Yahya Sinwar hero of freedom struggle
November 12, 2024
No Comments
The Palestinian state will be earned through Palestinian struggle.
Security worries Israel’s only incentive for peace
October 19, 2024
No Comments
President Biden said Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s death had removed “an insurmountable obstacle” to the settlement of the Gaza war. And his secretary of state, Antony Blinken, promised that the administration would “redouble [its] efforts with partners to end this conflict.” Sinwar’s death and Israel’s yearlong assault on Hamas leadership
Will Turkey get booted out of NATO?
December 14, 2022
No Comments
America’s festering run-ins with Turkey over Kurdish militants in northern Syria appear to be coming to a boiling point. Ankara has given two weeks to the militants they brand “terrorists” to clear three northern Syrian towns on the Turkish border. If they don’t, the Turks probably will launch a ground
Gandhi: Greatest martyr for Muslims in India
August 16, 2022
No Comments
WHEN INDIAN PRIME Minister Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day speech, was extolling Vinayak Damodar Savarkar as one of India’s national heroes, Mahatma Gandhi’s soul must have responded, “I forgive you, Vinayak!” In 1965 an inquiry commission was set up under the former Indian Supreme Court Justice Jiwan Lal Kapoor
Why can’t Iran get the feel for nukes?
October 3, 2021
1 Comment
THE TALKS TO revive the Iran nuclear deal will resume “soon …within an acceptable period of time,” Joseph Borrell has announced. The deal was about curbing Iran’s nuclear program in return for lifting U.S. and U.N. sanctions on that country. Borrell, the European Union foreign policy chief, had been coordinating
Taliban spur anti-hegemonic struggles
August 26, 2021
No Comments
AS AMERICA FLEES Afghanistan under the Taliban gun, I am wondering how far west Asian Muslim societies are from ridding themselves of Western hegemony. At an intellectual level, the global Muslim struggle against Western hegemony began in Afghanistan in the 1860s with Jamaluddin al-Afghani prodding King Dost Muhammad to oppose
Arab Spring 2 gearing up
July 20, 2021
No Comments
I WAS BUSY for two days getting ready to celebrate Eid al-Adha at my ancestral home in the Bangladeshi village of Mujahid Khani. And look what I missed. “President Bashar al-Assad took the oath of office for a fourth term in war-ravaged Syria on Saturday, after officially winning 95.1% of the
Ehtiopia’s nationalist journey
July 12, 2021
No Comments
Ethiopia’s liberal Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has been assured a second term in office as his ruling Prosperity Party has won the federal parliamentary election by a landslide, capturing 410 of 436 seats. Elections to about a fifth of the seats have been delayed because of Covid-19, logistical problems and,
Pakistan could be in U.S. doghouse
June 27, 2021
No Comments
PAKISTAN’S REFUSAL TO allow a CIA base in its territory has pissed off the Biden administration. The Americans also resent Pakistan’s close ties to China, their global adversary. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that, given Pakistani Muslims’ bitterness toward the United States, allowing Americans a base for hostile
Liberal democracy derails
June 24, 2021
No Comments
LIBERAL DEMOCRACY ISN’T serving Americans very well, not, at any rate, in their well-being. Nicholas Kristoff is making the point poignantly. America’s “greatest threat,” writes the Pulitzer-winning New York Times columnist, isn’t Communist China or authoritarian Russia “but our underperformance at home.” Kristoff cites data from several surveys to support
Joe Biden’s valued ‘autocrat’
June 18, 2021
No Comments
SEVERAL NEWS OUTLETS have lauded President Biden’s meeting on Monday with Recep Tayyip Erdogan as “upbeat.” Have you been following Biden’s comments about Turkey and its president? In April he riled up the entire Turkish nation by labeling the 1915 Armenian tragedy Turkish “genocide.” Earlier he called the Turkish president
Bennett to stick with apartheid?
June 13, 2021
No Comments
THE SWEARING-IN of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, the leader of Israel’s pseudo-fascist Yamina party, and his Cabinet inaugurates an era for Israel without Benjamin Netanyahu in power. Many Israelis think that this chimera of an ultra-rightist-centrist-liberal-Arab government is going to crumble soon over policy differences. If it doesn’t, what kind
Can Palestinians bypass Biden’s blind spot?
May 18, 2021
1 Comment
PRESIDENT BIDEN’S UNSWERVING defense of Israel’s relentless bombing of the Gaza Strip reminds me of my last meeting with a friend and colleague at the Hartford Courant newspaper in Hartford, Connecticut. On a spring day in 1985 my op-ed on the killing of several Palestinians by Israeli troops had appeared
Must skin tone replace values?
