Army Colonel Says U.S. Needs Better Focus in the War on Terror
(5/15/2008) Matt Korade, Congressional Quarterly
To better understand the Quranic basis of jihad as practiced by extremists without sifting through a library of interpretations, you should read one book above all others, says Lt. Col. Joseph Myers. “The Quranic Concept of War,” by Pakistani Brig. Gen. S.K. Malik in the late 1970s, isn’t much studied in the West.
Sudan: Looming Crises, Strategic Opportunities
(5/15/2008) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
While international attention remains riveted on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the western Darfur region – it has been less than two weeks since an Antonov transport belonging to the Sudanese military bombed a school, waterworks, and a busy marketplace in the villages of Um Sidir, Ein Bassar and Shegeg Karo, respectively, leaving at least fourteen civilians dead and scores wounded, many of them women and children – an even larger conflict is on the verge of breaking out in South Sudan, even as a bold attack on Khartoum last weekend put the fragility of the Sudanese state in dramatic relief.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb: An Evolving Challenge in the War on Terror
(5/08/2008) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
Last Thursday an airstrike on the Somali town of Dhusamareb, 300 miles north of Mogadishu (see W. Thomas Smith, Jr.'s report in Human Events), dispatched Adan Hashi ‘Ayro, the commander of al-Shabaab ("the youth"), the terrorist organization spearheading the bloody Islamist insurgency in the Horn of Africa, and several of his cohorts to the custody of the nineteen angels stoking the stone-fueled fires of hell (Qur'an 74:30, 66:6). The territory of the onetime Somali Democratic Republic is, however, only one front in the war on terror's African theater. Another is the vast expanse of the Sahara Desert and the Sahel, areas which are likely to play an increasingly significant role in the overall struggle against extremism.
A Reality Check as Israel Turns 60
(5/07/2008) Fouad Ajami, U.S. News & World Report
Of all that has been said and written by Arabs about their encounter with Zionism and Israel, nothing I have seen approximates the truth and poignancy of what a distinguished Moroccan historian, Abdallah Laroui, has written: "On a certain day everything would be obliterated and instantaneously reconstructed and the new inhabitants would leave, as if by magic, the land they had despoiled; in this way will justice be dispensed to the victims, on that day when the presence of God shall again make itself felt."
A Daring Declaration
(5/07/2008) Kenneth W. Stein, Forward
As late as three weeks before Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, no draft of an Israeli Declaration of Independence had yet been written. Cobbled together by legal draftsmen, attorneys and politicians, the final version reflected the influence of multiple authors and texts, including a draft of an Israeli constitution (written in January 1948), the American Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution. Having taken under 12 minutes to read, the document contains an essential history of the Jewish people, recounting, among other things, the Jewish longing to return to Eretz Yisrael, the emergence of Zionism and the movement’s international legitimation by the League of Nations and the United Nations. The declaration defined the rights of its citizens, looked ahead toward future Jewish immigration from the Diaspora and extended an olive branch to belligerent Arab neighbors.
News Analysis: Competing Meetings Kick Up Sand in Middle-East Studies
(5/02/2008) Richard Byrne, The Chronicle of Higher Education
When the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa, or Asmea, held its inaugural meeting here last weekend, the siege mentality felt by its members "many of whom are conservative researchers" was palpable.
Even the group's renowned co-founder, Bernard Lewis, sounded a note of desolation about the state of Middle East studies in his keynote address at the meeting. Freedom to study and write on the topic of Islam, said Mr. Lewis, a professor emeritus of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University, was under assault by a Cerberus of "postmodernism," "political correctness," and "multiculturalism" in academe.
Pirates of Somalia: The Curse of the Failed State
(5/01/2008) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
On April 4, MY Le Ponant, an 850-ton three-masted luxury sailing yacht owned by CMA CGM S.A., a French firm headed by Lebanese-born businessman Jacques Saadé that is the third-largest container shipping company in the world, was en route from the Seychelles to the Mediterranean when it was seized in international waters in the Gulf of Aden by Somali pirates.
America and Israel After Sixty Years
(5/01/2008) Robert J. Lieber, Internationale Politik (Berlin)
Sixty years after the founding of Israel, America and the Jewish state maintain a close and unique relationship. Americans, for the most part, tend to accept this as something natural and long-standing. Foreign observers, however, do not always comprehend the nature of this connection, its durability, and the deep-seated continuities on which it rests.11 Some are merely puzzled or curious, others may reach for far-fetched explanations or - in worst cases - embrace sinister conspiracy theories in order to account for this special bond.
