By July-August 2001, it was clear that something dramatic was about to happen. Pepe Escobar, our "Roving Eye", was
traveling in Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan. The rumor was that US forces were about to use Pakistan to launch a raid into Afghanistan. Escobar's article, published by Asia Times Online on August 30, 2001, was headlined  Get Osama! Now! Or else ... Our Karachi correspondent, Syed Saleem Shazad, was meanwhile filing articles like Osama bin Laden: The thorn in Pakistan's flesh (August 22, 2001) ...

Europe to Kerry: Help is not on the way
As a series of US presidential debates gets under way, John Kerry can be expected to repeat his mantra about getting America's European allies onside in Iraq. But notwithstanding Europeans' overwhelming support for Kerry versus George W Bush, they will not support America's Iraq adventure, whoever is in the White House. - Bruno Giussani (sEP 30, '04)

Why Amjad Farooqi had to die
Some people in the Pakistani military-intelligence-police establishment did not want terror suspect Amjad Farooqi to be captured alive. B Raman traces events surrounding the emergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the murder of Daniel Pearl and the assassination attempts on President General Pervez Musharraf to find out why. (Sep 29, '04)

Iranian Mujahideen at the crossroads
In something of a rarity in Tehran, a demonstration was staged recently not to vilify the US, but to seek its help in tracing members of the Mujahideen Khalq Organization, even though Washington lists the group as a terrorist outfit. (Sep 30, '04)

Pakistan gets its man ... sort of
Officials in Pakistan have labeled the killing of Amjad Farooqi a "crushing blow" against al-Qaeda. But Syed Saleem Shahzad, in tracing Farooqi's rise from nondescript jihadi foot soldier to the country's most wanted man with a bounty on his head, finds the circumstances of his death as mystifying as his billing as a top terrorist organizer and planner. (Sep 29, '04)

America's new strategy in Iraq
Since the end of the battle of Najaf, things have become a jumbled mass of violent outbreaks and conflicting pronouncements by all sides of the Iraqi conflict. Hidden in this confusion is an entirely new US military-political strategy that could damage President George W Bush's electoral chances, or lead to yet another major change in US strategy. - Michael Schwartz (Sep 29, '04)

Americans 'tired' of being world's cop
Most Americans have lost faith in the Bush administration's philosophy of unilateral military adventurism and snubbing the world community, a new survey has found. Support for unilateralism has plummeted in the past two years - a period that, of course, saw the consequences of the Bush doctrine in Iraq. - Jim Lobe (Sep 29, '04)

In Pakistan, dead men tell no tales
Pakistan has reported the death of Amjad Farooqi in a clash with security authorities. Widely billed as a senior al-Qaeda figure, Farooqi was also wanted in connection with the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and for assassination attempts against President General Pervez Musharraf. For Islamabad, this was one fugitive better dead than alive. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Sep 28, '04)

SPENGLER
Squeegee men and suicide bombers
The anti-terror strategy of the US Department of Homeland Security has criminalized not only terrorists, but also their ideological sympathizers. What this means is that individual Muslims will suffer. Remember, either you are with us ... (Sep 28, '04)


Iraq held hostage to terror
The taking of hostages in Iraq is proving more useful in generating terror - and revenue - than suicide bombings: local criminal gangs do the actual kidnapping, then the hostages are sold up the chain to larger militant outfits, which use them as pawns and bargaining chips. But the indiscriminate choice of victims could yet backfire. - Sudha Ramachandran (Sep 25, '04)

Human dignity, Crazy Mike, Indian country
As President George W Bush preached about "human dignity" to the UN General Assembly this week, two articles published simultaneously told another story. From an American man so determined to rid Afghanistan of "bad guys" that a fellow soldier called him "Crazy Mike" to comparisons to "Indian country", Washington's attempts to sell its good faith have again been undermined. - Jim Lobe (Sep 25, '04)