March 24, 2021
No Comments
I AM AN Asian American and a life-long Democrat, who has been rudely hurt by the recent racist attacks on Americans of Asian descent. I am disappointed, however, by Asian American Senators Tammy Duckworth’s and Mazie Hirono’s cynical use of the tragic incidents to advance their own careers. They have
Biden’s war on racism nets UK war hero
January 22, 2021
No Comments
ONE OF THE TOP items on President Biden’s agenda is fighting racism. So upon entering the White House on Wednesday he removed – again – the bust of the racist British Prime Minister Winston Churchill from the Oval Office. President Barack Obama had put away the bust from the room
A crusader for the oppressed
December 4, 2020
No Comments
By Mustafa Malik THE 14TH ANNIVERSARY OF Mahmud Ali’s passing fills my mind with memories of the man I had come to know as a human incarnation of Pakistan. Among those memories was his forecast that Bangladesh would establish good relations with Pakistan “sooner than you think.” The last time
Biden’s pursuit of LBJ legacy
November 8, 2020
No Comments
“Our long national nightmare is over!” So declared Gerald R. Ford on August 9, 1974, from the East Room of the White House. He was making his maiden speech to the nation as the 38th president of the United States. By ending the “national nightmare” the new president meant that
Can Biden get a Muslim lad mad?
September 26, 2020
No Comments
SEVERAL AMERICAN MUSLIM friends, spooked by President Trump’s “Muslim ban,” shift of America’s Israeli embassy to Jerusalem and other anti-Muslim acts, are getting excited about Joe Biden’s steady lead over him in the polls. I am trying to douse their enthusiasm for the Democratic presidential nominee for several reasons, especially
India’s lesson for Lebanon
September 7, 2020
No Comments
India and Pakistan could have been spared catastrophes by power-sharing systems they rejected. The Lebanese should hold on to the one they have. I NORMALLY CAN’T stand Boris Johnson because of his demagoguery and conservative political creed. But last week Emmanuel Macron made me appreciate the British prime minister, for
China plots to encircle India
July 31, 2020
No Comments
“Yay!” I exclaimed within myself. China was going to upgrade the Sylhet airport, said a blurb on the Internet. Sylhet is my hometown in northeastern Bangladesh. Sylhet’s Osmani airport is rather small and every time I fly in to the city, I have to hustle through a crowded arrival lounge
John Lewis: Icon of a bygone era
July 21, 2020
No Comments
John Lewis, who died last week, will shine in American history as a great hero who fought valiantly for the rights of African-Americans in the 1960s with a vision of the 1960s. When he was 16, Lewis went to a library to get a membership card. He was denied the
Can Israel digest 30% of West Bank?
July 12, 2020
No Comments
WASN’T BENJAMIN NETANYAHU going to extend “Israeli sovereignty” to 30 percent of the West Bank, beginning July 1? Well, July 1 came and slipped quietly away, but the Israeli prime minister didn’t annex an inch of the Palestinian territory. What has happened to his plan? Rabbi Sharon Brous tells us
Are they killing Gandhi’s soul now?
December 29, 2019
No Comments
SYLHET, Bangladesh: India is in turmoil from an historic clash between two “nations.” Most Indians and most of the rest of the world are waiting to see which of the two triumphs in the “world’s largest democracy.” The latest clash between the two types of nations has centered on a
Mahmud Ali: Generals wrecked Pakistan
September 3, 2019
No Comments
MAHMUD ALI’S BIRTH centenary on September 1 reminded me of a comment Jawaharlal Nehru made during his meeting with George Bernard Shaw in London. Independent India’s first prime minister, a driven Fabian socialist, had been invited to attend the June 2, 1953, coronation of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey.
India’s empty threat to Pakistan
August 21, 2019
No Comments
Pakistan was protesting, vociferously, India’s decision to wipe out the “special status” of the part of the Jammu and Kashmir state under its occupation. Rajnath Singh, the Indian defense minister, told Islamabad to hush up. He said New Delhi may be changing its “no-first-use” policy on firing nukes. India adopted
Bangladesh, Pakistan trade luck
July 10, 2019
No Comments
I FEEL GOOD about living to see this day. Bangladesh, whose creation I once opposed, is belying my forebodings about its future. It has surpassed Pakistan and, in some cases, the economic behemoth of India in economic development and well-being. Bangladeshi economic performance glows brighter when you compare that with the near-meltdown
Is Democratic Party festering in a rut?
