At a town hall meeting here last night on U.S. foreign policy, a former Pentagon spokesman and a Syrian scholar found much to criticize not only in the Bush administration’s war on terror, but also in the Islamic world and the underlying causes of terrorism there. Continue reading “Scholar criticizes Islamic world, war on terror”
Special to The Daily Star
To an outside observer, the Syrian regime must seem bent on pursuing a path of confrontation with the rest of the world. At the beginning of the American invasion of Iraq, and thanks to the bellicose posture the Syrian regime adopted during the early stages of the conflict, a similar showdown with the US was averted only at the last minute. This occurred because cooler heads in the Bush administration prevailed in their argument that a quarrel with Syria would, at that stage, distract Washington from its main task in Iraq. Continue reading “Will the Syrian regime take on the world?”
Special to The Daily Star
An interesting phenomenon has been taking place of late: coverage in the international media of the activities of Arab and Muslim terrorists has given way, for a short while at least, to a consideration of Arab liberal intellectuals and activists and their potential role in the longed-for reform process in the Arab world. Continue reading “Arab Liberals: the last hope for reform”
Special to The Daily Star
The term “illiberal democracy,” advanced by some as an acceptable model for future change in many parts of the Middle East, is, in truth, an oxymoron. Real functioning democracies can never be illiberal. Nor can they be at peace with the rest of the world, a fact that makes their appearance quite problematic for many of their neighbors and for the world at large. Continue reading “The oxymoron of “illiberal democracy””