First Meeting for New Group on Middle East and African Studies Places Islamic Extremism at Center of Its Agenda
(4/28/2008) Richard Byrne, Chronicle of Higher Education
Washington-Islamic extremism was the dominant topic this past weekend at the first conference of a new organization for scholars of the Middle East and Africa. The Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa, or Asmea, was formed last fall by two conservative academics as a scholarly counterweight to a much-larger group of Middle East scholars.
Lack of Openness Makes Scholarly Discussion of Islam Dangerous, Says Bernard Lewis
(4/27/2008) Matt Korade, Congressional Quarterly's Homeland Security News and Analysis
One of the world’s foremost Islamic scholars warned Friday that Middle Eastern studies programs have been distorted by “a degree of thought control and limitations of freedom of expression without parallel in the Western world since the 18th century, and in some areas longer than that.”
In the End, Every President Talks to the Bad Guys
(4/27/2008) Leslie H. Gelb, The Washington Post
"I have been charged by the president with making sure that none of the tyrannies in the world are negotiated with," Vice President Cheney reportedly declared in a White House meeting on North Korea in December 2003. "We don't negotiate with evil; we defeat it."
Enabling Mugabe to Cling On
(4/24/2008) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
Last Friday was the twenty-eighth anniversary of Zimbabwe's independence, although the country's long-suffering people of the country might be forgiven for not exactly marking the occasion with dances in the streets.
Botswana's Success Sparkles amid African Gloom
(4/17/2008) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
While the world has been watching the pathetic spectacle being played out in Harare, Zimbabwe, as Robert Mugabe clings desperately to the levers of power he has held for nearly three decades (see my report last week), not enough attention has been paid to the truly remarkable transition taking place contemporaneously just 500 miles to the west in Gaborone, Botswana. There, on March 31st, President Festus Gontebanye Mogae stepped down and was succeeded by his vice president, Seretse Khama Ian Khama (generally known as Ian Khama).
Iran's Sly Games in Iraq
(4/11/2008) Fouad Ajami, U.S. News & World Report
We needn't give credence to the idea of a vast "Shiite crescent" stretching from Iran to Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon to appreciate the challenge posed by the Iranian theocrats to the American project in Iraq and to the order of that Greater Middle East. These are crafty players, the men who rule that radical realm. The networks of terror they have at their disposal have a way of overlooking the fine distinctions of theology and politics. In its struggle for primacy in the habitat around it, Iran is not a Shiite power per se: It aids and abets a Shiite-armed movement in Lebanon and also works with the Sunni die-hards of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian territories.
Zimbabwe Zigzags Onto Another Rough Patch
(4/8/2008) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
The ongoing stand-off in Zimbabwe between incumbent President Robert Mugabe and the main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, shows how much the political landscape can shift back and forth in the space of a week. And, as things stand at the time of this writing, the auguries, at least for the short-term, are not particularly auspicious for either the long-suffering country or the future of Africa.
Troubled Paradise: The Mixed Success of the African Union's Intervention in the Comoros
(4/3/2008) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
Located at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel off the east coast of the Africa, the Comoros Islands – Ngazidja (Grande Comore), Mwali (Mohéli), Nzwani (Anjouan), and Mahoré (Mayotte), as well as the minor islets – enjoy a mild, tropical climate. But unlike Africa's two other archipelagic states – São Tomé and Príncipe and Cape Verde, both of whose democratic politics and development progress have been chronicled in this column – the Eden-like appearance of the Comoros belies the tumultuous reality of its 711,000 people and their rent social and political fabric, one which an African Union (AU) intervention last week managed to patch over, if only for a moment.
Somalia Beyond the Terrorist Designation
(3/27/2008) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
Last week, the Federal Register, the official journal of record for the acts of the United States government, carried notice that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in consultation with Attorney-General Michael B. Mukasey and Secretary of the Treasury Henry M. "Hank" Paulson, had formally designated al-Shabaab ("the youth"), the one-time military wing of the Islamic Courts Union which controlled much of Somalia for six months before being driven out by an Ethiopian intervention force in December 2006 and which has since spearheaded a brutal insurgency, "a Foreign Terrorist Organization under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (as amended) and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Section 1(b) of Executive Order 13224 (as amended)."
No Surrender
(3/19/2008) Fouad Ajami, The Wall Street Journal
Wars have never been easy to defend. Even in "heroic" cultures, men and women applauded wars then grew weary of them. This Iraq war, too, was once a popular war. It was authorized and launched in the shadow of 9/11. During the five long years that America has been on the ground in Iraq, the war was increasingly forced to stand alone.
United Nations Fail to Protect Civilians
(3/13/2008) Richard Saccone, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Recently, the United National Security Council failed to agree on a press statement strongly condemning the Valentine's Day 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The two-time prime minister died in a massive explosion aimed at his motorcade, which killed some 14 people and injured 135 innocents. No one knows for sure who is responsible but at least some evidence pointed to the complicity of the Syrian government. Hariri had been influential in demanding the removal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.