June 28, 2019
No Comments
AS I WAITED yesterday for the second Democratic presidential debate, I tossed out a question to Facebook. Could Joe Biden “get up before the referee counts to 10”? Some friends liked it, but none offered a response. I had thought that the former vice president, so far the clear front-runner
War on terror winding down
May 6, 2019
No Comments
ON EASTER SUNDAY a bunch of Islamic State terrorists bombed several Sri Lankan churches and hotels, leaving more than 250 dead and nearly 500 wounded. The terrorist group said the carnage was meant to avenge the March 15 shootings at two New Zealand mosques by an Islamophobic Christian, Brenton Tarrant.
Modi, Bibi, Trump & liberal order
April 12, 2019
1 Comment
Need a new world order that protects autonomous religious and ethnic communities.
What about Israel-first Americans?
March 11, 2019
No Comments
What about the American citizens who skip military service in America but join the Israeli army to fight Israel’s wars?
Saudi betrayal of Palestinians
November 11, 2017
No Comments
AS I NOTE the Saudi, Israeli and American governments coming together on the same platform to confront Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah, I wonder how my father would’ve reacted to the event. Mohammad bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, has been prodding Israel to go to war with
Kurdish fiasco ‘America first’ cause
October 10, 2017
No Comments
WHEN PATRICK HENRY vowed to “live free or die,” he couldn’t have known about today’s Kurdish dilemma in Iraq. Two weeks ago 92 percent of Kurdish voters in northern Iraq voted in a referendum to create an independent state, consisting of the three Iraqi provinces where they’re in a majority.
No ‘cakewalk’ to Pyongyang, please
September 17, 2017
No Comments
ON WEDNESDAY I was about to head out to a seminar on cyber security at Wilson Center in Washington when I peeked into the Internet to check the latest news. “U.S. quietly plans to occupy North Korea after war,” a banner headline in London’s The Sun newspaper screamed at me.
Turks, EU: Never the twain meet?
May 17, 2017
No Comments
IS TURKEY FINALLY waking up from its dream of joining the European Union? During the past six weeks EU politicians excoriated President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on his victory in a Turkish constitutional referendum, which transforms the country’s parliamentary system into a presidential one, concentrating wide powers in the presidency. The constitutional changes
Bravo, Trump!
April 7, 2017
No Comments
This is a first for me: supporting an action of President Trump. I applaud his order tonight to strike Syrian military installations with dozens of Tomahawks. It’s a highly moral and humane undertaking whose strategic consequences are likely to be far-reaching. I hope that America will finally get rid of
Kushner: The son-in-law also rises
January 18, 2017
No Comments
DONALD TRUMP HAS told The Times of London that Jared Kushner will be trying to negotiate a peace deal between Israel and Palestinians. “Jared is such a good lad,” explained the new president, “he will secure an Israel deal which no one else has managed to get. You know, he’s
Trump is right, no blank check
October 21, 2016
No Comments
COULD DONAL TRUMP, of all people, help mend American democracy? I bet you’ve read the story about the third presidential debate in some major newspaper yesterday. Chris Wallace, the moderator, asks the Republican presidential nominee if he would commit himself to accepting the results of the November 8th vote, whatever
Did CIA try to bump off Erdogan?
August 12, 2016
No Comments
RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN has upped the ante in his row with the Obama administration, which has heated up since last month’s failed coup in Turkey. The Turkish president now has jumped onto the lap of America’s geopolitical rival, Vladimir Putin. Erdogan’s meeting Tuesday with his Russian counterpart in a czarist palace
Erdogan’s hello to Egyptians
July 16, 2016
No Comments
THAT WAS A second in Turkish history. Democratic forces, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, overwhelmed Turkish military units that had attempted to overthrow the country’s democratically elected government. It was a spectacular triumph for Erdogan, and more to the point, the democratic fervor and aspirations of the Turkish masses.
Terrorism feeding on U.S. amnesia
June 21, 2016
No Comments
WHILE AMERICA MOURNS the slaughter of 49 innocent people in Orlando, Florida, by an ISIS-inspired Muslim man, the CIA director warns that more of this kind of tragedy may be in store for the West. The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams and other terrorist groups are throwing evermore killers
Iran deal: Break it and you own it
May 23, 2016
No Comments
America can start a conflict with Iran and throw a “Mission Accomplished” party after a likely initial victory. But only Iran could end the war. With its network of activists and militias across the “Shiite Crescent,” the Islamic Republic could set the Middle East on fire, which probably wouldn’t stop before consuming many of America’s interests and endangering its hegemony in Muslim west Asia.
