May 21, 2013

U.S. administration wrongly advocates the Islamist interpretation of Islamophobia

The State Department issued a report denouncing what it called "a spike in anti-Islamic sentiment in Europe and Asia."  It said that "Muslims also faced new restrictions in 2012 in countries ranging from Belgium, which banned face-covering relig...

April 7, 2013

The AP Capitulates to the Muslim Brotherhood

In a stunning move, the Associated Press (AP) capitulated to pressures by Islamist group CAIR to drop the use of the term "Islamist" when describing self-declared Islamist militants and movements. The AP's retreat is indicative of a crumbling of pa...

April 22, 2011

Assad's Taqiyya Against His People

Although the origins of al-Taqiyya are found in fundamentalist Islamic dogma regarding propaganda, Ba'athists and other authoritarian regimes in the region have used the practice for decades.  In short, once widespread opposition to his one-part...

March 24, 2011

After Gaddafi, Democracy or Jihadists?

We all agree that Colonel Gaddafi is a dictator, that he supported terrorism against the U.S. and France, was responsible for the tragedy of PanAm 103, that he funded, armed and trained radicals in many African countries such as in Mali, Mauritania, ...

January 21, 2011

Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution vs. the Forces of Counter-democracy

When his Computer Science degree failed to corral meaningful employment, twenty-six-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi resorted to selling vegetables on the street in Sidi Bouzid[1] to support his family of eight. After police confiscated his vendor cart for ...

June 3, 2010

The Gaza Flotilla Decoy for Iranian Missiles to Hezb'allah

At first glance, the takeover by the Israeli Navy of the "humanitarian flotilla" heading towards Gaza is just one more of the disputed crises between Israel and its foes. As in all previous incidents, the spiral of accusations will eventual...

April 18, 2010

Jihadism's War on Democracies

The term "War of Ideas" began appearing in the years following al-Qaeda terror attacks against the United States on 9/11. In the days following the massacres, the mainstream media displayed a stunning lack of determination in identifying wh...

March 7, 2010

India's Strategic Role in Countering Jihadism

The confrontation in the Indian subcontinent among al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and their allies on the one hand, and the three democracies they target -- Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India -- on the other hand must be reevaluated in terms of international c...

March 2, 2010

Internationalization of the Fight against the Jihadists

Future terrorism is expected to witness the expansion of various types of terror networks and forces existing today, including Marxist social class warfare such as Maoism in Asia or neo-Trotskyism in Latin America. On the other hand, the many separat...

February 24, 2010

Najibullah Zazi: Genome of the Homegrown Jihadist

Najibullah Zazi is not just an "isolated extremist" caught in September 2009 while crossing a New York bridge with plans to bomb few tunnels -- end of the story. Zazi's "jihad" story is way more than the impressive facts...

January 23, 2010

Major Hasan and the Ideological Blinders

Major Nidal Hasan was not flagged because Washington has disarmed its own analysts with ideological blinders. The Pentagon's review of the act of terrorism committed at Fort Hood deserves national attention regarding not only its important conclusion...

December 25, 2009

Christmas is Not Negotiable

On the eve of this Christmas 2008, I shifted from my ongoing field of research and commentary in terrorism, international and ethnic conflict, and global strategies to address a subject dear to the heart of many among us, and dream-maker to most of u...

November 10, 2009

One Wall Falls, Another Rises

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was a benchmark that made an impression on me, as it did on millions of people around the world. The sight of thousands of East Germans pouring into West Berlin, particularly the youths who had never experienced fr...

October 4, 2009

World Must Sustain Push against Iran's Human Rights Abuses

As the United States and the international community meet Iran's diplomats and hope for the nuclear crisis to be resolved, another critical front should be opened: an investigation into the Iranian regime for abuse of human rights of its own people. ...

September 11, 2009

The War on '9-11'

The Jihadi attacks against New York and Washington created an unforgettable date in the collective psyche of Americans: this nation was bled by men indoctrinated by an ideology that, both in its texts and in its actions, knows no mercy for free socie...

June 6, 2009

15 Hard Questions about the Cairo Speech

Perhaps the most challenging task for analysts and commentators to accomplish after having listen to President Obama's speech in Cairo (addressed to the "Muslim World") is to know how to read it, understand the links between the points...

February 6, 2009

President Obama's TV interview on al Arabiya

For his very first interview after the inauguration, President Barack Obama chose to grant the Saudi-funded, Dubai-based al Arabiya TV the first media salvo of the new presidency. According to Hisham Melhem, the veteran journalist who conducted the i...

