FDD

Iran Obtained Nuclear Arms Documents (JS)

The International Atomic Energy Agency has now confirmed that a 15-page document obtained by Iran on the nuclear black market shows how to cast fissile uranium into metal and  was “related to the fabrication of nuclear weapon components.”

Given today's agreement by Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States on referring the nuclear issue to the U.N. Security Council, it will be interesting to see what role this information has in the upcoming IAEA report.

CATM Praises the Netherlands for Banning Iranian-Backed Terrorist Broadcasts

Washington, D.C. (Jan. 31, 2006) -- The Coalition Against Terrorist Media (CATM) today praised the Netherlands for banning two Iranian-funded television stations – Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV and Iranian Sahar TV1 – after concluding that both sought to spread hatred and inspire acts of terrorism.

“As Dutch Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner said, there needs to be a strong European-wide response to al-Manar and other terrorist media,” said Roberta Bonazzi, Executive Director of the European Foundation for Democracy, a founding member of CATM.  “Given the Iranian regime's avowed hatred of the West and its ongoing efforts to build nuclear weapons, European officials must act now to stop these Iranian-backed stations from inspiring new acts of terrorism on European soil.”

Read the full press release.

Democracy Now -- But Not for Everybody (CM)

Barbara Lerner argues that "Bush and Rice are right to champion democracy; they are wrong to insist that support for democracy automatically translates into support for elections. In reality, supporting democracy in the Middle East means supporting democrats there, the way we supported democrats like Walesa, Havel, Sakharov, Bukovsky, and Sharansky during the Cold War. In countries where such men speak for substantial numbers of their fellows as Walesa and Havel did, it makes sense to press for elections. In countries where they are more akin to lone voices, crying in the wilderness, it does not."

The full article is here.

Hamas Calls for Muslim Rule in Spain (CM)

"The children's website Al Fateh, property of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, demands in its most recent issue the return of the Spanish city of Seville to the 'lost paradise' of Al Andalus, as the Muslim part of Spain was called during its existence between 711 and 1492. The web magazine, whose name means 'conqueror,' says it is for 'the young builders of the future.'"

Read the article here.

Hat tip: Daniel Pipes.

For more Notes & Comments see this week's e-newsletter.

FDD Congratulates Staff Member on Election to Iraqi National Assembly

Washington, D.C. (Jan. 30, 2006) – The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) congratulates staff member Tanya Gilly on her election to the new Iraqi National Assembly.

“Tanya has long believed that Iraq can be a free, democratic, pluralistic society,” said FDD President Clifford May.  “She has worked hard for that goal here at FDD for the past several years. Now she will have the opportunity to help shape Iraq’s future from the inside.  We are proud to have worked with her in the past. We look forward to working with her in the future. This is not a farewell. It is a send-off and the beginning of a new chapter.”

“While we are sad to see her leave, we recognize that this is an historic opportunity for Tanya to serve her country and help guide it forward,” added Eleana Gordon, Senior Vice President of FDD.  “She has been an asset to FDD, and will be a passionate and effective defender of democracy in Iraq.” 

Civil War in Iraq? (CM)

Brigadier General Daniel P. Bolger tells W. Thomas Smith Jr.:

If we define a ‘civil war’ as Iraqis killing Iraqis, then we have that. We have had that here since before Saddam.

Saddam took killing his fellow Iraqis to a horrific level, which is a big reason why our operations in 2003 were so important to the Iraqi people. During his tyrannical rule, Saddam gassed and slaughtered Kurds, killed many Shiite Arabs, and executed plenty of Sunni Arabs as well. Naturally, many of these groups resisted. So there is a strong, living tradition of fighting the central government here. That was true under the Ottomans and under the British mandate, too. 

But if we use a more conventional understanding of the term, ‘civil war,’ of a break-away or rebellious part of the country fighting the rest for political control or independence, that gives much more dignity to our enemies than they give to themselves. The vast majority of Iraqis, including the majority of Sunni Arabs, are not fighting the elected Iraqi government. Those who are fighting us call themselves ‘the resistance’ and though they claim to be against the Americans and other coalition forces: mostly they kill innocent Iraqi civilians. That's nihilistic terrorism, and not civil war.