Hijab and Muslim women
January 7, 2016
No Comments
Muslim women’s headgear, or hijab, is “a symbol of a dangerous purity culture” among people “obsessed with honor and virginity.” I realize that Asra Nomani, who made this comment, has acquired an Islamophobic prejudice about hijab. Many Westerners, especially Islam-baiters, say that the hijab is imposed by bigoted Muslim men on
Gaping cracks in liberalism
January 3, 2016
No Comments
“Bernie Sanders won’t beat Hillary” Clinton. And “Jeremy Corbyn probably won’t be Britain’s next prime minister.” All the same, “liberalism is living dangerously,” and you would be wise to “hedge [your] bet” against its demise. After all, “all orders pass away.” I was floored by these year-end thoughts of Ross
‘Radical Islam,’ Islam, liberalism
December 22, 2015
No Comments
The U.S. Army chief of staff, Gen. Mark Milley, appears to be out of sync with his commander-in-chief on the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The general says ISIS is a product of “radical Islam or militant Islam,” which endangers Western societies based on liberalism.
ISIS war beckons kurdish state
December 11, 2015
No Comments
ON SUNDAY NIGHT President Obama called on Turkey, again, “to seal its border with Syria.” He was giving a status report on America’s war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Last week Defense Secretary Ashton Carter demanded, somewhat impatiently: “Turkey must do more to control its often
How Islamic ‘Islamic terrorists’?
November 16, 2015
No Comments
It was bloodcurdling! On Friday night when I saw on my television screen Islamic State terrorists mowing down unsuspecting Parisians, chills ran down my spine. Those Muslim killers, most of them French-born, slaughtered 132 people and wounded 350 others. The same kind of horror had also struck me when I
‘Islamic bomb’ scare, again!
November 8, 2015
No Comments
“Persuading Pakistan to rein in its nuclear weapons program should be an international priority. “The major world powers spent two years negotiating an agreement to restrain the nuclear ambitions of Iran, which doesn’t have a single nuclear weapon. Yet there has been no comparable investment of effort in Pakistan.” – The
God help Israel
October 27, 2015
1 Comment
I SUSPECT that you can still make a buck selling snake oil to folks at the Wall Street Journal. The newspaper laments that John Kerry’s plan to install cameras on Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount in East Jerusalem wasn’t working. Palestinians and Israelis were still fighting and dying. Surprise! Surprise! Apparently Rory
Declare Middle East nuke-free
May 15, 2015
No Comments
Persian Gulf monarchies are petrified by the anticipated Iran nuclear deal, being negotiated in Geneva. Last week Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates threatened to try to acquire nuclear weapons technology if they didn’t get one of two things from the Iran deal. One, they wanted the Islamic Republic’s
Fighting phantom terror
February 28, 2015
1 Comment
THE ISLAMIC STATE has sent new shock waves through the world by capturing more than 200 Syrian and Egyptian Christians. The terrorist group’s gruesome killing of other hostages has heightened concerns among many about the fate of these hostages. Meanwhile, the Obama administration and the Iraqi government reportedly have shelved
Terror bred by grievances, not Islam
February 21, 2015
No Comments
PRESIDENT OBAMA’S speech at this week’s terrorism conference in the White House sounded to me like a broken record from the George W. Bush administration. Bush and his advisers attributed Muslim terrorism to Islam. “Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for
Cow, crescent and star
December 6, 2014
No Comments
Published in Middle East Policy, Washington, D.C.; December 5, 2014 Mustafa Malik, an international affairs commentator in Washington, is investigating the impact of Hindu nationalism on liberal values and democratic institutions in his native India. Earlier, he conducted fieldwork on religious movements and nationalist experiments in the Middle East and
GOP win to prompt new wake-up call
November 7, 2014
No Comments
Tuesday night’s Republican electoral victory poses an insidious threat to freedom and democracy in America. Yet if you believe in the American democratic system, you have to accept the argument that a majority of the American voters wanted to freeze the minimum wage at its starvation level, allow unbridled carbon
ISIS could trigger Arab revolution
October 5, 2014
No Comments
On the darker upper strip of my computer screen I saw my eyebrows rising, as I read, for the first time, President Obama’s mission in Iraq and Syria. Now, as his aides and spokespersons drone on and on about that mission, I get ticked off or, alternately, amused. Can the
Gaza, Pakistan and ignoble US legacy
August 20, 2014
No Comments
The anti-government protests now raging in Pakistan and the travails of Hamas in Palestine remind me of Nurul Amin, my mentor. He served, at different times, as prime minister of Pakistan and Bangladesh, which was then East Pakistan. In February 1972, in Rawalpindi, Amin was telling me about the political
