Never, Ever Forget

It is hard to believe that eight years have passed since the attacks of 9/11. Like many anniversaries, it is a good time to take stock of what happened, what is happening, and what will happen.

I am dismayed by the fact that 9/11 has quickly become ancient history for many people, especially the pundits, bloggers and the rest of the commentariat. Many are complaining about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The war in Iraq, whatever its outcome, is a boondogle and never should have been undertaken. There was no al-Qaeda or weapons of mass destruction; so whatever its supporters say, it was a strategic failure. There is no arguing this point.

On the other hand, the war in Afghanistan is a "just" war, which has been treated like a neglected step-child, especially by the Bush Administration and their misguided "War on Terrorism". Underfunded and undermanned, the war in Afghanistan has been floundering for awhile now. The Taliban, it seems, is getting stronger by the day. Osama bin Laden has yet to be found. And our chief ally in the region, Pakistan, has been wishy-washy at best.

The time has come to rethink this war and the war on terrorism.

We can quibble over how to go about it, but leaving Afghanistan is not an option. We need to fight smarter. After all, the price of peace is eternal vigilance.

Lone Pakistani Notices Darfur

Interesting letter published in Dawn that I would like to share:

THIS is apropos of the report saying that almost six years of fighting in the Darfur region of Sudan has killed 200,000.

This is very shocking, indeed. The Muslims have been killing Muslims in Darfur since 2003. It is strange that nobody in Pakistan talks about it. The religious parties don’t speak out against this death and destruction.

I would greatly appreciate if anyone could explain the reasons for this intriguing silence.

S. CHAUDHARY
Lahore

Nobody in Pakistan talks about it because both victims and perpetrators are one in the same: in this case, Muslims. Same goes for Pakistan, where Muslims wantonly kill other Muslims except that is much more noticeable to the average Pakistani because it hits so close to home.

What happens in Darfur is too far away for anyone in Pakistan to care-- out of sight, out of mind. In my mind, racism also plays a factor: African Muslims are considered inferior by other Muslims. Nevertheless, the plight of Palestinians is quite popular among Pakistanis because it hits all the right buttons: Jews, imperialism, Crusades, Americans, etc. Yet the body count is much higher in Darfur than in Palestine, but Israelis are treated as genocidal, and not the Sudanese government.

It's this double-standard that has trapped Muslim countries in their rhetoric about injustice by the Israelis.

Pakistan Begs For Cheap Oil

It has become tradition for any new leader of Pakistan, elected or unelected, to visit two countries as soon as possible: China and Saudi Arabia. And they often bring a begging bowl with them. Currently, both Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani and PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari are in Saudi Arabia to ask the Saudis for cheap oil and, while they are there, to perform umrah.

According to this article, they got it. Saudi will give them cheap oil, to a point. What they extracted from Pakistan in return is anybody’s guess – a good chance it was both Gilani's and Zardari's soul. After they return to Pakistan, Gilani and Zardari will make there way to China, who will lend Pakistan even more money. Since China already owns Pakistan, there is nothing Pakistan can give aside from being China lapdog.

Was Or Became A Suicide Bomber

Interesting item:

A Kuwaiti man released from U.S. custody at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in 2005 blew himself up in a suicide attack in Iraq last month, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

The question is: Did he become a suicide bomber as a result of his incarceration at Guantanamo Bay, or was he planning to be one all along? The answer we may never find out.

Pipe Dreams

I believe India is foolishly staking its energy needs on this potentially troublesome IPI pipeline, which it has agreed to in principle:

Pakistan and India have principally agreed to resolve fundamental issues of Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project and committed to start the construction work next year.

The most pressing concern for India, of course, is energy security since the pipeline will traverse the restive province of Balochistan, a hotbed of insurgency and unrest. Can Pakistan guarantee that the pipeline will not be harmed in anyway?

Regarding security Khawaja Asif said there is no security concern to the pipeline as we have made precatuionary measures to protect it. He said the gas pipeline will come from Iranian Balochistan along with coastal route and joint Nawab Shah in Sindh.

Then this happens:

Unknown saboteurs blew up two gas pipelines supplying gas to Och power plant and Punjab in two different incidents in Malguzar area of Jaffarabad and Doli area of Dera Bugti districts in the wee hours of Sunday, police sources told APP.