The rest of the interview is here.

FDD Media Roundup

Cliff May discusses the war of ideas in his recent Scripps Howard column here.

FDD Adjunct Fellow Richard Chesnoff argues for imposing sanctions against Iran in today's New York Daily News.

FDD Academic Fellows Peter Pham and Michael Krauss examine the aftermath of the Palestinian elections on NRO here.

Update: Why Were These Tapes Made (CM)

One reason is suggested in the following, excerpted from a Frontline interview with journalist Said Aburish made while Saddam Hussein was still in power.

“There are security centers throughout Iraq. The people heading these security centers distributed tapes of executions, of people disappearing, of people being demoted, of people being humiliated. They showed the tapes to the population to frighten the people. They were telling the people, ‘This is what would happen to you if you oppose Saddam.’"

ALERT: Saddam’s Crimes Against Humanity **GRAPHIC VIDEO MATERIAL**

As the trial of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein resumes, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies is posting 4 videos of actual torture and murder that took place under Saddam Hussein’s regime. 

FDD President Cliff May notes: “Television news, understandably, will not broadcast such videos. But they are, nevertheless, an important record of Saddam Hussein’s crimes against humanity that should be available to the public as his trial resumes.”

WARNING: This material is extremely shocking and graphic in nature. It should not be viewed by children.  Also, it may be necessary to turn the volume down before watching the 4 separate chapters. 

Please note, each chapter may take several minutes to download.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Making Sense (CM)

Victor David Hanson always does -- even out of nonsense.

A sample:

Prewar forecasts warned a worried public that we might lose 3,000-5,000 soldiers just in removing Saddam. Three years later, we have removed him and sponsored a democracy to boot, and at far less than those feared numbers. But we react as if we had faced unexpected numbers of casualties.

Despite the fact that al Qaedists were in Kurdistan, Al Zarqawi was in Saddam’s Baghdad, terrorists like Abu Abas and Abu Nidal were sheltered by Iraqis, and recent archives disclose that hundreds of Iraqi terrorists were annually housed and schooled by the Baathists, we are nevertheless assured that there was no tie between Saddam and terrorists. Those who suggest there were lines of support are caricatured as liars and Bush propagandists.

Apparently, we are asked to believe that the al Qaedists whom Iraqis and Americans kill each day in Iraq largely joined up because we removed Saddam Hussein.

After September 11, many of our experts assured us that it was “not a question of if, but when” we were to be hit again—with the qualifier that the next strike would be far worse, entailing a dirty bomb, or biological or chemical agents.

Yet when we are still free from an assault 52 months later, censors assure that our safety has nothing to do with the Patriot Act, nothing to do with wiretaps, nothing to do with killing thousands of terrorists abroad in Afghanistan and Iraq, and nothing to do with creating democratic Afghan and Iraqi security forces who daily hunt down jihdadists far from America’s shores. And yet, strangely, there is no serious legislation to revoke the Patriot Act, to outlaw listening to calls from potential terrorists, or to cut off funds for operations in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The rest of his "Making Sense of Nonsense" essay is here.

NEWS ALERT: FDD Senior Fellow to Appear on Oprah

FDD Senior Fellow Dr. Walid Phares will be on Oprah Monday, Janaury 23 at 4pmEST discussing the war on terror.

Germany’s Credibility Problem (CM)

Katherine Curtis Stethem – sister-in-law of Robert Stethem who was murdered by terrorists in 1985 – questions Berlin’s actions and motives. “We must press toward Iran with nothing less than a united front,” she writes. Her NY Sun op-ed is here.

Iran & Terrorism

A terrorist from Palestinian Islamic Jihad blew himself up in a suicide attack in Tel Aviv yesterday, wounding 31 people.  Islamic Jihad, a Shia terror group supported by Iran and Syria, has steadfastly refused to honor any truce with Israel, and has claimed responsibility for all six terror attacks that have taken place in Israel since last February.

Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz announced that Israel has "decisive proof" proof, which it has passed along to the U.S., E.U., and Europe, that the Iran-Syria terror axis was behind the latest attack.  "Iran supplied the money, and [Islamic] Jihad's headquarters in Damascus directed the organization's operatives in Nablus, giving operational orders and instructions," noted Mofaz.

As the noose around the Iranian and Syrian regimes has tightened, their support for Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah terrorists has also increased, a key reason why the international community must take the threat from these two rogue regimes seriously.

More on Islamic Jihad's terror activities can be found in this eerily timed Boston Globe article from yesterday morning.

FISA Follies (CM)

Victoria Toensing, an FDD senior fellow, writing in today's Wall Street Journal:

FISA, written in 1978, is technologically antediluvian. It was drafted by legislators who had no concept of how terrorists could communicate in the 21st century or the technology that would be invented to intercept those communications. The rules regulating the acquisition of foreign intelligence communications were drafted when the targets to be monitored had one telephone number per residence and all the phones were plugged into the wall. Critics like Al Gore and especially critics in Congress, rather than carp, should address the gaps created by a law that governs peacetime communications-monitoring but does not address computers, cell phones or fiber optics in the midst of war.

The NSA undoubtedly has identified many foreign phone numbers associated with al Qaeda. If these numbers are monitored only from outside the U.S., as consistent with FISA requirements, the agency cannot determine with certainty the location of the persons who are calling them, including whether they are in the U.S. New technology enables the president, via NSA, to establish an early-warning system to alert us immediately when any person located in the U.S. places a call to, or receives a call from, one of the al Qaeda numbers. Do Mr. Gore and congressional critics want the NSA to be unable to locate a secret al Qaeda operative in the U.S.?

If we had used this ability before 9/11, as the vice president has noted, we could have detected the presence of Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi in San Diego, more than a year before they crashed AA Flight 77 into the Pentagon.

The rest of the op-ed is here.

Global Jihad Monitor

The latest Global Jihad Monitor (January 11-17) is available on the FDD website.

Due to a computer problem, it has not yet been sent out to the GJM mailing list, but we hope to remedy that in the near future...

Thanks for your patience.

As always, feedback and comments on this week's issue are welcome and appreciated...

Osama Says Hi (CM)

In a new audiotape, Osama bin Laden says al-Qaeda is planning more attacks and he offers a "truce."

In other words: nothing new. Except that if it is bin Laden's voice on the tape that means he's still alive. (It's believed the tape was made in December.) But why only an audio tape? Why not video? Security concerns? A bad hair day?

More here and FDD's Walid Phares has more on NRO's Corner here and here.

Nuclear Armed Terrorists; Coming to a Location Near You?

Cliff's Scripps Howard column discusses the international community's response to Iran's nuclear ambitions:

Four years after terrorists slaughtered 3,000 innocent Americans it should go without saying that the “international community” would not let a terrorist-sponsoring nation acquire nuclear weapons. But it does not go without saying.

Read the full column here.

Better Aim Than Reported (CM)

ABC News is now reporting that the missile fired at a Pakistani village last week killed al Qaeda's master bomb maker and chemical weapons expert. "Midhat Mursi, 52, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri, was identified by Pakistani authorities as one of three known al Qaeda leaders present at an apparent terror summit conference in the village of Damadola."

More here.

Iran Options (CM)

Americans – and maybe Europeans – are just beginning to wake up to what it will mean if the most radical, terrorist-sponsoring regime in the Middle East gets nuclear weapons.

But what can be done about it?

Charles Krauthammer weighs in here. Michael Ledeen is here.

For more Notes & Comments see this week's e-newsletter.

Kill Jews, Nonbelievers and Large Groups of People at Christmas (CM)

A prosecutor tells a jury that these were the messages preached by Britain's most prominent radical Islamic cleric at a London mosque.

Abu Hamza Masri also is charged with possession of a document titled "The Encyclopedia of Afghani Jihad." a 10-volume book dedicated to Osama bin Laden, and contains bomb-making instructions and calls for attacks on Big Ben, the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower

The story is here.

