Shahed Amanullah is co-founder of Affinis Labs , a Virginia-based startup accelerator and innovation hub, and a former State Department senior adviser in the Obama administration. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.
(CNN) While working at the State Department from 2011 to 2014 on various strategies to counter extremism from overseas, I used a simple litmus test to judge the efficacy of my programs: How would these extremists respond if they were in the room with me? Would they be genuinely worried that what I was proposing would hamper their efforts, or would they explode in laughter at my naiveté?
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