If Pakistan cannot keep its own pipelines secure how can it protect the IPI, which India is desperately relying on to slake its thirst for energy? Proponents will say the IPI pipeline will bind India and Pakistan, forcing to them to work closer and, hopefully, reduce tensions. Perhaps. But I believe Pakistan will also use it as a cudgel to force India's hand on issues like Kashmir.

Three Cheers For Saddam

John Cherian, the leftist foreign editor for Frontline magazine, gives us his assessment on five years of brutal American occupation of Iraq. In a nutshell, Cherian writes, Iraq was better off under Saddam Hussein. Cherian gives numerous examples, of course, including the usual set of indicators that make most leftists swoon for the likes of Saddam, Castro, and Mugabe: advancement of women, outstanding health and education systems, standing up to the United States, etc.

Mussolini made the trains run on time but he was still a fascist. Saddam was from the same mold but even crueler. Cherian does not mention this because it would mar an otherwise perfect narrative. In addition, there is no mention on how Saddam dealt with dissent from dissidents, Kurds or Shias - that he simply annihilated them. Saddam was not one for democratic niceties. And, finally, no mention of the fact that the famed Oil For Food program, which was riddled with corruption, did very little to ameliorate the suffering among Iraqis, but did line the pockets of Saddam, his family and his sycophants.

If the United States was brutal as Saddam was, and as colonialist have been in the past, Iraq, perhaps, would be peaceful and prosperous as in Saddam’s time. This is what leftists like Cherian want, right? But I doubt they would be so charitable.

Death Of A Terrorist

The death of George Habash, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the second largest faction in the PLO behind Fatah, should be celebrated; that this Marxist terrorist, murderer of children, women, and other innocents alike, did not live to see his bloody dream come even remotely close to coming true—the destruction of Israel. May he eternally burn in hell.

Nevertheless, like many bloodthirsty thugs, Habash has his admirers, mostly in the kooky extreme left. This letter in Dawn is typical of the fawning treatment Habash slavishly receives from his many fans, who are more than willing to overlook Habash’s penchant for violence. A choice quote:

I believe that future events in Palestine will vindicate Habash’s turn after 1967 to armed struggle and confirm him as one of the great revolutionaries of the 20th century in the lineage of Fidel Castro, Ahmed Ben Bella, Ho Chi Minh and Mao Zedong.

I’m sorry but George Habash’s star does not shine as bright as those of Castro, Bella, Minh, or Zedong (a veritable rogue’s gallery of thugs, murderers and despots), who created nations and ruthlessly ruled them. In fact, George Habash is not even in the same galaxy. For one thing, Habash completely failed in accomplishing any of his objectives: Israel still stands and there is no Palestinian state. Too late now, I suppose

Saddam Hussein: One Year Later

It’s been a whole year since Saddam Hussein was hanged yet there’s been only a handful of news items, much of it trivia, few celebratory. Iraqis, too, have moved on for the most part except for the handful of die-hard supporters in Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit, where his mausoleum is located, and whom few visit.

Saddam has failed to become the martyr his supporters claimed he would become. Yes, Saddam Hussein remains an icon, of sorts. Not someone who is revered, of course, but someone who is despised, and whose ultimate passing to be celebrated. Iraqis don’t seem to care, they have moved on to better and bigger things. Their future may or may not be bleak, at least it won’t include Saddam Hussein.

[via american footprints]

What's More Dangerous: Iran Or A Dirty Bomb

What’s more scarier: a nuclear-armed Iran, or this?

An underreported attack on a South African nuclear facility last month demonstrates the high risk of theft of nuclear materials by terrorists or criminals. Such a crime could have grave national security implications for the United States or any of the dozens of countries where nuclear materials are held in various states of security.

Shortly after midnight on Nov. 8, four armed men broke into the Pelindaba nuclear facility 18 miles west of Pretoria, a site where hundreds of kilograms of weapons-grade uranium are stored. According to the South African Nuclear Energy Corp., the state-owned entity that runs the Pelindaba facility, these four "technically sophisticated criminals" deactivated several layers of security, including a 10,000-volt electrical fence, suggesting insider knowledge of the system. Though their images were captured on closed-circuit television, they were not detected by security officers because nobody was monitoring the cameras at the time.

