About This War in Iraq
News
Holy War?
Are we fighting a politically
unspoken Holy war in Iraq? The headlines are filled with controversy and speculation. BBC News - Bush's God controversy stirs press fury
Boston Globe - Seized letter outlines Al Qaeda's long-term goals
al-Qaeda deputy wants a caliphate in Iraq Osama bin Laden's deputy Ayman Zawahiri, in a detail letter to Iraq's insurgency leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has called upon for creating a caliphate in Iraq and expanding Jihad to neighbouring countries to prevent "secularists and traitors govern us".
Full Transcript Here
Informed Comment -
Khalilzad is trying desperately and hectically now to negotiate some kind of last-minute compromise, while there are more and more US statements (C. Rice recently) taking their distances from the draft constitution. “Divide and rule” is an astute imperial recipe when it serves as a way to keep control over a territory. But when it messes up and leads to the most important part of this territory threatening to acquire autonomy, free itself from the tutelage of the Empire and ally with the latter’s bitterest regional enemy, the result has only one name: it is a disaster.
Opinion
In The New Republic, Joseph Braude speaks about Bush's most recent speech on Iraq, calling for a cultural intervention to support Arab liberals who share the administration's view of radical Islamists. Without it, Bush's logic is hollow and ineffective in the Arab world. Mr. Braude says:
Without this longterm commitment, Bush's speech was merely an ornament to the status quo in the Middle East--easily flipped by entrenched cultural forces that can peddle their take on current events without significant opposition. So easily, in fact, that the most anti-American of the Arab media can do no worse than broadcast such speeches themselves.IHT - Among jihadis, a rift over suicide attacks (NYT)
University of Wisconsin Student Newspaper - Skeptical of president's logic