Surviving 70 years of nuclear jingoism
August 6, 2014
No Comments
As Hiroshima Day dawns, why are we still tempting nuclear fate? It is a wonder we have survived all these decades, given US policies on nuclear armament since Hiroshima Noam Chomsky for TomDispatch, part of the Guardian Comment Network Wednesday 6 August 2014 05.19 EDT Seventy-years ago today the Harry
Bringing Indian Muslims out from cold
June 7, 2014
No Comments
THE INSTALLATION of India’s Narendra Modi government has triggered concerns among many Indian Muslims. Prime Minister Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatya Janata Party (BJP) has included in his Cabinet some of the well-known Muslim baiters such as Indresh Kumar and Sadhvi Rithambara. He has given top administrative posts to bureaucrats
Manufacturing an ‘existential threat’
May 31, 2014
No Comments
Here’s a searing expose of the ominous U.S.-Israeli narrative about Iran’s nuclear program. It shows how American neocons and the Israeli right wing made Iran’s peaceful nuclear program into an “existential threat” to Israel and sold it to the world. It reminds me of the “mushroom cloud” invented and propagated
Struggle for Bangladesh’s cultural soul
May 8, 2014
No Comments
SYLHET, Bangladesh: Is modernity finally putting brakes on the Islamization campaign in Bangladesh? Is it eroding the nation’s ethnic culture? These questions keep haunting me during trips to Bangladesh. A visit yesterday to Shahjalal University of Science and Technology in Sylhet lent the two questions special poignancy. The population of
Modi winning India vote, losing agenda
April 9, 2014
No Comments
Pollsters in India are predicting a big win for the Hindu nationalist Bharatya Janata Party (BJP) in the country’s three-phase general elections that began on Monday. The ruling Congress party, they say, is headed for a free fall. Entrenched, as it is, in the traditionalist and fundamentalist Hindu base, the
Bangladesh: Pot calling kettle black
March 22, 2014
No Comments
SYLHET, Bangladesh – Khaleda Zia, the leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, her son and some of her political associates go on trial April 21 to face charges of corruption during her two terms as Bangladeshi prime minister. On the face of it, it’s a good thing. Investigation by
Afghans show door to blind hegemon
March 13, 2014
No Comments
America and Iraq would have been spared the horrors of the uncalled for Iraq war if children of those who had decided to invade that country had been sent into the battlefields.
Is Hindu nationalism mellowing?
February 27, 2014
No Comments
NEW DELHI – India’s Hindu nationalists gloated as Nancy Powell, the U.S. ambassador to New Delhi, went to meet Norendra Modi, the prime ministerial candidate of their Bharatya Janata Party. Indian media described the meeting as America’s “cave-in” and “about face” to the chief minister of Gujarat state. Nine years
The Hindus outrage Hindus
February 15, 2014
No Comments
“Enlightenment liberalism, as all other ideologies, has emerged from a particular set of historical circumstances of particular societies. It came about mainly a reaction to the omnipresent church’s rigorous rules suppressing the desires, expressions and creativity of everyday Christians. It wasn’t much of a surprise, then, that the ideologues and activists of the Enlightenment avenged the harsh religious repression by banishing religion from the public space.”
Liberal counterrevolution
January 22, 2014
No Comments
The Islamic movements that have been storming much of the Muslim world since the late 1970s is a revolution in progress. I call it Muslim spring.
Women in the West’s blind spot
December 3, 2013
1 Comment
‘Why does the world ignore violence against Arab women?’ PovertyMatters blog, The Guardian, London (link below). I DON’T THINK “the world,” which essentially means America and Europe, is ignoring the travails of Arab or Muslim women per se. After all, when the Taliban attacked the Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yusufzai, the West
Saudi women drive toward freedom
October 26, 2013
No Comments
WASHINGTON – Kudos to the brave Saudi Arabian women for their protest against the ban on their driving. The prohibition was decreed by their ultra-conservative Wahhabi clerics, and is being enforced by the Saudi royal family. As I’ve learned from several trips to the kingdom, Saudi women have long been
Pakistan ties: Old wine in old bottle
October 20, 2013
No Comments
SADLY, the Obama administration appears to be trying to revive its failing Cold War policy to refurbish the strained U.S. ties to Pakistan. Ever since its inception, what remains of Pakistan after the secession of Bangladesh has been under the rule of its self-serving feudal-military-bureaucratic class. Today’s Pakistani prime minister
Let EU rein in Egypt’s military junta
July 29, 2013
No Comments
The Obama administration has become the butt of jokes around the world for playing with words to avoid describing Mursi’s ouster by the military as a coup.