I think the world community should focus its attention and energies on these kinds of incidents rather than attack Iran. I’m not defending Iran or its odious regime, of course, but the right of a sovereign nation to defend itself by any means necessary, including nuclear weapons. I have a hard time accepting the argument proffered by the United States and its allies that Iran has no right to possess nuclear weapons while the P-5 (China, France, Great Britain, Russia, and the United States) are allowed by virtue of the fact they had it before everyone else.

The world should be more concerned about low-yield nuclear weapons like “dirty bombs”. As the attempted theft has proven, a “dirty bomb’ going off is a more viable possibility than, say, Iran blowing Israel off the map. Iran will never do such a thing because they realize Israel—and the United States—would retaliate ten-fold, it’s mutually assured destruction for the new millennium.

I believe Iran getting nuclear weapons is a fait accompli. Pakistan not only has nuclear weapons, but sold the technology to whoever wanted it, including, ironically, Iran! In my opinion, Pakistan is more dangerous than Iran, yet there are no plans to defang Pakistan of its nuclear weapons (and the subsequent punishment were laughable); in fact, the United States is giving Pakistan billions in aid. Iran knows it’s just a waiting game.

Knowing this, isn’t it better to enlist the Iranians in securing existing supplies and hunt down and arrest would-be thieves? After all, Iran could just as easily be a target of a “dirty bomb” as the United States.

[via connecting the dots]

Why Sudan Sucks

The whole teddy bear fiasco, for me, puts into focus why Sudan should be a charter member of the ‘Axis of Evil’. This country, and the Islamic regime that rules it, is a blot on humanity, decency, and just plain common sense.

Its crimes are numerous: slavery, war against Christians in the South, the pillaging and rape of Darfur and the resulting refugee crisis, and, finally—the cherry on top, so to speak—the arrest and jailing of a poor British schoolteacher, whose only crime is letting her elementary school-aged children to call a class teddy bear ‘Muhammad.’

These charges of blasphemy are used in the most capricious ways. In Pakistan, for example, blasphemy laws are often applied to settle scores, or appropriate property from non-Muslims. In the case of Sudan, it’s used to make an example out of a non-Muslim (and a Westerner), as a warning that Islamic law applies to them too—that all non-Muslims are, in essence, dhimmis.

Some Palestinians Seeking Israeli Citizenship

It seems Palestinians living in Jerusalem are applying for Israeli citizenship in droves. These two articles explain why. Some excerpts:

"I don't want to have any part in the PA. I want the health insurance, the schools, all the things we get by living here," says Ranya Mohammed as she does her afternoon shopping in Shuafat.

"I'll go and live in Israel before I'll stay here and live under the PA, even if it means taking an Israeli passport," says Mrs. Mohammed, whose husband earns a good living from doing business here. "I have seen their suffering in the PA. We have a lot of privileges I'm not ready to give up."

Nabil Gheet, a neighborhood leader who runs a gift and kitchenware outfit in the adjacent town of Ras Khamis, also resists coming under the PA's control.

"We have no faith in the Palestinian Authority. It has no credibility," he says, as his afternoon customers trickle in and out. "I do not want to be ruled by Abbas's gang," he says, referring to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

And

"They've weighed the pros and cons of life under the Palestinian Authority and those under Israel and they've chosen," said residents in East Jerusalem of their naturalization-seeking neighbors.

33-year-old Samar Qassam said his motivation to apply for Israeli citizenship was to seek a better future for his family. Along with his wife and son, Qassam once lived in the Old City but recently moved to Beit Safafa, an Arab village south of Jerusalem.

"I was born in Jerusalem, this is where I grew up and this is where I make my living. My entire life is here. My wife comes from the West Bank, so I do fear she may be deported and therefore filed a naturalization request for her as well. I want to keep living here with my wife and child without having to worry about our future. That's why I want an Israeli citizenship," Qassam said.

"I don't know what the future holds. There's talk of the Palestinian Authority coming to Jerusalem. Personally, I don't think that will happen. But only God knows what will happen. I work as a mechanic for an Israeli company, I have both Jewish and Arab friends. I speak Hebrew and go out to Tel Aviv and Akko in the evenings. I just want a better future," he said.