Iran invites the world to its nuclear party
Turning defense into bonhomie, Iran, under fire for suspected ambitions to build a nuclear bomb, has extended an invitation to countries - including chief critic the US - to help in the construction of six new nuclear power plants, pointing out that there are billions of dollars to be made, and other "golden" opportunities. - Safa Haeri (Sep 23, '04)

Whispers of regime change

The US and Israel have  portrayed the prospect of a nuclear Iran as threatening to the region, and Israel in particular. Should Bush be reelected, he's sure to do something about it. - Ehsan Ahrari (Sep 23, '04)

Left, right, the US is out of step in Iraq
Neither the resistance groups cheered on by the American left nor the parties championed by its right reflect the views of most Iraqi people: US control over Iraq's political future may already be waning. (Sep 23, '04)

Protecting Iraq's precarious pipelines
With insurgents routinely attacking Iraq's oil infrastructure with the aim of disrupting production, the task of securing the country's only economic lifeline is one of gigantic proportions. Private security company Erinys Iraq is in charge of overseeing this sticky mess, an uphill battle as oil production slows to a trickle and export revenues remain dismal. - David Isenberg (Sep 23, '04)

Iraqi elections, in the shadow of death
As hostage-takers in Iraq step up their attacks on Western workers, another American has been reported beheaded by a militant group led by al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Meanwhile, Iraqi leaders are becoming increasingly jittery over the now partial elections proposed for January. (Sep 22, '04)

Filling India's anti-terrorism void
Now that India has axed its controversial anti-terrorism legislation, the Congress-led UPA government has a tough task ahead. Although repealing the Prevention of Terrorism Act placates the many who criticized its misuse, India is left without an effective legal instrument to tackle terrorism. - Sudha Ramachandran (Sep 22, '04)

Allawi barks up the wrong tree
The US's handpicked prime minister of Iraq, Iyad Allawi, visits Washington and New York this week to sound the trumpet for the war effort in his country, and also to push his claims for election next year. Unfortunately, his whistlestop tour will have no bearing on the scale or the pace of violence in Iraq, for it is here that Allawi needs support. - Ehsan Ahrari (Sep 21, '04)

COMMENT
The resort to force
The United States' National Security Strategy established in September 2002 was hailed as "revolutionary". And so it has turned out. By lowering the bars to aggression, official doctrine now has it that anyone who offends the US is subject to overwhelming attack. Indeed, violence as national td vAlign= FONT color=by Pepe EscobarFONT color= policy can succeed - but at terrible cost. - Noam Chomsky (Sep 21, '04)

SPENGLER Bush, Marshal Foch and Iran  The situation in Iraq might look hopeless for the US. In fact, as Marshal Foch famously said, "Situation excellent. I shall attack." The target will be Iran, and Iraq will no longer be a problem as it will cease to exist. (Sep 20, '04)

Turkey snaps over US bombing of its brethren
The United States claims that attacks on the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar - home to Turkey's ethnic cousins, the Turkmens - were to root out terrorists. Others say that the US has unwittingly been drawn into a devious Kurdish plot. Either way, Ankara has warned the US in no uncertain terms to lay off: this is a pot not to be stirred. - K Gajendra Singh (Sep 17, '04)

Operation enduring millstone
On October 7, 2001, President George W Bush embarked on what he thought would be a famous "war against terrorism" under the code name "Operation Enduring Freedom". The famous has turned embarrassingly infamous. Instead of enduring freedom, Bush has an enduring millstone round his neck. - B Raman (Sep 17, '04)

THE BURDEN OF BEING A SUPERPOWER (Sep 16, '04) Refocus on the big picture With no end in sight to the ever-worsening situation in Iraq, what is sorely needed in Washington to turn the situation around is the de-linking of its foreign policy from the agenda and priorities of Israel, and a re-linking of the US's Iraq policy with the broader Arab-Israeli conflict. - Kaveh L Afrasiabi Looking after the little man The US has evolved into a superpower in the course of two world wars and will remain one for the foreseeable future. As such it has earned the privileges associated with being a tough big guy. But the complete American character requires the US to champion the defenseless little guys of the world as well. - Henry C K Liu

