Copyright 1980-2008 Daniel Pipes Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:34:46 -0500 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Columns by Daniel Pipes on Militant Islam, the Middle East, and U.S. foreign policy. http://www.danielpipes.org MeqMef@aol.com (Daniel Pipes) webmaster@danielpipes.org en-us Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/6017 Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:00:00 EST Ali ibn Abi-Talib, the seventh-century figure central to Shiite Islam, is said to have predicted when the world will end, columnist Amir Taheri points out. A "tall black man" commanding "the strongest army on earth" will take power "in the west." He will carry "a clear sign" from the third imam, Hussein. Ali says of the tall black man: "Shiites should have no doubt that he is with us." An Iranian in Tehran sports a badge of Barack Obama. (AP: Hasan Sarbakhshian) Barack Hussein in Arabic means " Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/6016 Tue, 11 Nov 2008 09:00:00 EST From Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestineby Jonathan SchanzerPalgrave Macmillan, 2008. 256pp. $26.95 Divisions among Palestinians generally do not receive their due attention, Jonathan Schanzer correctly points out, in the immense academic and journalistic coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Instead, an official, propagandistic, and inaccurate party line holds sway. To quote Rashid Khalidi, a former Palestine Liberation Organization employee now teaching at Columbia University,[i] a " Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5996 Wed, 29 Oct 2008 09:00:00 EST Barack Obama appears to have personally benefited from funds originating in Saddam Hussein's regime. It's a complicated connection, but one that deserves the consideration of Americans voters. Nadhmi Auchi (left) with Illinois' governor, Rod Blagojevich, in 2004. Two similar figures, Nadhmi Auchi and Antoin S. "Tony" Rezko, served as the intermediaries. Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5993 Tue, 28 Oct 2008 09:00:00 EST Yasir Arafat may have shaken Yitzhak Rabin's hand in 1993 and signed solemn declarations about ending the war to eliminate Israel, but late last month, in a New York City courtroom, the Palestine Liberation Organization formally confirmed that it still sees terrorism against Israelis as legitimate acts of war. The lawsuit, Sokolow v The Palestine Liberation Organization, brought by the intrepid David Strachman, alleges that the PLO carried out two machine- Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5983 Tue, 21 Oct 2008 09:00:00 EST Obama's Indonesian school registration listing him as Muslim. Click to enlarge With Colin Powell now repeating the lie that Barack Obama has "always been a Christian," despite new information further confirming Obama's Muslim childhood (such as the Indonesian school registration listing him as Muslim), one watches with dismay as the Democratic candidate manages to hide the truth on this issue. Instead, then, let us review a related subject – Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5967 Wed, 8 Oct 2008 09:00:00 EST The recent distribution of some 28 million copies in the United States of the 2005 documentary Obsession has stirred heated debate about its contents. One lightning rod for criticism concerns my on-screen statement that "10 to 15 percent of Muslims worldwide support militant Islam." "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West" (2005) The Muslim Public Affairs Council declared this estimate both "utterly unsubstantiated" and "completely without evidence." Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5912 Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:00:00 EST After Hitler, the policy of appeasing dictators – ridiculed by Winston Churchill as feeding a crocodile, hoping it will eat one last – appeared to be permanently discredited. Yet the policy has enjoyed some successes and remains a live temptation today in dealing with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Academics have long challenged the facile vilification of appeasement. Already in 1961, A.J.P. Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5893 Sun, 14 Sep 2008 09:00:00 EST [WT title: "Can Counterinsurgency Win?"] When it comes to a state fighting a nonstate enemy, there is a widespread impression the state is doomed to fail. In 1968, Robert F. Kennedy concluded that victory in Vietnam was "probably beyond our grasp," and called for a peaceful settlement. In 1983, the analyst Shahram Chubin wrote that the Soviets in Afghanistan were embroiled in an "unwinnable war." In 1992, U.S. officials shied away from involvement in Bosnia, fearing entanglement in a centuries- Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5845 Mon, 25 Aug 2008 09:00:00 EST How do Muslims see Barack Hussein Obama? They have three choices: either as he presents himself – someone who has "never been a Muslim" and has "always been a Christian"; or as a fellow Muslim; or as an apostate from Islam. Reports suggests that while Americans generally view the Democratic candidate having had no religion before converting at Reverend Jeremiah Wrights's hands at age 27, Muslims the world over rarely see him as Christian but usually as either Muslim or ex-Muslim. Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5834 Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:00:00 EST [Bulletin title: "Examples Of How The West's Islamist Infiltrators Proceed"] Aafia Siddiqui, 36, is a Pakistani mother of three, an alumna of MIT, and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Brandeis University. She is also accused of working for Al-Qaeda and was charged last week in New York City with attempting to kill American soldiers. Aafia Siddiqui is accused of working for Al-Qaeda. Her arrest serves to remind how invisibly most Islamist infiltration proceeds. In particular, an estimated forty Al- Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5801 Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:00:00 EST May I, an American citizen living in the United States, comment publicly on Israeli decision making? Yoram Schweitzer wants me not to judge decisions made by the Israeli government. I recently criticized the Israeli government for its exchange with Hizbullah in "Samir Kuntar and the Last Laugh" (The Jerusalem Post, July 21); to this, the eminent counterterrorism expert at Tel Aviv University, Yoram Schweitzer challenged the appropriateness of my offering views on this subject. In " Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5780 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:00:00 EST Israel has lived the past sixty years more intensively than any other country. Its highs – the resurrection of a two-thousand year old state in 1948, history's most lopsided military victory in 1967, and the astonishing Entebbe hostage rescue in 1976 – have been triumphs of will and spirit that inspire the civilized world. Its lows have been self-imposed humiliations: Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5761 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:00:00 EST As the United Nations mandate that legitimizes the presence of U.S forces in Iraq expires on December 31, 2008, a humanitarian and strategic disaster is coming into view. The fate of about 3,500 anti-regime Iranians will be decided in the course of status-of-forces negotiations between Washington and Baghdad. MEK members display their flag as they pass through a U.S. checkpoint in Iraq in 2003 (AFP). They are members of the Mujahedeen- Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5743 Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:00:00 EST As one of the few pro-U.S. and pro-Israel voices in the field of Middle East studies, I find my views get frequently mangled by others in the field – thus I have had to post a 5,000-word document titled "Department of Corrections (of Others' Factual Mistakes about Me)" on my website. Usually, the precise evolution of such mistakes escapes me. Recently, however, I discovered just how one developed in three steps and confronted the two academics who made the errors. Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5720 Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:00:00 EST [This version includes some materials cut from the published National Review version.] "Here are two brother countries, united like a single fist," said socialist Hugo Chαvez during a visit to Tehran last November, celebrating his alliance with Islamist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Che Guevara's son Camilo, who also visited Tehran last year, declared that his father would have "supported the country in its current struggle against the United States."