Good governance and quality of life trumps nationalism. These Palestinians have tasted success and prosperity living under Israeli rule, they’ve seen how their brethren live in the West Bank and Gaza and have come to the following conclusion—they don’t want any part of it.

Satire: America's Mideast Diplomatic Offensive

Winning the hearts and minds of the Arab world as told by The Daily Show



This is why The Daily Show is a must see, better than any cable or network news broadcast.

Book Review: While Europe Slept

Europe as we know it is slowly disappearing as radical Islam steadily spreads across the land, helped by multicultural do-gooders and socialist statists? This seems to be the premise of Bruce Bawer’s While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within, a polemic about the growing menace of radical Islam and how it is slowly destroying Europe and it’s liberal, freedom-loving ideals.

The way Bawer tells it, it is an apocalypse in the making. That unless radical Islam is stopped in its tracks, Europe will become Islamized and Europe, as we know, will cease to exist. Reality or just plain hysterics? I think it’s a little of both.

Bawer is not some conservative nut job, but a noted writer and critic who lives in Norway and sees first-hand what effect radical Islam is having. Radical Islamists demand Sharia be imposed, that gays be murdered (Bawer is gay, so imagine his reaction), and that democracy be dismantled. All for recreating some mythical caliphate that existed in the seventh century.

It’s not clear whom to blame: Muslims, who fail to assimilate; or Europeans, who coddle them. Bawer tends to blame the latter. Made up mostly of politicians, journalists and other elites, they are Europe’s ruling class; and they have a blind spot to the coming danger.

These elites—mostly socialists, multiculturalists, and other assorted leftists—tend to treat Muslim as some exotic ethnic group to be protected, not as an ideology. With lax immigration policies, Muslims arrive in Europe by the planeloads, where they are not integrated or assimilated in anyway, but are separated, forced to live in ghettos, encouraged to keep their culture, keep to themselves, and are discouraged from learning the language, culture, values of their adopted land. It is the kind of patronizing racism that is practiced throughout Europe.

This explains radical Islam appeal among Muslim immigrants and their offspring. Alienated by the country they live in, they are susceptible to entreaties by radical Islamists, who control many of the mosques (and funded by the government), and fed a steady diet of anti-Western rhetoric, and conditioned to hate the country they live in. It explains why crimes by Muslim youths are on the rise throughout Europe, something Bawer continually harps on. Remember the Paris riots of 2006? It was by Muslim youths. Of course, the European press tends to whitewash these stories, blaming capitalism, globalization, or some other bogeyman of the week.

But is Europe going to hell, or is it so far along that there is no going back? Bruce Bawer doesn’t say much on the subject except that Europe must get its act together less it becomes some Islamic backwater, bereft of liberty, happiness, and democracy.

Personally, I think Europe is made of sturdier stuff and will survive with its ideals intact. Opposition to radical Islam has been slow, but growing steadier by year. A new crop of politicians, which Bawer mentions, are on the rise who plan to do something about the problems at hand; helped by Muslims, who are equally repulsed by the repugnancy of some of their fellow co-religionist’s stridently anti-Western views, who want to share in Europe’s prosperity, and its idels, while practicing their faith. Bawer gives these Muslims little shrift, in my opinion.

Essentially, the central theme of this book is about multiculturalism gone arye. Bawer often compares Europe to the United States, and how the latter has done a great job of assimilating its Muslims, while the former utterly failed in assimilating theirs.

Che And Castro: Islamic?

Some crazy Iranian establishment types think Che Guevara and Fidel Castro are not, in fact, hardcore atheists, but God-fearing Islamic revolutionaries like them.

…Hajj Saeed Qassemi, the co-ordinator of the Association of Volunteers for Suicide-Martyrdom (who presumably remains selflessly alive for the cause), revealed that Che was a “truly religious man who believed in God and hated communism and the Soviet Union”.

…Qassemi went on to claim that Fidel Castro, the “supreme guide” of Guevara, was also a man of God. “The Soviet Union is gone,” he affirmed.

I’m sure Fidel Castro would be very surprised to hear this. Castro, like most communists, abhors organized religion, and has done almost everything in his power to destroy the Catholic Church as a viable institution. And Che Guevera’s daughter was surprised by the statement as well.