Travesty (CM)

Katherine Stethem is the sister-in-law of U.S. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem – the U.S. navy diver who was brutally murdered by terrorist Mohammad Ali Hammadi in the TWA Flight 847 hijacking of 1985.

Hammadi has recently been released by German authorities. Writing in the New York Sun, Mrs. Stethem notes:

For twenty years this family has had to live with the knowledge that the other three terrorists associated with the hijacking remain at large.  Ali Atwa, Hassan Izz-Al-Din, and Imad Mugniyah have, with the assistance of rogue nations, consistently eluded capture.   

Hammadi was arrested in 1987 in what was then West Germany for possession of liquid explosives in Frankfurt airport.  Chancellor Kohl denied President Reagan’s requests for extradition.  The United States was assured, however, of the strictest of sentences contingent upon conviction. …  In May of 1989 Hammadi was found guilty of air piracy and the murder of Robert Stethem.  He was also found guilty of possession of liquid explosives in West Germany.  This man is a dangerous criminal.  Germany has released an obvious threat back into the world.  Hammadi is in his early 40’s; he has plenty of years left to wreak havoc.  It’s beyond belief. …

Robert Stethem exhibited unfathomable courage and unwavering patriotism during his last hours.  The Navy declared him a naval hero, evidenced by the guided missile destroyer that bears the name, USS STETHEM.  The United States Congress declared Robert Stethem an American hero.  When a man or a woman is formally declared a hero, that person becomes a symbol of their country; they belong to every citizen.  Rob Stethem belongs to all of us.  Germany’s release and Lebanon’s receipt of the murderer of an American hero is not just an insult, an affront, and a betrayal to the Stethem family.  It is an insult, an affront, and a betrayal to every American. 

Read the rest here.

"Ariel Maneuvers"

Cliff May's latest Scripps Howard column discusses Ariel Sharon's legacy:

When I first visited Israel and met Sharon, Israel was suffering a brutal terrorist assault, one that it was not clear Israel could survive. Today, Israel is hardly out of danger – Gaza is, sadly, more than ever a terrorist safe haven and the threats from Iran's Militant Islamist regime, Hezbollah and even al-Qaeda grow more ominous every day. But the Intifada has been defeated and Palestinian terrorist attacks are down to a fraction of what they were when Sharon came to power.

FDD Adjunct Fellow Richard Chesnoff has a piece in The New York Daily News on Sharon's possible successors, Claudia Rosett has a new column on the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal in NRO, and The Officer's Club's John Noonan reviews Walid Phares' book, Future Jihad, Terrorist Strategies Against America here.

Reps. Murtha and Moran Confronted by an Army Sergeant on C-Span

The enclosed video clip from CSPAN comes from a recent town hall meeting held by Congressman Jim Moran on January 5, 2006 in Arlington, VA. The topic of the meeting was the war in Iraq. It featured an appearance by Congressman John Murtha, an outspoken opponent of the war who has claimed that the morale of the troops is extremely low due to their own disdain for the effort.  Unfortunately for Congressmen Murtha and Moran, a recently returned veteran contradicted such notions with a few powerful remarks.

View the clip here.

Iranian Journalist Farouz Farzami (CM)

Forbidden to publish in her own country, she writes in today's Wall Street Journal that:

...divisions have appeared within the formerly monolithic Majlis: the tough stand by the international community backed by American and Israeli military might. I understand the opposition of liberals in America and Europe to America's military moves in the Middle East, and they are right to be concerned about the continuing loss of life. But they should also appreciate the importance of American power in enforcing global standards. Without U.S. military, economic and diplomatic pressures, the leader-for-life of Libya, Col. Moammar Gadhafi would not be behaving himself today, and the people of Afghanistan would still be under the thumb of the Taliban. ...

If I were an American, I would probably be content with the well-being of myself and my own family, and would be inclined to oppose my country's involvement in Middle East politics -- but I am not an American. I am an Iranian. I am a subject, not a citizen, of a Middle Eastern country with a long history of despotism. My country will not change without help from the West. I wish the only superpower in the 21st century would realize its full potential in diplomacy, economic leverage and, as a last resort, military action -- not just to stop Iran's nuclear  ambitions, but to speed up democratization in the region.

