Ömer Taspinar is Professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, both in Washington, DC. He is a regular commentator on Turkish, UK and US media and has written for a wide range of outlets, including Foreign Affairs, Washington Quarterly, Survival and Huffington Post (an article published last year for the latter was voted 'one of 15 articles that made us think differently about the world in 2015'). He often appears on BBC World News, Al-Jazeera and CNN, and - until its enforced closure - had a weekly column in Today's Zaman. He is also the author of Political Islam and Turkish Nationalism in Turkey and Winning Turkey, co-authored with Philip Gordon, Barack Obama's senior advisor for the Middle East.
Introduction: "Why don't we read the Koran?"
Chapter 1: Overstating Islam
Chapter 2: Turkey
Chapter 3: Sunnis versus Shiites
Chapter 4: The Islamic State in Syria and Iraq
Chapter 5: The Western Disconnect
Chapter 6: What needs to be done?