January 28, 2009

Obama's Middle East Challenges

President Obama faces a series of complex challenges. Since September 11, 2001, the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East has been shaped by a new and dominant reality. The War on Terror amounts to defending against a Jihadi global campaign again...

December 9, 2008

A Modern-day Islamist Inquisition?

The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), an association of the world's Islamic states, is pushing the United Nations to outlaw "defamation" of religion in general, and of one religion in particular.My remarks that follow are based on 2...

October 30, 2008

Vote for National Survival

The financial drama that we've been living through is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of an attack against America. As I argued in previous writings, the first volley was OPEC's driving the prices at the pumps as high as needed to crack our econ...

September 11, 2008

9/11 and Future Jihad

When* the second jet slammed into the north World Trade Center Tower in Manhattan, I immediately told students standing next to me, "It's a jihad Ghazwa ... they have chosen the Yarmuk option."  The eyes of a few students around me ope...

August 14, 2008

South Ossetia: The perfect wrong war

By now, days after Georgian forces stormed the capital of south Ossetia and Russian units counter attacked across the breaking away province and beyond; a devastating war has spread across the Caucasus causing death, destruction and displacement of p...

July 28, 2008

The Deobandi Fatwa Against Terrorism Didn't Treat the Jihadi Root

Many in the West and in other regions of the world were impressed by the issuing of a fatwa (Islamic theological edict) condemning Terrorism by one of the leading religious centers in the Muslim world, the Darool-Uloom Deoband in India. An Islamic se...

June 4, 2008

How to measure al Qaeda's defeat

In an article published in the Washington Post on Friday May 30, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden is quoted as portraying al Qaeda movement as"essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and on the defensive throughout much of the...

May 21, 2008

Hezb'allah Takes Control in Lebanon

After few days of discussions in Doha, Qatar, the Lebanese Government of Fuad Seniora collapsed under pressures by the Hezbollah led opposition. An agreement, fully in favor of Hezbollah was signed by the various Lebanese politiciansIt gives Hezbolla...

May 10, 2008

Hezbollah's Beirut Blitz

Hezbollah has waged its expected blitzkrieg against the democratically elected Government of Lebanon. Within 24 hours, the pro-Iranian militia blocked Beirut International Airport, established an exclusive security zone in south Beirut and deployed i...

March 21, 2008

Bin Laden's Threat and the New Jihadist Message for Europe

In an audiotape posted on Internet, Osama Bin Laden threatened Europe with punishment because of its "negligence in spite of the opportunity presented to take the necessary measures" to stop the publishing of the Danish cartoons.  It a...

December 29, 2007

2007: A Global Assessment of the Confrontation

The conflict we call the War on Terror still continues at the end of 2007 and all indications are that its battlefields are expected to spread further, and escalate, in the upcoming year. The following is a global assessment of the confrontation that...

December 13, 2007

Be Wise on Kosovo

Over the past few months a number of Western leaders, including senior United States figures, have lent their support to separating the province of Kosovo from the Republic of Serbia, based on the fact that a majority of the inhabitants in the provin...

October 15, 2007

Holy War and Anti War: An Axis against Nature

The oddest of all factional relationships is the open alliance between the Jihadists and the so-called "antiwar" neo-Left movement in the West. The jumble of causes thrown together is mind-bending:  globalization hobnobs with the calip...

September 21, 2007

Is Al Qaeda Iraq a Threat to Sweden?

The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq recently offered a bounty encouraging the assassination of a Swedish cartoonist and his editor for having published drawings deemed insulting to the religion of Islam. Omar al Baghdadi, in an audio statement said Lars V...

September 10, 2007

The 'Bin Trotsky' Video and the Jihadi Failure in Iraq

Has Osama bin Laden turned into Osama bin Trotsky? As I was watching bin Laden reading carefully from his prepared speech, I couldn't help but notice the dramatic drifting in the rhetoric from Salafi Jihadism to a new brand of neo-Wahabism, which I'd...

August 6, 2007

An Idealistic Alternative to the Saudi Arms Deal

The US Government is considering a new gigantic arms sale to the Saudi Kingdom, up to 20 billion dollars' worth of complex weaponry. The proposed package includes advanced satellite-guided bombs, upgrades to its fighters, and new naval vessels, as pa...

July 17, 2007

Preventing the West from Understanding Jihad

In the years that followed 9/11, two phenomena characterized the Western public's understanding of the terrorists' ideology. The first characteristic stemmed from the statements made by the jihadists themselves. More than ever, Islamist militants and...