Hamish de Bretton-Gordon

As Iraqi forces close in on Mo­sul, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of chem­i­cal weapons use looms large.

UNSC and in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty must to be bold in the face of in­creas­ing use of chem­i­cal weapons in Syr­ia and Iraq.

Chem­i­cal weapons are the ul­ti­mate psy­cho­log­i­cal weapon for those who are will­ing to use them.

Russ­ian plane crash and the US Spe­cial Forces’ de­ploy­ment in north­ern Syr­ia should make safe havens pos­si­ble.

The so­lu­tion is not open­ing up Eu­rope’s bor­ders; it’s de­feat­ing ISIL and re­mov­ing As­sad from pow­er.

With­out col­lec­tive in­ter­na­tion­al ac­tion, peace in Syr­ia could still be a long way off.

Fo­cus of the NPT should now be on pre­vent­ing im­pro­vised nu­clear de­vices from falling into the hands of ter­ror­ist groups.

Sup­port­ing the Kurds and Free Syr­i­an Army on the ground is es­sen­tial to win against ISIL.

Glob­al op­po­si­tion can counter ISIL’s psy­cho­log­i­cal cam­paign by tak­ing away its mythos of fear.

Vig­i­lance and ef­fec­tive mit­i­ga­tion strate­gies can pro­vide re­silience to ISIL’s threats to the cap­i­tals of the world.