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Hassan I. Hassan Profile picture
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Oct 20, 2018 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
My article in @TheAtlantic on the Saudi admission of Khashoggi’s killing.

The official narrative will resonate differently inside & outside of the kingdom. ⁦⁩ theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
The way this has been handled in Riyadh is a reminder that rumors that the king would abdicate make no sense. That was never seriously on the table, as I repeatedly insisted.

Much speculation about major changes, including on the line of succession. That also won’t happen.
Yes. “Projection” is a big flaw in the Washington DC machine. Days ago, many thought “MBS is doomed” or “it’s over for MBS”. As we should have learned from other theaters, it’s sadly not so simple. MBS will weather the storm & could even emerge stronger.
(Not saying we should accept it. On the contrary, it’s important to learn that it doesn’t work this way. Instead of hoping for accountability to happen inside the kingdom, maybe focus on related problems in DC/NY/London to hold other culprits accountable, or some such....)

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More from @hxhassan

Hassan I. Hassan Profile picture
Oct 7, 2021
One major flaw in jihadism/counterterrorism analysis is to compensate for knowledge of the human terrain by relying on (flawed) stats/numbers or statements on social media. We’ve seen that in Iraq and Syria, and we’re seeing it now in Afghanistan.

To give a quick example:
Not a single Afghan talks about an expanding Islamic State there, for example. This is almost exclusively coming from non-Afghan observers, old or new. But let’s entertain this claim, which really relies on not reporting or in-field woek but on “stats”. Still, let’s see the stats
Two points:

1. ISIS is claiming attacks, and those go into analysts’ databases. A trendline is established. A dude somewhere walking by another dude & shooting toward him, only injuring him, that is counted as an ISIS “operation”.

A more vital point >>>
Read 7 tweets
Hassan I. Hassan Profile picture
Apr 17, 2021
Wow! For the first time, a video showing the ISIS leader defending his PhD thesis at the university of Mosul in 2007. This is the first time he’s seen in live footage, and the discussion in the video is quite astonishing in multiple levels. (H/t @NihadJariri)

1/
As detailed here, at that point he was part of al-Qaeda in Iraq (Islamic State of Iraq) and was just appointed the general sharii (judge) of the group. He would be jailed by the Americans at Camp Bucca a short while later.
So according to @newlinesmag reporting, he became the group’s top cleric at the same time he defended his PhD at the University of Mosul.

His PhD dedication was brought up in the video here. “Dedicated to those whose nature is to work behind the scenes & in the dark.” Al-Qaeda?
Read 13 tweets
Hassan I. Hassan Profile picture
Dec 21, 2020
Today is the death anniversary of Dr Mohammed Shahrour, a Syrian intellectual known for his controversial views on Islam (radical but on the opposite spectrum of jihadism). He came up with a novel way of approaching the Quran, widely rejected by clerics but fascinating at times.
To me, the most fascinating is that he came up with a method that's almost identical to Islamic radicals but in a way that pushes a liberal view of Islam, different from traditional & extremist views. A "literalist" view with modern applications.
While progressives usually focus on avoiding what they see as odd statements in Islamic texts by going for maqasid (the higher objectives of sharia, specified in hadiths) or majaz (metaphorical explanations), he embraced literalism and found a method to explain things.
Read 7 tweets
Hassan I. Hassan Profile picture
Dec 18, 2020
Even as it tries to do the right thing, @nytimes falls short. Who has a history of misrepresentation that the NYT has avoided specifying?

The Times said its investigation had “found a history of misrepresentations by Mr. Chaudhry”

nytimes.com/2020/12/18/bus…
Really? After months of investigation, the paper found the interviewee is to blame? Apart from the rhetoric, it really merely walked back on its earlier decision to still use the podcast but edit it. Now it’s saying no, we’ll retract it, and everyone is supposed to applaud.
For an brief on what is the real trouble here, follow this thread (
[the problem is much deeper, it’s systemic & there are real-life effects to journalism led by ignorance + arrogance, despite repeated warnings of the damages it had caused.]
Read 5 tweets
Hassan I. Hassan Profile picture
Dec 2, 2020
Important: A breakthrough in the Gulf rift in the coming hours, sources tell Al Jazeera aja.me/b5k8f
Kuwait is to issue a statement about a "breakthrough" in the Gulf rift, between Saudi Arabia & Qatar. The breakthrough will be a set of confidence-building measures before a full end of the crisis that began June 2017. Moves to resolve the Saudi-Qatari dispute started last fall.
The gist of it: the imminent breakthrough is to allow Qatari flights over Saudi Arabia, which the US hopes will rattle Iran’s economy. Currently Qatar pays millions of dollars to route over Iran.

nytimes.com/2020/12/02/wor…
Read 5 tweets
Hassan I. Hassan Profile picture
Nov 6, 2020
Doom & gloom within Arab regime circles about reports of a Biden win. They were hoping Trump would win.

Even if they don’t think Biden would actively be against them, they get how their detractors will have space & multiple advantages perhaps unprecedented in recent decades!
In 2016, it was a whole different world: Arab dictators and their circles were simply intoxicated with their love of the incoming Trump presidency. They saw historic opportunities, and they were right to a certain degree but not entirely.
These regimes will always have friends in DC but things, and they may think their puppets are doing a great job at placing op-eds or forming partnerships here & there; but there are parallel things happening both inside the US & when it comes to their detractors they can’t stop.
Read 12 tweets

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