A brief history of the Islamic State in the form of an animated video from my Brookings colleague Bruce Riedel. Bruce is the director of The Intelligence Project at Brookings, and he spent 30 years at the Central Intelligence Agency.

President Obama has stated that he wants “to begin engaging Congress” over a new Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against the Islamic State and also that he wants to “right-size and update” the 2001 AUMF “to suit the current fight, rather than previous fights.”

I am (as I have previously noted) no expert on climate change.  But reading the text of the much-vaunted U.S.-China Joint Announcement on Climate Change makes me think there is a large gap between how the document is being spun and what it actually does. 

A few weeks ago Matthew Waxman and I ended our critical essay on President Obama’s war powers legacy by noting that “Obama’s legacy will look quite different if, after the midterm elections, he seeks and receives congressional authorization for the use of force against IS, especially if he also works with Congress on a framework statute that updates the 2001 AUMF to deal with the many emerging threats around the world in a principled, transparent manner with prudent limits.”