The rest of her op-ed is here.

Iran: Taking Calculated Risks (CM)

Tony Blankley writes in the Washington Times that actions need to be taken to stop Iran’s Militant Islamist rulers from developing nuclear weapons. He adds:

The spectrum of actions range from mere criticism, to censure, to diplomatic isolation, to economic sanctions as punishment, to specific barring of importation into Iran of products and services critical to nuclear weapons production, to military actions intended to physically destroy Iran's nuclear capacity.  All the possible actions short of the ultimate military one, rely on assumptions that are not fully verifiable.

Diplomatic isolation assumes the Iranian regime places a high value on non-isolation.  Economic sanctions assume that they can have their desired coercive effect before Iran can develop nuclear weapons. And denying Iran products and services needed to develop nuclear weapons assumes that they are and will remain unable to develop nuclear weapons exclusively from what they possess internally (and that such a ban on such imports could be enforced effectively even regarding such countries as Russia, China, North Korea and Pakistan, as well as the international black market).

Every action has its risks and costs. Prompt American military action unsanctioned by the United Nations would have very high diplomatic, geopolitical, world image and domestic partisan division costs, but would assure a non-nuclear Iran for a period of years.

Relying on embargo and sanction comes cheap — if it works. But as we can't know Iran's full internal capacity, the likelihood of a leak-free embargo, nor the will of the Iranian regime, the contingent price we would pay for failure would be a fait accompli nuclear Iran. Also, this plan relies on Israel forbearing from taking its own military action — which it might or might not take, and which might or might not be effective.

From all available evidence, it appears that international embargo of critical nuclear elements, combined with diplomatic isolation and more general economic sanctions, is likely to form the substance of the American and international response if Iran does not agree to stand down voluntarily in the next month or so.

The rest of the piece is here.

The Spirit of Munich (CM)

The Wall Street Journal editorializes that we are witnessing a “demonstration of what happens when Iran's provocations are dealt with in a manner that suits Europe's feckless diplomatic ‘consensus.’ After more than two years of nonstop diplomacy and appeasement, the world is no closer to resolving its nuclear stand-off with Iran. But Iran is considerably closer to acquiring the critical mass of technology and know-how needed to build a nuclear weapon.”

The rest of the editorial is here.

Sen Bill Nelson on Iran (CM)

The Senator, a Florida Democrat and member of the Foreign Relations Committee, proposes a three-pronged strategy “right now in response to Iran's provocations.”

Read the story here.

Bremer Speaks (CM)

The former "viceroy" of Iraq talks to National Review Online's Kathryn Lopez.

An exerpt:

It is possible that Saddam was able to hide WMDs somewhere in Iraq. After all, it’s as big as California. Or some stuff may have been smuggled out of the country during the war, perhaps to Syria. One thing is certain: As Charlie Duelfer, who headed the group searching for the weapons, said in his last report, Saddam had kept intact the people, equipment, and programs and intended to resume them as soon as sanctions were lifted. And in early 2003 the president’s assessment, correct in my view, was that sanctions were eroding.

Saddam had declared himself our enemy, had tried to kill the first President Bush, had supported various terrorist groups, and had used terrible chemical weapons on his own citizens. Moreover, since 1998 it had been U.S. policy, embodied in a law signed by President Clinton, to seek “regime change” in Iraq. It follows that President Bush was right to conclude that time was not on our side. We had after all already practiced patient diplomacy for a dozen years.

The rest of the interview is here.

For more Notes & Comments see this week's e-newsletter.

Amir Taheri on Sharon and "Sharonism" (CM)

Excerpts:

For a war to be won it is not enough for one side to claim victory, although that is essential. It is also necessary for one side to admit defeat. The problem in the case of the Arab-Israeli wars, however, was that the side that had won every time was not allowed to claim victory while the side that had lost was prevented from admitting defeat.