Che’s daughter Aleida wondered if something might have been lost in translation. “My father never mentioned God,” she said, to the consternation of the audience. “He never met God.”

We all know there is common cause between the hard-left and Islamic radicals for one reason: they pathologically hate the United States. Aside from believing in a strong central government and welfare state, they have nothing in common. How can they? Atheists and religious radicals do not mix.

What we are seeing, though, and what we long suspected, is that Islamic radicals are slowly taking over the hard-left. This is a tactic used by communists during the Cold War, who infiltrated socialist parties and take them over from within. And what better way to start the process than to appropriate Marxist icons

The Rise Of Dubai

60 Minutes has an interesting two-part segment (here and here) on the bustling, booming city of Dubai, the Singapore/Hong Kong/London/New York of the Middle East, including an interview with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, Dubai’s visionary ruler.

Dubai is definitely a city on the move. Anywhere you go, small as the emirate kingdom is, the desert gives way to construction site after construction site, including one that will house the world’s tallest building. Artificial islands shaped like palm trees have been built. A new international airport is on the way, which will be the hub for Emirates, arguably the most wildly successful airline in the world.

Dubai is probably the most Westernized of Middle Eastern cities, with thousands of Western expatriates working and living there, joining locals in taking advantage of the city’s many beaches and thriving nightlife. Dubai is definitely not Saudi Arabia! Because of this, thousands of migrants (25,000 a month) flock to Dubai because there’s money to be had and fortunes waiting to be claimed.

But it’s also a city built on inexpensive labor. Without the contribution of thousands of hard working, often poorly paid migrants, mostly from South Asia, Dubai would be nothing more than a sleepy backwater. While anti-capitalists might crow about this, the reality is that many of these migrants are far better off working in Dubai than being mired in poverty in their home countries.

Dubai is modern and sophisticated in every sense except in politics. Dubai is still an autocracy ruled with an iron fist by a mostly benign ruler, who also has a stake in every project under the sun. Still some of the Sheik’s critics were reticent in their comments about him. Nobody seems to care, though, because things are so good.

Britain Knights Salman Rushdie To Spite Iran

JK has an interesting take on the timing of Salman Rushdie’s knighthood:

When members of the Royal Navy were captured by the Iranians in March, the Iranians made sure that the British were decently humiliated. The sailors had to apologize for straying into Iranian waters and later thank president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for magnanimously releasing them. The entire nation could do nothing, but watch this public humiliation in silence. Now displaying something called spine, the British have knighted Salman Rushdie providing employment opportunities for suicide bombers. The Iranians are upset and made the usual remarks.

Exactly! Why didn't the British government knight Mr. Rushdie five years ago when no one would have paid any mind? And why now, today? As JK explains: Britain wants its revenge for the humiliating treatment meted out to its sailors, and, in my opinion, they got it. Now the Iranians are up in arms; looking like fools in the process.

Six Days That Shook The World

Not really in a good mood to write something heavy today, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention something about the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War, which pitted tiny Israel against the combined might of Egypt, Jordan and Syria. TIME magazine has a nice article summing the history of the war, and how its legacy is still being felt today.

The war was a triumph for Israel. Within hours of its start, the Egyptian air force had been destroyed in pre-emptive air strikes. Israeli troops sliced through Egyptian defenses in the Sinai Peninsula, moved against the Syrians in the Golan Heights and outflanked King Hussein's Bedouin army in the West Bank. In 132 hours, it was all over. Israel had more than tripled its territory, its forces moving into ancient Jerusalem, fulfilling the age-old quest of the Jews to return to their holy city. The war changed mental maps in the Middle East as much as it did the political landscape, altering hopes and fears. In 1967, Israel as a nation was not quite 20 years old, born in the shadow of the Holocaust and a war in which Arab armies attempted to throttle the new state at birth. So for Israelis, 1967 was a time of euphoria, only to be followed by years of letdown as victory's hoped-for fruits--peace and coexistence with their neighbors--seemed ever less likely. Hardened by terrorism, many Israelis now want to wall off the Palestinians behind a mass of concrete and razor wire.

Powerline also has a post about how some critics claim the war was a Pyrhicc, not a total, victory for Israel because it inherited the Palestinians, who are a constant thorn in Israel’s side. Perhaps, but it is a problem Israel can easily live with because the alternative—the destruction of the Jewish state—would have been much worse.

