Turkey Returns to Jihad: Gülen & the Gülen Movement
(Clare M. Lopez, May 4, 2016)
About the speaker
Clare M. Lopez, Vice President for Research and Analysis at the Center for Security Policy, is the co-author of the recently published book Gülen and the Gülenist Movement: Turkey’s Islamic Supremacist Cult and its Contributions to the Civilization Jihad. Fethullah Gülen is the head of a vast political network in Turkey that promotes theocracy and has infiltrated the Turkish state. Gülen lives in the U.S. where he has established a significant number of charter schools. Her remarks will include commentary on Gülen’s erstwhile ally, now opponent, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the new Islamic Center in Lanham, MD.
Lopez is a Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and a member of the Board of Advisors for the Canadian Mackenzie Institute. In 2016, she was named to Senator Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign national security advisory team. Since 2013, she has served as a member of the Citizens Commission on Benghazi. Formerly Vice President of the Intelligence Summit, she was a career operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, a professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee from 2005-2006, and has served as a consultant, intelligence analyst, and researcher for a variety of defense firms. She was named a 2011 Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute.
Already an advisor to EMP Act America, in February 2012 Ms. Lopez was named a member of the Congressional Task Force on National and Homeland Security, which focuses on the Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) threat to the nation. She serves as a member of the Boards of Advisors/Directors for the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, The United West, and the Voice of the Copts. She has been a Visiting Researcher and guest lecturer on counterterrorism, national defense, and international relations at Georgetown University.
Ms. Lopez is a regular contributor to print and broadcast media on subjects related to Iran and the Middle East and the co-author of two published books on Iran. She is the author of an acclaimed paper for the Center, The Rise of the Iran Lobby and co-author/editor of the Center’s Team B II study, “Shariah: The Threat to America” as well as The Tiger Team’s “The Secure Freedom Strategy: A Plan for Victory Over the Global Jihad Movement.” She co-authored “Gulen and the Gulenist Movement” with CSP’s Vice President for Outreach, Christopher Holton, and “See No Shariah: ‘Countering Violent Extremism’ and the Disarming of America’s First Line of Defense” with Frank Gaffney, CSP President.