The rising concern in Washington, London, and other allied capitals over what is happening in Libya is reminiscent of concerns about Iraq once it became clear that the aftermath of removing Saddam would not be a cakewalk for the U.S.-led coalition. This concern is best seen in the increasing number of U.S., UK, and French officials — named and anonymous — and pro-war journalists who are talking about the possibility of encountering “unintended consequences” from the Libyan intervention.

Continue reading “Lies in the air of Libya’s spring — The return of ‘unintended consequences’”

• Arab protesters demand democracy — but not secularism.

Continue reading “Illiberal Islam”

Next to the right to bear arms, I do not think there is a clearer statement in the U.S. Constitution than the one that says only Congress can declare war. Reasonable people can argue about other, less clear passages, but these two neither need nor will abide “explanation and interpretation” from our Ivy League betters. (NB: I once thought the same about Freedom of Speech, until the elite folks who feel duty-bound to perfect the rest of us riff-raff came up with the debate-stopping tool of laws against “hate speech.”)

Continue reading “Libya and Bahrain: Neutering the Constitution, heading for disaster”

With the West focused on Libya, Egypt, and Yemen, it may be in tiny Bahrain where Washington pays the piper for 35 years of intervention in the Arab world. A prolonged Sunni-Shia shooting war in Bahrain would make other regional events pale in importance to the United States and the West. Bahrain could well be the place where the world as we know it ends.

Continue reading “The sum of all fears”

On FOX News this week, I described President Obama’s attitude toward Libya and the Muslim world generally as that of an “arrogant” and “racist” interventionist, a description I thought would surprise few. To my surprise, however, this commonplace analysis provoked a flood of angry and astounded, Claude-Rains-like “I’m shocked” comments from Obama supporters and those generally ignorant about the ongoing collapse of the always wrongheaded, tyrant-based, and pro-Israel U.S. strategic policy in the Muslim world and the interventionist causes of the unfolding disaster.

Continue reading “It is sad, but President Obama is an arrogant, racist interventionist”

Rep. King’s hearings

As I have noted here before, Rep. King’s hearings are an important opportunity for U.S. Muslim leaders to tell the Congress the truth. Though it would take moral courage and a willingness to be abused, U.S. Muslim leaders now have access to a highly publicized forum in which to explain to Congress and all Americans that the main instruments of “radicalization” in the Muslim-American community are the proselytizing activities conducted or sponsored by the Saudis, other wealthy Arab Peninsula donors, and the Muslim Brotherhood, and the impact of U.S. and Western foreign policies in the Islamic world, especially unqualified U.S. support for Israel.

Continue reading “On Rep. King’s hearings, al-Qaeda and Arab unrest, and sundry questions”

This article was written for the Washington Post. It is on their website now and will be in Sunday’s print edition. In writing the piece, I simply tried to point out the advantages that al-Qaeda and its allies will derive — or at least seek to exploit — from the ongoing unrest in the Arab world, and to use their documents and statements over the past 15 years to see how current events mesh or do not mesh with their goals.

Continue reading “More on ‘inevitable’ democracy in the Arab world”

The rush in the West to proclaim the advance of democracy in the Arab world has led to the propagation of an ill-conceived and dangerous corollary: that the revolts in the Middle East and North Africa also mark the irrelevance of al-Qaeda and other Islamist militant groups.

Continue reading “Why the Mideast revolts will help al-Qaeda”