This was a novel situation in history, throughout which the victor and the vanquished had always acknowledged their respective positions and moved beyond it in accordance with a peace imposed by the victor.

In the Israeli-Arab case this had not been done because each time the UN had intervened to put the victor and the vanquished on an equal basis and lock them into a problematic situation in the name of a mythical quest for an impossible peace. ...

Israel-Palestine became the only conflict to defy a resolution. Successive Israeli governments preferred to wait until there was a Palestinian partner that would accept the kind of peace Israel could offer. This was mirrored by the Palestinians, who were asked by their Arab brothers and others in the UN to wait until Israel offered a peace they would like.

Sharon understood that if such a formula remained in force there would never be peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It was necessary for the victor to claim victory, regardless of what anyone else said. It was also necessary for the victor to take unilateral action by imposing the peace it could live with.

Paradoxically, many Palestinians say, even in public, that they would rather see Sharonist unilateralism at work than a prolongation of the stalemate that has lasted since 1948. It was clear that Sharon, his denials notwithstanding, was planning to claim victory for Israel and impose an Israeli peace.

That Israeli peace would see Gaza and perhaps up to 90 per cent of the West Bank allocated to a putative Palestinian state, while Israel would demarcate its permanent border on the ground, part of which would run along the security  fence.

That would not be the kind of land-for-peace deal that UN resolutions have called for since 1968, nor would it satisfy the radical Arabs, who would not see any peace as just without the elimination of Israel.

Sharon may never return to the helm. But Sharonism need not fade away. It is still possible for Israel to create on the ground the kind of peace it can live with and then let the Palestinians decide whether or not they, too, can live with it. My guess is that they will.

The rest of the oped is here. Hat tip: Roger L. Simon.

Salman Pak Wasn’t For Shipping Fish (CM)

Steve Hayes in TWS:

The former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials.

The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. …

"As much as we overestimated WMD, it appears we underestimated [Saddam Hussein's] support for transregional terrorists," says one intelligence official.

Two Views of Sharon (CM)

Michael Oren in The Wall Street Journal. Benny Morris in The New York Times.

Ariel Sharon Has Third Surgery

Ariel Sharon's third surgery to stop further bleeding in his brain is finished.  Given the gravity of his situation, many are weighing in on Sharon's political legacy and the future of the region:

• Saul Singer in NRO
• Charles Krauthammer in The Washington Post
• Littlegreenfootballs and Powerline on the implications of Sharon's stroke and Iran's nuclear program here and here
• Roger L. Simon weighs in here
• And Buzzmachine on Pat Robertson and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's reactions here

Tune in to Danger Zone Radio - Sunday, 9pm EST

Sunday's groundbreaking WMAL radio show Danger Zone will feature Patrick Stethem, the brother of U.S. navy diver Robbie Stethem and Regis Le Sommier. Read More.

The show's archives are available here.

The Fascist Disease (CM)

Joseph Loconte, a scholar at the Heritage Foundation, writes in The Weekly Standard that the hate and menace emanating from Iran can not be ignored and should not be minimized:

The dictator in Tehran shows no sign of backing down, either in his designs against Israel or his lust for deadly weapons. His paranoia seems complete. Indeed, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has emerged as a blistering rebuke to President Bush's cultured despisers. He reminds us that Bush has been right all along--right about the brooding racism of this threat, its genocidal ambitions, its corrupted spirituality. Yes, this is evil. "We're not facing a set of grievances that can be soothed and addressed," Bush told an audience in October. "No act of ours invited the rage of killers--and no concession, bribe, or act of appeasement would change or limit their plans for murder." Before the next round of negotiations begins, we should consider again the plans, theories, and conduct of this latest strain of the fascist disease.

The rest of the essay is here.

BREAKING: Sharon Suffers Significant Stroke

Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has apparently suffered a significant stroke, just hours before he was scheduled to undergo a heart procedure.  Early reports indicate he has bleeding around his brain, is on a respirator, and may have partial paralysis of the legs.  Former Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert will be acting prime minister until Sharon is able to retake control of the government.  More news as it becomes available.