Pulling US chestnuts out of Egypt fire
July 28, 2013
No Comments
The Muslim Brotherhood will be rejuvenated by its confrontation with Egypt’s ruling military junta.
Don’t write Brotherhood off too soon
July 15, 2013
No Comments
(Published in The Daily Star, Lebanon, July 16, 2013) Alejandro Jodorowsy said, “Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.” The French filmmaker’s remark was resoundingly vindicated by Egypt’s liberal elites. They led massive crowds against President Muhammad Mursi and succeeded in getting the all-too-willing army to overthrow
Egyptians, unite to rescue democracy!
July 12, 2013
No Comments
My hats off to Egypt’s secular and Islamist revolutionaries for the courage and spirit of freedom they demonstrated when they bundled out Hosni Mubarak’s monstrous dictatorship. Over the decades I have developed an interest in Egyptian society and politics. I cherish my friendship with Egyptians in Egypt and the United
Syria: Needed US-Islamist detente
May 21, 2013
No Comments
THE UNITED STATES has taken a welcome step to tackle the Syrian crisis. It has joined Russia in arranging a peace conference in Geneva next month, which, unfortunately, would also expose America’s diminished global standing. The end of Syria’s murderous Bashar al-Assad regime will come, however, from its eventual attrition
Pakistan’s scary quest for roots
May 13, 2013
1 Comment
WHY IS PAKISTAN being riven by Sunni-Shia and Sunni-Ahmadi strife? A scholar at Columbia University shares his thoughts on the question in a New York Times op-ed entitled “Pakistan’s tyrannical majority.” Manan Ahmed Asif quotes Muhammad Ali Jinnah telling Pakistanis: “[E]very one of you, no matter to what community he
Abbas to U.S.: Go fly a kite!
April 15, 2013
No Comments
The Independent echoed the common Western views of Salam Fayyad’s resignation. The Palestinian prime minister’s exit had “thro[wn] into doubt the future of the Palestinian Authority and the peace process with Israel,” observed the liberal British newspaper. Has Fayyad’s parting really caused – or rather reflected – the crisis facing
Time to get over anti-Islamist paranoia
March 23, 2013
2 Comments
ANDREW J. BACEVICH says “the big story of Muslim self-determination is likely to continue unimpeded” and lead to the rollback of American hegemony over Muslim societies. In his Washington Post piece, the historian recalled that when the British Empire was collapsing, it could turn over its “imperial responsibility” to the
Bangladesh’s epic quest for identity
March 4, 2013
No Comments
I’M SADDENED by the bloody mayhem rocking Bangladesh, where I lived and worked through two turbulent decades. Street fights between the country’s secularist government forces and Islamist activists have claimed dozens of lives. The clashes were triggered by a death sentence handed by a Bangladeshi court to a leader of
John Kerry: Same old same old
February 23, 2013
1 Comment
John Kerry’s recipe to meet U.S. foreign policy challenges appeared to have been copied from the neoconservatives’ play book: trade, aid and democracy. All these have been tried. They didn’t work.
On to the Malian quagmire?
February 15, 2013
No Comments
ISLAMIST GUERRILLAS are fighting back French and Malian forces in northern Mali, from where they were expelled last month by invading French forces. The Muslim militant group Mojwa (Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa) has twice engaged the French in sustained gun battles in Gao, the region’s largest
Chuck Hagel: Oil did spark Iraq war
January 6, 2013
No Comments
AS CHUCK HAGEL is about to be nominated for the defense secretary post, neocons and the Israel lobby have got their knives out. These henchmen of the Israeli right-wing masterminded the disastrous Iraq war. Most of us knew the war’s twofold goals: To take out Saddam Hussein because he was
Kashmiris try to globalize struggle
January 4, 2013
No Comments
A Kashmiri Muslim noticed my Facebook comment about protests over the gang rape of a medical student in India. The 23-year-old woman has died of injuries from the brutal assault. I had applauded the electrifying protests in New Delhi and elsewhere in the country. And I had expressed hope that
Back to old Palestine?
