MUST-READS

• Iran Talks
  Iran nuclear talks to resume Sept. 18

  Plans to resume talks come as the parties seek to reach a comprehensive Iran nuclear accord by the extended deadline of Nov. 24, after failure to reach a deal in July. While the talks in New York are expected to convene at the political director level, foreign ministers from the P5+1 and Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif are also expected to meet together in New York during the UNGA events, officials said.

• Islamic State
  At last, some good news in the fight against the Islamic State

  The Mosul dam, a vital asset, has been wrested back from IS control. In Amerli, a small town where residents held out against an IS onslaught for weeks on end, the siege has been broken. In both instances, Iraqi forces—regular and irregular—were backed by American air support. And now, Iraqi soldiers are advancing on Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, where IS has for several weeks seemed solidly entrenched. Caution is appropriate, caveats necessary—and I will come to those. But small as they may appear, these victories are of vital importance, for several reasons.

  • Washington Post - Rise of Islamic State tests GOP anti-interventionists
  • CSM - What has been the impact of US airstrikes on the Islamic State?
  • AP - Global drive to stop jihadis going to Syria, Iraq
  • Reuters - In Northeast Syria, ISIS Builds a Government
  • Guardian - ISIS Not Comparable to al-Qaida Pre-9/11, U.S. Intelligence Officials Say
  • National Journal - Chuck Hagel: The U.S. Isn't Trying to Contain ISIS. It's Trying to Destroy It.
• Saudis Abroad
  Opinion: Punish Saudis who misbehave abroad

• Yemen
  Yemen president dismisses government to end stand-off

  Yemen's president has dismissed his government and promised to review fuel subsidy cuts in a bid to end a stand-off with Zaidi Shia rebels. Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi would name a new prime minister to form a national unity administration, state media reported. However, the initiative was rejected by the rebels, who are known as Houthis.

• Norway Model
  Opinion: Saudi energy experts, read my lips

  Oil and gas is very important for Saudi Arabia and now we are simply burning it to cool our homes and buildings and we subsidize many strategic commodities such as electricity, fuel at the pump and the highly expensive desalinated water. In Norway, they pay ten times what we pay at the gas pump. At the end, Saudi energy experts, please read my lips. Look at Norway and do it their way. Oil will not be here forever and we have future generations to look after.

• Raef Badawi
  Harsher sentence for held Saudi activist

  An appeals court in Saudi Arabia has upheld the conviction of a human rights activist for "insulting Islam", ordering him to be jailed for 10 years and be lashed 1,000 times.

• KSA and IS
  Viewing the Islamic State from Riyadh’s Perspective: A Conversation with Fahad Nazer

  I think that scholars who have carefully studied the process of radicalization and the history of militant Islamist movements are virtually all in agreement that no single factor accounts for the spread of militant groups across the globe. Rather, the “answers” lie in a a multilayered complex combining historical, political, cultural, social, psychological and economic factors and that ideology/religious indoctrination is only one component of an often lengthy process. Some have even suggested that ideology plays a relatively minor role.

• Afghanistan
  Afghanistan’s election stalemate casts shadow on NATO summit

  After nearly 13 years of war in Afghanistan, NATO leaders had hoped at this week’s summit in Wales to hail the first democratic transition of power in the country and to reaffirm a commitment of military and monetary support beyond the departure of international combat troops at the end of the year.

• Nitaqat
  Jobs for Saudis: Nitaqat rules tightened

  The Labor Ministry, which intends to tighten its noose on private firms that are reluctant to Saudize jobs, said newly employed Saudis should stay with a company for at least six months to be counted as a full Saudi worker under the Nitaqat program.

• FSA
  Tense relations between U.S. and anti-Assad Syrian rebels

  This should be the hour of coordination and brainstorming between the U.S.., its allies in Europe and the Middle East and the leadership of the appointed western-backed fighters. But according to Gen. Abdul-Ilah al Bashir, the FSA’s embittered chief of staff, they just aren’t talking.

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