A Mosque Grows in Boston (CM)

And questions are raised about it. Jeff Jacoby’s Boston Globe column is here.

The Beginning of the End? (CM)

An extraordinarily provocative Mark Steyn essay in The New Criterion predicts that much of the West “will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most western European countries.”

Other select excerpts:

Radical Islam is an opportunist infection, like AIDS: it’s not the HIV that kills you, it’s the pneumonia you get when your body’s too weak to fight it off. When the jihadists engage with the U.S. military, they lose—as they did in Afghanistan and Iraq. If this were like World War I with those fellows in one trench and us in ours facing them over some boggy piece of terrain, it would be over very quickly. Which the smarter Islamists have figured out. They know they can never win on the battlefield, but they figure there’s an excellent chance they can drag things out until western civilization collapses in on itself and Islam inherits by default. …

Terror groups persist because of a lack of confidence on the part of their targets: the IRA, for example, calculated correctly that the British had the capability to smash them totally but not the will. So they knew that while they could never win militarily, they also could never be defeated. The Islamists have figured similarly. The only difference is that most terrorist wars are highly localized. We now have the first truly global terrorist insurgency because the Islamists view the whole world the way the IRA view the bogs of Fermanagh: they want it and they’ve calculated that our entire civilization lacks the will to see them off….

One way “societies choose to fail or succeed” is by choosing what to worry about. … The default mode of our elites is that anything that happens—from terrorism to tsunamis—can be understood only as deriving from the perniciousness of western civilization. As Jean-François Revel wrote, “Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.”  …

That’s the way to look at Islamism: we fret about McDonald’s and Disney, but the big globalization success story is the way the Saudis have taken what was eighty years ago a severe but obscure and unimportant strain of Islam practiced by Bedouins of no fixed abode and successfully exported it to the heart of Copenhagen, Rotterdam, Manchester, Buffalo …

The latter half of the decline and fall of great civilizations follows a familiar pattern: affluence, softness, decadence, extinction. … Permanence is the illusion of every age. In 1913, no one thought the Russian, Austrian, German, and Turkish empires would be gone within half a decade. Seventy years on, all those fellows who dismissed Reagan as an “amiable dunce” (in Clark Clifford’s phrase) assured us the Soviet Union was likewise here to stay. The CIA analysts’ position was that East Germany was the ninth biggest economic power in the world. In 1987 there was no rash of experts predicting the imminent fall of the Berlin Wall, the Warsaw Pact, and the USSR itself.

Read the whole essay here.

Oren on Israel, Terrorism and Iran (CM)

Michael Oren is the author Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East, in my view the definitive history of the conflict.

There’s an insightful essay by him on the challenges of sovereignty – for Jews and for Arabs both -- in Azure magazine (Winter 5767 / 2006, No. 23).   

An excerpt:

Israel today faces challenges every bit as existential as those Ben-Gurion confronted in 1948. Terrorists still try to blow themselves up in public places within Israel, and vast forces, many armed with long-range missiles and unconventional weapons, assemble around it. As evidenced recently by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s call for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” many of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims would not weep over the disappearance of the Jewish state, nor would they be too selective with respect to the manner in which that elimination would be implemented. Many Western Europeans, meanwhile, are indifferent and even hostile to Israel’s fate. And even in America—in its universities in particular—Israel is increasingly vilified, delegitimized, and branded an anachronism at best, and a fascist regime at worst.

Yet, in spite of the immense forces arrayed against it, Israel has not only stood up to the test of power. Far more than that, it has presented to the world a model of balance between the requirements of justice and morality and the requisites of power. The IDF is generally regarded as one of the strongest and most sophisticated armies in the world, yet it does not use even a fraction of its potential strength against the people who, if they held such power, would hesitate not a moment to direct it at Israel’s destruction. Israel does not evict a people that threatens its existence—and the last century is rife with such expulsions, especially in the West—but rather offers that people an opportunity to live with it side by side, even offering large parts of its own historical and spiritual homeland.

Read the rest of the essay here.