$3.5bn more for the Iraq war chest
The unabated bloodletting in Iraq - nearly 200 dead in the past few days - adds weight to the question of whether the US can prevail. Secretary of State Colin Powell insists that the insurgency can be defeated. For starters, by reallocating US$3.5 billion from Iraq's reconstruction fund earmarked for water and power projects to improving security. (Sep 16, '04)

Lebanon no model for Iraq
The White House's promotion of Lebanon as a political model for Iraq to help bring order out of chaos is simply another example of the absence of Middle East experience and understanding within the Bush administration: it simply will not work in Iraq. (Sep 16, '04)

A geopolitical jungle
An iron rule of terrorism is that what goes around, comes around from geopolitical blowback. One cannot exterminate terrorism any more than mosquitoes, except by reordering the ecosystem. Despite shining examples of this lesson being ignored - with dire results - in the Middle East, the United States remains unbending in its geopolitical goals. - Henry C K Liu (Sep 14, '04)

COMMENT
Nothing new in the world
Who remembers a coup staged by the US that overthrew the elected government of Chile? Who remembers another coup 20 years earlier, which set in a motion events that arguably led to September 11, 2001? Remembering, it is said, is a political act. - Renato R Constantino (Sep 14, '04)

SPEAKING FREELY
What the neo-cons can't tell Americans
President George W Bush's foreign-policy advisers believe that the US, guided by their policies, can change the world for the better. And they don't believe that the average American is ready to hear about their grand plans. - Richard Daniel Ewing (Sep 13, '04)

Portrait of a neo-con
When poor intelligence started making life difficult for United States troops early in the Iraq war, a top commander had nasty things to say about Douglas Feith, the No 3 civilian in the Pentagon. But to write off Feith as an idiot would be a serious mistake. (Sep 13, '04)

SPEAKING FREELY
What the neo-cons can't tell Americans
President George W Bush's foreign-policy advisers believe that the US, guided by their policies, can change the world for the better. And they don't believe that the average American is ready to hear about their grand plans. - Richard Daniel Ewing (Sep 13, '04)

Lessons from the Jakarta blast
Despite the shock and concern surrounding last week's blast outside the Australian Embassy in the Indonesian capital, the attack does not necessarily flow from any weaknesses in the government's policies and actions. B Raman looks at the lessons emerging from the bombing. (Sep 13, '04)

Osama adds weight to Afghan resistance
The Taliban-led Afghan resistance has adopted a new strategy that takes into account its limited human and material resources, and which will rely on battle-hardened Arab fighters. The new chief architect, direct from the terror fields of Iraq, will be assisted by Osama bin Laden, who has made Afghanistan his new battleground.   - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Sep 10, '04)

THE ROVING EYE
Why al-Qaeda is winning
As nihilistic as it may be, al-Qaeda is a major success: three years after September 11, it is a global brand and a global movement. This brand does not have much to do with Islam, but it has everything to do with the globalization of the fight against imperialism. And imperialism is widely seen as having its center in Washington. - Pepe Escobar (Sep 10, '04)

Jakarta bomb a sign of what's to come
Terrorism thrives on symbolism, and it wasn't hard to see signposts after Thursday's bombing outside the Australian Embassy in the Indonesian capital. The blast occurred almost exactly three years after the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US and just two days after Southeast Asia's impotency in the "war against terror" was paraded for all to see. - Alan Boyd (Sep 10, '04)

Familiar terror rears its ugly head
After twice managing to escape the dragnet set up by Indonesian police, master bombers allegedly linked to Jemaah Islamiya have now become the chief suspects responsible for bombing the Australian Embassy. (Sep 10, '04)

