IS: A Fundamentalist Islamist OR A Modern Movement?

Washington, DC - The group that calls itself Islamic State is the talk of the town this week here in Washington D.C. 

Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel made their case to lawmakers on Capitol Hill last week. They say the U.S. needs to ramp up its military presence in the Mideast, once again.  Airstrikes in Iraq have started. U.S. Secretary of State appealed to Congress to vote to support, equip and train Syrian rebels. 

General Dempsey went as far as saying ground troops are not off the table, something the White House has repeatedly ruled out.  

Secretary Kerry made the case in Paris and got scores of nations to sign on to the coalition to fight the Islamic State. And President Obama made a trip to rally the troops at Central Command which controls U.S. military in the Mideast.

So what is the U.S. fighting?
 
The group calls itself the Islamic State and its leader a caliph. Is it trying to establish a territorial modern nation-state in the Middle East? 

Or is it trying to restore the past, establish a pre-modern expansionist caliphate that threatens the modern world order? 

Today we discuss what is the Islamic State, what are its goals, and how should the West deal with it? 

We will also take a look at how ISIL is fueling the imaginations of some young Muslims in the West.

Key guests:

- Ken Gude, Senior Fellow for National Security for Center for American Progress.

- James Phillips, Senior Research Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs of the Heritage Foundation.

- Jocelyne Cesari, a leading scholar on Islam and Middle Eastern Politics who directs the Islam in the West program at Harvard University had to say on who the Islamic State is and what they want.

- John Prideaux, a correspondent with the Economist who has reported on this issue for more than a year.