Can you name a single U.S. government publication or online platform devoted to the anti-ISIS fight that is as informative or as widely-read as Dabiq? Is there anything that tells us what all these air sorties are for? Who’s fighting this fight on the ground? What advances the coalition has made and why we should we care? We couldn’t come up with one either.
That got us to thinking: why can’t the U.S. government publish something like Dabiq online? Lack of imagination isn’t the reason. A news magazine isn’t a very creative idea—Americans perfected the form, which ISIS copied. And if anything, folks inside the government have too many overly-imaginative ideas, most of them involving whiz-bang technology. If you’ve thought it, they’ve thought it. A social media campaign for youth to come up with ways to counter violent extremism? Check. Sock-puppetry? Check.

The only real obstacle impeding the U.S. government is itself. The executive branch’s complicated bureaucracy, legal strictures, and sensitivity to criticism from media and Congress make it tough to publish a Dabiq-style magazine. To see what we mean, let’s look at two of Dabiq’s regular features and see what would happen if the U.S. government tried to mimic them…