Richard Haass, Financial Times

On days like today the world suddenly cares about the fate of a journalist. It may do so only because he met his death in a symbolic robe at the hands of a masked British man in black. It may do so because he was American. Whatever anyone else's reason, journalists care because he was one of "us"