President Barack H. Obama’s announcement of his new strategy on December 1, 2009, conclusively makes the war in Afghanistan “Obama’s war of choice.” The President spoke from one of the hallowed symbols of America’s military power–the United States Military Academy at West Point. Gone is the rhetoric of the wastefulness of Bush’s war of choice [...]

Professor Khaled Hroub’s review of Olivier Roy’s three books—The Failure of Political Islam; Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah; and The Politics of Chaos in the Middle East—published in your Journal, New Global Studies (Vol. 3, Issue 1, 2009, Article 6), is interesting but leaves the reader wanting more analysis.

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As the Obama administration ponders America’s warfighting strategy for Afghanistan, there are muted comparisons between the current U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and its involvement in South Vietnam in the 1960s. Given that the United States was defeated in South Vietnam, such comparison serves as an added burden for the mandarins of America’s national security strategy, [...]

“Where is my vote?”  That was the question on signs held by hundreds of irate Iranian voters.  The world media zoomed in on those signs.  They will be long remembered in the same way as the lone courageous protestor who blocked a rolling tank during the Tiananmen Square protest in June 2003.  After weeks of [...]

There is something about revolutionary change that keeps us from recognizing it while it is happening.  Only when it picks up its pace beyond control that we wake up from our slumber of ignorance and recognize that something really “big” is either happening or about to happen.  Such is the case in Iran today.
 

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President Barack H. Obama spoke to the Muslim world from Cairo on June 4, 2009.  Symbolically, that day will always be remembered every time someone raises the issue of the United States’ relations toward the world of Islam.  The following statement he made that day will go down in history as a memorable one:  The [...]

Reading about Indonesia from the United States in the post-9/11 era creates a picture of that country that has little to do with realities inside its borders.  One of the reasons is the obsession of the American media and even OpEd writing intellectuals with Jemah Islamiya (JI) at the expense of everything else.  As much [...]

As extremist forces are intensifying their endeavors to make Pakistan an obscurantist Muslim country, the example of Indonesia is both inspiring and heartening.  The country is well on its way to democracy, something that is quite rare in the world of Islam.  To be sure, Indonesia has problems of its own.  Extemist forces have shown [...]