December 2, 2012
No Comments
Political columnist Pat Buchanan once described Capitol Hill as the third “Israeli-occupied territory” after the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Those days the White House frequently resisted Israeli pressure to support its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, while Congress routinely supported the Israeli stance. Thursday, the Obama
Obama, Romney clueless about Islam
October 9, 2012
No Comments
That was a shocker. On Monday, Mitt Romney launched a blistering, if empty, assault on President Obama’s allegedly “passive” policy toward Muslim extremists and terrorists. The Republican presidential nominee accused the president of not being able to tackle “violent extremists,” some of whom stormed the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Obama’s sermon on extremism
September 28, 2012
No Comments
President Obama told the U.N. General Assembly that Muslims must shun “extremism” and exercise “tolerance” for their adversaries. He was referring to the violence-prone protest rallies that the American film “Innocence of Muslims” has triggered in many Muslim countries. The amateurish video shows the Prophet Muhammad in pornographic poses and
The outrage: Revisit free speech
September 15, 2012
No Comments
(Published in the San Francisco Chronicle, September 14, 2012) It was a reprehensible crime. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. diplomatic staff members were nurturing excellent U.S.-Libyan relations until they were murdered by a Muslim mob in Benghazi. Many Libyans will fondly remember Stevens’ hard work to implement
Is Obama a Muslim?
September 8, 2012
No Comments
A Republican activist I had met last month at a Middle East Policy Council seminar in Washington called over the weekend. She asked what I thought about President Obama’s speech at the Democratic convention in Charlotte, N.C., before getting to the reason for her call. Did I know if “Obama
Americans fed up with right and left
August 28, 2012
No Comments
The documentary “2016: Obama’s America” is drawing big crowds in the South, reports my hometown newspaper the Washington Examiner . And “liberal and conservative voters” watching it are cursing President Obama. “I have to get some more friends” to see the documentary, says 18-year-old Tammy Birdwell who watched it in
Syria ‘extremists’ scare off U.S.?
July 27, 2012
2 Comments
The Obama administration knows by now that Russia will not let any action against the murderous Syrian dictatorship get the green light from the U.N. Security Council. In response, the administration is taking baby steps to help the Syrian uprising, dedicated to overthrowing the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. These
Pakistan out of U.S. shadow
July 19, 2012
2 Comments
“How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” These were the words of a young antiwar activist named John Kerry, testifying before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Forty-one years later Kerry, now chairman of the same Senate committee, was defending the Afghan war, in which the last man has probably yet to die.
Modern Islam Egypt Islamists’ goal
June 26, 2012
No Comments
“The revolution goes on,” said Mohammed Mursi, on being declared president of Egypt in its first-ever democratic election. He ran for president as the head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party. The transnational Brotherhood has been the world’s oldest Islamist movement. The president-elect has called
Bangladesh’s Islamic modernity
June 13, 2012
No Comments
By Mustafa Malik POLASHPUR, Bangladesh – A casualty of your trip to Bangladesh (and many other Muslim countries) could be the belief, or illusion, that Islam and modernity are conflicting value systems. A college classmate’s visit to my ancestral home here in Polashpur village reminded me of this illusion, which
Democracy fluid in Bangladesh
June 12, 2012
No Comments
By Mustafa Malik SYLHET, Bangladesh – Paralyzing general strikes, known here as hartal, remain a common and effective tool of democratic politics in Bangladesh. A local opposition politician has been kidnapped from a highway, which the opposition says was arranged by the ruling Awami League party. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party
Bibi Obama’s moral test
January 11, 2012
No Comments
By Mustafa Malik The other day Robert Malley said at a Capitol Hill seminar that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities was “more likely” now than ever before. Malley is a widely respected Middle East expert with the International Crisis Group, and he gave two reasons for his concern.