COMMENT
The clash of fundamentalists
Fundamentalists by nature have little use for contrarian views, and since September 11 these "true believers" of all stripes and shades - including some in the Bush administration - have pushed the international community into an era where transnational violence is rising and tolerance of different beliefs and perspectives is dropping. - Ehsan Ahrari (Sep 10, '04)

Another Taliban song and dance
The "good" Taliban - those who will help the US and Pakistan further their objectives in Afghanistan - operate through the Jaishul Muslim, which was created to split the Taliban and weaken their leader, Mullah Omar. This had been tried before, with poor results. But now the stakes are much higher, and the US's needs more pressing. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Sep 9, '04)

   Living Masoud's legacy

Taming the Taliban
Now that the idea of "good" Taliban has taken root, Pakistan is vigorously "encouraging" Taliban into this fold, even if it means spells in prison and hefty inducements to convert the "bad" Taliban to embrace the new cause in Afghanistan, as Syed Saleem Shahzad discovers. (Sep 8 '04)

   One month to woo voters

Russia's second Afghanistan
In Chechnya, Moscow faces a situation that is strikingly similar to the one it encountered in Afghanistan in the 1980s when it tried unsuccessfully to preserve that country as a client state against nationalist and Islamic opposition. And look what happened to Afghanistan. (Sep 8 '04)

COMMENTARY
Toward an Iraqi exit strategy
The US took on itself the responsibility to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime; now it is time to let the Iraqis themselves take more fully the responsibility to choose an alternative. For this to happen, though, Washington needs to find a viable exit strategy. (Sep 8 '04)

   Peace shattered in Sadr City

Russia forced to rethink US ties
Much as it might go against the grain - and the feelings of some in his government - Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot ignore the inevitable: a terrorist-induced march to a new and more energetic common cause with the US. - Kaveh L Afrasiabi (Sep 7, '04)

COMMENT
The Bush crusade
A few days after September 11, 2001, George W Bush declared a "crusade" against terrorism. For the president, "crusade" was an offhand reference. But all the more powerfully for that, he had said exactly what he meant. And the methodology and results of this new crusade have been chillingly similar to those of the Crusades of a thousand years ago. - James Carroll (Sep 7, '04)

Spinning the web in Afghanistan
With just over a month to go before presidential elections in Afghanistan, the US and Pakistan are doing their best - for somewhat different reasons - to ensure that incumbent Hamid Karzai wins the vote. Others, including the Taliban, are fighting back. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Sep 7, '04)

Geopolitical weeds in cradle of civilization
Since the modern Iraqi state was the artificial product of Western geopolitical maneuvers in the cradle of civilization during the age of European imperialism, Iraq's full geopolitical spectrum has always included Pan-Arabism beyond narrow state interests. This was overlooked when the US decided to topple Saddam Hussein. This is the second part of an on-going series. - Henry C K Liu (Sep 2, '04)

Doubts over hostage-takers
The manner in which militants seized more than 300 hostages at a school in North Ossetia points to their being Chechen. But people from the Russian region of Ingushetia that borders Chechnya cannot be ruled out. (Sep 2, '04) 

US-backed armies firing blanks
Further hampering efforts to improve the bleak security situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, potential recruits in both nations are ignoring calls to join the nascent or rebuilding national armies, afraid that they might become targets of groups opposed to either US-installed government. (Sep 2, '04)

SPEAKING FREELY
The truth about pondok schools in Thailand
The Malay-Muslim consciousness of Thailand's five southern provinces has been nurtured by the Islamic system of education that has been prevalent in the region for more than a century, and that is built around pondok schools. At issue today is whether these schools are bastions of Islamic education or hotbeds of militancy. - Dr Joseph Liow (Sep 2, '04)

Spy Probe scans neo-cons' Israel ties
Investigations into claims that a Pentagon official passed highly classified secrets to a Zionist lobby group in the United States are likely a part of a much broader probe into the close collaboration between US neo-conservatives and Israel dating back some 30 years. Many big names are involved. - Jim Lobe (Sep 1, '04)

 

August 2004