British Sailors and Marines Finally Speak

Fifteen British sailors and marines released from Iranian captivity, and safely on British soil, have said what we all thought they would say—that Iran, not Britain, acted illegally: by intentionally violating Iraqi territorial waters for the express purpose of kidnapping 15 British sailors and marines and using them in a grotesque propaganda excercise.

The sailors and marines admitted they were coerced into making false confessions, or risk receiving harsh punishments:

British sailors and marines held for nearly two weeks in Iran were blindfolded, bound and threatened with prison if they did not say they had strayed into Iranian waters, a Royal Navy lieutenant who was among the capitives said Friday.

Lt. Felix Carman, safely home with his 14 colleagues, said the crew faced harsh interrogation by their Iranian captors and slept in stone cells on piles of blankets. Unable to see and kept isolated, they heard weapons cocking.

"We were blindfolded, our hands were bound and we were forced up against a wall. Throughout our ordeal we faced constant psychological pressure," Carman said. "All of us were kept in isolation. We were interrogated most nights and presented with two options. If we admitted that we'd strayed, we'd be on a plane to (Britain) pretty soon. If we didn't, we faced up to seven years in prison."

Doesn't sound like they were treated humanely as some pro-Iranian critics contend, but it does sound like the Iran most people—including countless pro-democracy activists and other dissidents rotting in Iranian gulags—know all too well.

As for what really happened off the coast of Iraq, the British sailors and marines saw it much differently then what they were forced to confess on Iranian television. Lt. Carman, says:

"Let me make this clear — irrespective of what was said in the past — when we were detained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard we were inside internationally recognized Iraqi territorial waters," he said. "At no time did we actually say were sorry for straying into Iranian waters."

A non-apology apology? This will drive the wingnuts crazy, of course. They treat every military confrontation like some Greek tragedy: better the sailors and marines fought the Iranians to the death, no matter how dim the prospects of success, than be humiliated in front of television cameras. But the sailors and marines are safe, and at what cost? Some pride? And releasing an Iranian diplomat who is no longer useful? Let’s move on.

Why Defend Iran?

There is no better example of Iranian ass-kissing than this editorial from The Hindu, regarding the release of 15 British sailors. It admonishes the British (and Americans) for the arrogant imperialists they are, while, at the same time, praising Iran for being magnanimous in handling the matter. No surprise given the newspaper’s often pro-Iranian stance, but the last sentence really does take the cake:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has acted wisely in pardoning the sailors for their intrusion and promising their release. He has also said Iran will be steadfast in defending its sovereignty. Mr. Blair would do well to heed this message.

In turn, Iraq will be steadfast in defending its sovereignty against the many “illegal” incursions made by Iran. It’s well within its rights to do so, is it not? I’m sure The Hindu has heard about Iran meddling in Iraq's affairs but chooses to ignore it: no need for facts to mar a good polemic.

Nevertheless, it helps to list one or two items. First, five Iranian intelligence officers—all alleged members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards—are currently being held by the U.S. Army for stoking sectarian violence. And second, there is no mention of Iran sponsoring Muqtada al-Sadr, a thug, and the supplying of his openly violent militia, the ill-named Mahdi Army. Given this blatant interference by Iran, both Britain and the United States have no choice but to respond.

The problem with The Hindu is that it considers Iran a saint, when, in fact, it's a sinner.

Iran To Release Kidnapped British Sailors

The imminent release of 15 British sailors and marines by Iran is great news by anyone’s standards, and nothing more can be said about it except for the fact that the whole experience, from beginning to end, was, well, a bit bizarre.

Outside of the British media, the coverage seems muted, if not ignored altogether. The Bush Administration said little, and Congress, it seems, did not think it merited a debate at all.

The question to ask, of course: whether or not there was a quid pro quo? There has been mention of an Iranian diplomat finally being allowed to go home; and then there’s finally some movement on the five Iranians being held by the U.S. military in Iraq.

Honestly, who knows how these things work. At some level, there is no clear delineation between friend and foe; and relations are determined by specific circumstances, not ideology, which shift like the sands of the Middle East.

UPDATE: The Counterterrorism Blog has grouped some of their posts about the subject here. Well worth the read.