Articles

Hamid Karzai was sworn in as president of Afghanistan on December 7 amid unprecedented security: foreign troops protected him from the very people who are supposed to have elected him to his office. In attendance were not only US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld but also vice president Dick Cheney, with an entire hospital in tow, just in case his pacemaker should stop during the ceremony.

The deal recently negotiated by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, in Brussels on his country’s longstanding quest for membership of the European Union is, by general agreement, unfair and humiliating, and by no means indicates – let alone guaranteeing – that Turkey will eventually be allowed to become a member of the EU.

There was some sense of relief in the Muslim world in late November, when negotiators representing the Islamic Republic of Iran of succeeded in persuading the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) not to report it to the UN Security Council for having a nuclear weapons programme.

Hamid Karzai was sworn in as president of Afghanistan on December 7 amid unprecedented security: foreign troops protected him from the very people who are supposed to have elected him to his office. In attendance were not only USdefence secretary Donald Rumsfeld but also vice president Dick Cheney, with an entire hospital in tow, just in case his pacemaker should stop during the ceremony.

One interesting feature of the current world dichotomy – the division between the United States and its “war on terrorism” and the Islamic movement, with Islamic Iran at its heart – is the emerging realization in the central countries of the two sides that they can no longer rely on their principal constituents...

Blaming America First: Inside the Hatred of the United States in the Middle East and Beyond by Laura Drake PhD. Pub: United Association for Studies and Research (UASR), Annandale VA, USA, Pp: 117. US$9.95.

Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward. Pub: Simon & Schuster, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: 2004. Pp: 467. Hbk: $28.00 / £19.00.

So now it’s official: George W. Bush and his policies are supported by the majority of those Americans who choose to engage in US politics...

Yasser Arafat was not, by any stretch of the imagination, an Islamic leader. He was famously photographed meeting with Imam Khomeini in the early days of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, after the new Islamic state had renounced the Shah’s close relationship with Israel and declared its solidarity with the Palestinian struggle...

As the Ummah has watched developments in Iraq since the US invasion, many have been aware of the potential for sectarian discord.