The unspeakable tragedy in Norway is a wakeup call about the dangers of right wing political and religious extremism and Islamophobia which threaten the democratic fabric of American and European societies. They create a social cancer whose metastasis impacts not only the safety and security of Muslims but also, as the attacks in Norway demonstrate, all citizens.
Iran has outmaneuvered the United States in Iraq at every turn. It has done this through its tremendous foresight as to the direction Iraq was heading at different moments, as well as its keen understanding of its American adversary. These past successes have, in turn, given Iran the upper-hand vis-à-vis the United States as Washington and Tehran battle to define the future of Iraq.
One of the challenges facing anyone who wishes to write on the war in Afghanistan is to squeeze this fiendishly difficult topic into an appropriate framework. It is not easy to find an approach that avoids oversimplifying the issues, or bamboozling the reader into boredom, confusion, deep cynicism, or a combination of all three.
Bin Laden was a cutting-edge public figure of the 21st century, a world citizen of our age, a militant who happened to think, with some justification, that the USA has militarily become much too big for its boots. And that’s why, figuratively speaking, his assassination is an attempted assassination of our inner democratic spirit.
Effective political and legal institutions; economic stimulation; and a fully functioning and strong army and police force are goals that for the most part can only be realised once conflict has subsided; which in turn requires a political solution. However, the groundwork for this has to be prepared while the Coalition forces are still in Afghanistan.
The shooting of Osama Bin Laden, President Obama’s latest foreign policy speech, and the looming drawdown of American forces in Afghanistan all point towards a welcome possibility: the sun may soon set on the War on Terror. And as Obama is acutely aware, America’s tomorrow is still to be written.
The death of Osama bin Laden is far more important for the United States than it is for Islamic terrorism. While the shooting of Al Qaeda’s leader will certainly damage the morale of would-be jihadists around the world, the most significant impact will be at home.
The death at US hands of bin Laden eliminates al Qaeda’s most important and recognizable symbol of defiance. With diminished forces, a dead leader, and little relevance to the several struggles engaging Islam globally, al Qaeda has lost its war. We should declare “Mission Accomplished” and return home.
Western countries need to redefine their security agenda so as to return to basic core values which were seen in the 1990s. If we forsake such basic tenets, then we risk losing our sense of self; a fact which could have far worse ramifications than any specific terrorist threat or oil shortage.
In today’s world the prosperity, security, liberty and civil liberties of those at home cannot be separated from events beyond our borders. The era of a global recession and the global threat of terrorism prove that to any residual doubters. A belief that you have responsibility beyond your borders is not, as some would have it, ideological, but, a necessary response to the world in which we live.
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