An African Security Update and Why AFRICOM Is Critical
(3/6/2008) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
This week I thought it useful to update readers on developments with some of the stories that have been previously reported in this column.
The U.S. and Somaliland: A Roadmap
(2/28/2008) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
A great deal has transpired in the little over two months since I last raised the question of Somaliland in this column, repeating a call I made two years earlier: "Since the disintegration of the Siyad Barre's oppressive Somali regime into Hobbesian anarchy and warlordism, the international community has staunchly defended the phantasmal existence of the fictitious entity known as 'Somalia.' Now, however, is the time for the United States to break ranks and let realism triumph over wishful thinking, not only recognizing, but actively supporting Somaliland, a brave little land whose people's quest for freedom and security mirrors America's values as well as her strategic interests."
Cape Verde: A Rare African Success
(2/21/2008) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
On July 22, 1843, the twenty-two-gun first class sloop-of-war USS Saratoga sailed into Porto Praya (modern-day Praia), the chief town in what was then the Portuguese-held Cape Verde Islands. Under the command of the forty-nine-year-old Captain Matthew Calbraith Perry, the Saratoga was one of four ships – the others being the thirty-six-gun second-class frigate USS Macedonian, the sixteen-gun sloop USS Decatur, and the ten-gun brig USS Porpoise – which constituted America's first-ever standing military commitment to Africa, the United States Navy's Africa Squadron.
Sudan Strikes Out in Chad Crisis - At Least For Now
(2/14/2008) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
N'Djamena, the capital of the Central African country of Chad, belied its name – derived from the Arabic for "place of rest" – this month. February opened with a literal bang in the dusty, sprawling city as thousands of rebels opposed to Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno stormed into the city and besieged the presidential palace and other public buildings.
Mr. Bush Goes to Africa
(2/7/2008) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
Next week, President Bush, accompanied by his wife, Laura, will embark on a five-country tour across the African continent, with stops planned in Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana, and Liberia. While cynics will undoubtedly dismiss the visit as another case of a lame duck president using forays abroad to escape troubles at home, the fact is that America's current engagement with Africa will likely go down as one of the most significant, if largely unheralded, legacies of the Bush presidency. And, rather ironically, it was never supposed to be that way.
Khartoum's Partners in Beijing
(1/31/2008) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
Last week, some 200 baton-wielding policemen prevented Mia Farrow and members "Dream for Darfur" group from holding a rally near the site of Cambodia's "killing fields" to urge the People's Republic of China (PRC) to use its influence on the Sudanese regime to end the conflict in the African country's Darfur region that no less a figure than former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan characterized as "the world's worst humanitarian crisis."
What's at Stake in Sudan's Abyei
(1/24/2008) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
In this column space three months ago, I warned that the tensions were so heightened that the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended the decades of civil war between the Arab-dominated Muslim north of the country and South Sudan, where the population is largely Christian or adherents of traditional African religions, that had taken the lives more than two million people, mostly South Sudanese, was in danger of total collapse, potentially "igniting a new conflict that will be far deadlier and geopolitically more destabilizing than the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Darfur."
Seeing the World as It Is
(1/17/2008) Fouad Ajami, U.S. News & World Report
During that seminal election of 1960, John F. Kennedy's campaign promised to close the "missile gap" with the Soviet Union. It was a stirring call, and of course as we now know, a great inversion of things. The United States had 2,000 missiles, the Soviets only 67. Today's equivalent of that liberty with the truth is the talk of America's standing abroad.
The Kenyan Tragedy and the Future of Democracy in Africa
(1/17/2008) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
If, outside the atypical case of South Africa, any country in Africa was viewed as an island of stability with a real shot at breaking free of the "development traps" which have ensnared the most of the continent, it was Kenya. Its capital, Nairobi, is a cosmopolitan metropolis which plays host to numerous international governmental, non-governmental, and commercial organizations.
Seeking True Diversity in Middle East Studies
(1/16/2008) Franck Salameh, FrontPageMagazine.com
The Middle East Studies Association has finally met its match. In a move long overdue, the doyen of Middle East Studies—Bernard Lewis—and its laureate poet—Fouad Ajami—have just joined forces to launch the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa.
Thinking about Terrorism and Other Security Challenges in Africa
(1/10/2008) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
In last week's column, surveying developments in the former Somalia, Sudan, the Maghreb and Sahel, Nigeria and West Africa, and the rest of the continent, I concluded that "Through the creation of the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) and other initiatives, which this column has consistently advocated, Africa is no longer the 'forgotten front' in the struggle against terrorism that it had been just a few years ago. However, there is still much to be done in what is, indeed, a 'long war.'"
