Sandstorm
The great medieval historian Ibn Khaldun centered his understanding of history on asabiyya, which is perhaps best translated as esprit de corps mixed with the will to power. In his maste...
Baathism
Tunisia’s Anti-Israel Eliza Doolittle
Christian Ortner, a commentator for the Austrian dailies Wiener Zeitung and Die Presse, picked up a golden journalistic nugget about Leila Trabelsi, the wife of Tunisia’s former authoritari...
Op-eds
The Next Wave of Jihadists
The arrest of “JihadJane,” aka Colleen Renee LaRose, a blond-haired, blue-eyed, 46-year-old American, ought to make us reflect on a major ingredient in contemporary jihadism: We...
Op-eds
Who’s Losing Iraq?
Robert Dreyfus, a journalist of the left with whom I seldom agree, writes for The Nation, a publication of the far left that usually makes my eyes roll. But in...
Op-eds
The Syria-Iran Alliance
In recent years, a number of erroneous notions have been re-injected into the policy discourse on the thirty-year old alliance between Syria and Iran. Statements such as "prying Syria away from I...
Op-eds
Education Versus Jihad
In the few hours following the terrorist attacks on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, media in the United States began looking for answers. The very first series of questions asked by all was indica...
Op-eds
The Enemy’s Ideology
In his speech on the anniversary of the September 11 atrocities, President Bush said the United States is fighting “the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century.” OK, b...
Op-eds
What’s Left? Answer: A Few Liberal Hawks
The war in Iraq is a neo-conservative project, right? Yes, in the sense that in the aftermath of 9/11, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and S...
Op-eds
Defend Arab Dissidents
"It is outrageous and amazing," wrote Salama Ni'mat, a columnist for the London-based Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat, "that the first free and general elections in the history of the Arab na...
Op-eds
Clinton’s War; It Wasn’t With Terrorism
The revelation that former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger walked off with classified documents bearing on the Clinton administration's response to terrorism raises questions. Some of...
Op-eds
Historical Precedents: The War on Terrorism Does Echo WW2
The 60th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy gave President Bush an opportunity to draw parallels between World War II, on the one hand, and the war in Iraq and the broader global conflict, o...
Op-eds
Saddam Is From Mars. Is Kerry From Venus?
Next Tuesday, for the first time in 122 years, Venus will pass across the face of the sun--something no one now living has ever witnessed. In these troubled times, it strikes me as some comfort t...
Op-eds
Muslims – stand with democracy, not dictatorship!
Authored by Oubai Shahbandar The Iraqi tyrant has been captured, the Iraqi people are now free. They no longer live in the prison of Saddam's Baathist regime – Saddam now resi...
Op-eds
9/11 in 20/20 Hindsight
September 11 will be remembered as the worst terrorist attack America ever suffered — if we’re lucky. If not, if we’re not extraordinarily successful in waging the war on...
Op-eds
Symposium: Bush’s Decision to Go to War. Was it Justified?
By Jamie Glazov As the controversy over the missing Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq escalates, so does the criticism of President Bush and his decision to go to war. Was the liberati...