U.S.-India relations hit plateau
November 16, 2011
No Comments
By Mustafa Malik What was my take on “our growing relations with America?” asked Birendra Nath Basu. I met him on a passenger car to Karimganj town in the northeast Indian state of Assam. Basu had a master’s degree in business administration and was returning from a job interview in
Taliban fight for freedom, justice
October 25, 2011
No Comments
By Mustafa Malik SYLHET, Bangladesh — Aunt Salima Khatun, my mother’s sister, barged in to see me here in the Bangladeshi town of Sylhet. I spend part of my Bangladesh vacations in Sylhet, known for its tea gardens, cane furniture and the shrine of the famed Muslim saint Hazrat Shah
Secularism loses ground in Indian subcontinent
October 22, 2011
No Comments
By Mustafa Malik (Published in the Columbus Dispatch, October 12, 2011) Bangladesh has had a big political surprise since my last visit here a year ago. Its staunchly secular Awami League party government has amended the constitution, making Islam the “state religion”! The amendment also gave the constitution this opening
Muslim democracies confuse US
September 14, 2011
No Comments
(Published in the Daily Star, Lebanon, September 14, 2011; Dawn, Pakistan, September 13, 2011) By Mustafa Malik POLASHPUR, Bangladesh – Since September 11, 2001, I visited my mother four other times here in the village of Polashpur in northeastern Bangladesh. She is 92 and lives in my ancestral home, surrounded
U.S. policy threatens Pakistan’s stability
September 2, 2011
No Comments
Book Review: Middle East Policy, Washington, D.C.; Fall 2011 By Mustafa Malik THE QUESTION once again: Is Pakistan a ‘failed state’ that’s going to bite the dust? Anatol Lieven is among the latest authors to try an answer. His book Pakistan: A Hard Country is a broad and detailed survey
Afghanistan eroding US hegemony
August 7, 2011
No Comments
By Mustafa Malik EVER SINCE THE U.S. NAVY SEALS killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, the Obama administration is being urged by some progressives and conservatives to “declare victory and come home” from Afghanistan. The Taliban apparently have different ideas. They have ratcheted up their attacks on U.S. and NATO
Norway terror echoes clash of civilizations
July 28, 2011
1 Comment
THOMAS HEGGHAMMER, a Norwegian terrorism specialist, says Anders Behring Breivik is no different from Osama bin Laden, and he describes Breivik’s carnage in Oslo and Utoya Island as “an attempt to mirror Al Qaeda.” I agree. I would add that both 9/11 and the Norwegian tragedy are part of the
U.S. policy smothers Pakistani freedom
July 8, 2011
No Comments
By Mustafa Malik WHILE THE PAKISTAN ARMY reels from public outcry over it highhandedness toward the press and public, a bribery scandal involving top generals has brought the army under international scrutiny. Would this help bring the generals under civilian control and secure freedom and democracy in Pakistan, continually disrupted
26 hours in Pakistani torture chamber
June 10, 2011
No Comments
By Mustafa Malik (Published in the Daily Star, Lebanon, June 10; Islam and the West, June 10; and the Asia Times, Hong Kong, June 6, 2011) I’M SADDENED but not surprised by news of the slaying of Pakistani journalist Syed Saleem Shehzad. He didn’t have an American passport or other
Pakistan plays China card against U.S.
May 22, 2011
No Comments
By Mustafa Malik (Published in The San Francisco Chronicle, May 20; Islam and the West, May 22, 2011) The rebuff couldn’t have been starker. Sen. John Kerry was probably still unwinding on his return from Pakistan when the Pakistani prime minister decided to test U.S. foreign policy. He declared in
Aiding Arab freedom serves U.S.
April 21, 2011
No Comments
(Published in the Columbus Dispatch, April 30, 2011) By Mustafa Malik Democratization of Arab societies “would be a disaster” for the West, warns Princeton University scholar Bernard Lewis. Yet he predicts that Islamic political parties are “very likely to win … genuinely fair and free elections” in the Arab world.
U.S. liberals callous to Libyan uprising
March 30, 2011
No Comments
By Mustafa Malik President Obama always makes good speeches, and he gave an excellent one defending his administration’s participation in NATO’s military intervention in Libya. The coalition bombing has averted, as the president pointed out, a “brutal repression and looming humanitarian crisis” brought on by Muammar Qadhafi’s forces. Even though
U.S. policy, not Islam, breeding terrorists
March 21, 2011
1 Comment
By Mustafa Malik (Published in the Austin-American Statesman, March 20; Columbus Dispatch, March 16, 2011) WASHINGTON – Rep. Peter T. King had said his congressional hearing on Muslim radicalization would investigate the causes of the problem. It didn’t. I have long been calling, in my newspaper columns and at public
Barhain atop democratic ‘volcano’
March 5, 2011
No Comments
By Mustafa Malik For the United States, the Bahraini uprising is more worrisome than most others now swirling in the Middle East and North Africa. America’s stakes in Bahrain was underscored to me this past Jan. 13 by a researcher in Manama, the Bahraini capital. “The Al Khalifa rulers are
Can Jordan monarchy survive?
February 27, 2011
No Comments
By Mustafa Malik (Published in the San Francisco Chronicle, February 20, 2011) Admiral Mike Mullen recently visited Jordan. The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff assured King Abdullah II of America’s commitment to the security of his kingdom. As Jordan has a peace treaty with Israel, it doesn’t