The Clash
(1/6/2008) Fouad Ajami, The New York Times
It would have been unlike Samuel P. Huntington to say “I told you so” after 9/11. He is too austere and serious a man, with a legendary career as arguably the most influential and original political scientist of the last half century — always swimming against the current of prevailing opinion.
The War on Terrorism in Africa: Assessment and Prospects
(1/3/2008) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
The end of one year and the beginning of another is a good time both to take stock of where we have been and to look ahead at the paths we are likely to take and the battles which we will have to fight in the coming months. What follows is a broad assessment of status of the African front in what has come to be known as the "Global War on Terror."
Après Bhutto: Part 4
(12/31/2007) J. Peter Pham, The National Interest Online
Since her death at an assassin's hands last Thursday, former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto has been virtually canonized by politicians and pundits alike. Representative of the former was Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, who hailed the deceased as "a leader of tremendous political and personal courage" whom the New York senator said she had known both "during her tenures as prime minister and during her years in exile" and could thus vouch for Bhutto's "concern for her country, and her family, [which] propelled her to risk her life on behalf of the Pakistani people".
Fundamental Flaw in the NIE
(12/22/2007) Mark T. Clark, Middle East Strategy at Harvard
The controversial National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear program raises more questions than it answers. Critics—and criticisms—are aplenty. These have focused on three levels: tactical (the kind of intelligence we have), strategic (understanding Iran’s intentions) and political (the fallout on U.S. and international policies in curbing Iranian nuclear ambitions).
The Powers of Petrocracy
(12/19/2007) Fouad Ajami, U.S. News & World Report
In Venezuela, a common expression captures that nation's ambivalent mood about its bounty of oil: "Columbus discovered us, Bolivar liberated us, and oil ruined us." On the face of it, and at a time of astounding hikes in the price of oil, that commodity is deliverance. The harsh Arabian Peninsula, where locusts were once a valued source of protein, is awash with wealth, and the modern global economy itself has been restructured in favor of the oil producers.
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood: Reform or Radicalism?
(12/17/2007) Richard Saccone, ASMEA Exclusive
For several years, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), also known as al Ikhwan al Muslimeen, had been steadily positioning itself as a moderate political alternative in Egypt, generating support from European and American groups hopeful that claims of reform were not just a desert mirage.
Significant Stakes Suggest Somaliland Shift for U.S.
(12/13/2007) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
In October, in my testimony to a House Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health hearing on security in the Horn of Africa, I stated: The most significant national interest at stake for the United States in this complex context is to prevent al-Qaeda (or another like-minded international terrorist network) from acquiring a new base and opening a new front in its war against us and our allies...
All Mixed Up Over Iran
(12/13/2007) Victor Davis Hanson, Real Clear Politics
Last week's U.S. National Intelligence Estimate states, with "high confidence," that Iran quit trying to get a nuclear bomb in late 2003. That is exactly the opposite of what the NIE reported just two years ago, when it claimed Iran's ruling mullahs were still developing nuclear weapons.
Too Few Good Men - and Even Fewer Supplies: The Challenges of Peacekeeping in Africa
(12/06/2007) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
Exactly one year ago, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1725, approving the East African Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) initiative to send a Peace Support Mission to Somalia (IGASOM).
Saccone: Can Muslims and Christians agree?
(12/05/2007) Richard Saccone (Member of ASMEA), Statesman.com
Outrage from Muslims in Khartoum turned into blood lust when a 54 year old Christian teacher allowed her elementary school students to name a favorite teddy bear after the Prophet Mohammed. Citizens waving clubs, swords and assorted weapons demanded she be killed, yelling, "No tolerance, execution."
Winds of War Blow along Ethiopia-Eritrea Border
(11/29/2007) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
Two months ago in this column space, I warned that "a little-known border conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia is rapidly escalating and threatens to not only the peace of the neighborhood, but also hard won in America's broader struggle against Islamist terrorism." Since then, others have confirmed that my sense of alarm was not out of order.
Have the Arabs finally decided to accept the existence of Israel? - On the Jewish Question
(11/26/2007) Bernard Lewis, Wall Street Journal
Herewith some thoughts about tomorrow's Annapolis peace conference, and the larger problem of how to approach the Israel-Palestine conflict. The first question (one might think it is obvious but apparently not) is, "What is the conflict about?" There are basically two possibilities: that it is about the size of Israel, or about its existence.
Security First Forum: Iran's Long-Term Security Interests - and Ours
(11/26/2007) J. Peter Pham, National Interest Online
Amitai Etzioni makes a compelling case for a "mutual security enhancement deal" with Iran, predicated on both an implicit deadline and a credible military threat in the absence of agreement. I have to admit that the notion of a non-agression pact with an unapologetic state sponsor of terrorism struck a rather discordant note with me at first.