ABSTRACT
Blowback The Islamist threat poses fundamental strategic questions: what is the likely impact of terrorism and other forms of violence in Syria and Iraq, there and on outside players? What threat does violence within the Middle East and North Africa pose to Western interests? What is the nature of the terrorist threat at home? What is the impact on the region and elsewhere of the evolution of measures and policies to deal with terrorism? What indirect impact will the continuing violence (not necessarily terrorism) have in the Middle East in so far as refugees are displaced to Europe and elsewhere? The scale of the challenge for the developed world in general, and for Europe in particular, is quite simply enormous. There is an additional question that also needs to be addressed: why now?
