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MADRID — A conference convened by Abdullah of Saudi Arabia for the purpose of gathering together leaders of the world's religions ended here yesterday with little sign as to whether the Saudi monarch's efforts to counter religious extremism would continue. The conference concluded on a sour note this afternoon as Christian and Jewish participants complained that the organizers, the Muslim World League, had too much control over the conference's closing communiqué. The three-day gathering in Madrid of more than 200 religious leaders was closely watched because it is the first time that a Saudi monarch had invited Jewish rabbis to...

FIFTEEN YEARS have passed since Foreign Affairs published Samuel Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations?" in its summer issue. It has subsequently become the most sought after article for reprints in the magazine's history. It, and the book by the same title minus the question mark, caused a storm among political scientists, many of whom simply refused to believe that, after the end of the Cold War, future conflicts would be over something so old fashioned. Only George Kennan's article on how to contain the USSR after World War II, bylined X, can compete with Huntington's in terms of influence. "The...

The U.S. failed to recognize the significance of the radical Islamists. The timing is right for a major new history of America's engagement with the contemporary Middle East. Admittedly, key archival documentation remains under lock and key and will be inaccessible for a long time to come, both in the United States and elsewhere. But enough material is available, in the form of declassified documents, memoirs, oral histories and journalistic treatments, to begin to piece together the story of how we came to our current predicament. Enter Sir Lawrence Freedman, a specialist on nuclear strategy and the Cold War and...

I was Brooklyn bound - or so I thought. I took the subway to see a fellow alumna of New York's High School of Music and Art (as today's LaGuardia High School for the Arts was then called). I looked forward to the nostalgic reunion. I hadn't been in NYC for ages, and catching up with an old classmate seemed an indispensable component of walking down memory lane. What's more, Kathy still lives at the same address in the cozy middle-class neighborhood where I sometimes visited her way back then. It was common for the house-proud Irish to keep property...

An apocryphal internet tale provides a double insight into the fundamental problems of the Western world. A senior Australian army officer, General Peter Cosgrave, is being interviewed by a woman presenter. She questions him about a scheme to introduce boy scouts to army barracks. What will they do there, she asks; he replies, climbing, canoeing, archery and rifle-shooting. "Shooting? Don't you admit that that's a terribly dangerous activity to be teaching children? You're equipping them to become violent killers." "Well ma'am, you're equipped to be a prostitute, and you're not one, are you?" Now, this story is widely believed, not...

“Europe will be Muslim in a dozen years,” promises the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Supreme Guide (dictator) who is racing full-speed ahead to make as many bombs as possible with long-range missiles capable of delivering their payload anywhere in the world. This past Friday, Yunis al-Astal, a leading Muslim cleric and Hamas member of the Palestinian parliament, declared on Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV that "the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital," would soon be conquered by Islam and Rome become an advance post for the Islamic conquests, which will spread through Europe in its entirety, and then will turn...

Senator John McCain hailed as a spiritual adviser an Ohio megachurch pastor who has called upon Christians to wage a "war" against the "false religion" of Islam with the aim of destroying it. On February 26, McCain appeared at a campaign rally in Cincinnati with the Reverend Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, a supersize Pentecostal institution that features a 5,200-seat sanctuary, a television studio (where Parsley tapes a weekly show), and a 122,000-square-foot Ministry Activity Center. That day, a week before the Ohio primary, Parsley praised the Republican presidential front-runner as a "strong, true, consistent conservative."...

Lights, Camera – Reason By Frank Schirrmacher FRANKFURT. President George W. Bush did not say what was in the script. One could even write that he did not say what Americans until now believed one should say at such a moment. He has withstood the pressure of succumbing to the collective consciousness and -- if one interprets the impressions correctly -- by doing so he has reinvented a piece of America. His address will do more than bolster international solidarity with the United States. Despite his allusions to Pearl Harbor and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bush's breaking the mold heralds a ...

It is beginning to sink in that what happened on September 11 was not a single terrorist attack on a single country, but the Pearl Harbor of Islamism in its war against the West. In 1941, Americans were surprised by the Japanese attack, but at least knew what and where Japan was. In retrospect, the great defeated "isms" of the last century, Nazism and Communism, are well understood. Now we are groping for an understanding of the new "ism" that has declared war on us. The first shocker, of course, is that someone is out to get the West in ...

How to balance military needs, international humanitarian law, and the reality of facing an enemy whose tactics are not restrained by accepted conventions are challenges to which Israel and other Western nations need to devote serious thought. The asymmetry of battle that Israel faces requires a rethinking of strategy to deal with threats from forces whose ideologies allow them not just to frustrate many Western military advantages but to use the openness of Western societies—especially their print and image media, and the organizations through which the Western penchant for self-criticism is expressed—to their own advantage. Ideology, including the perception of...

Herb Denenberg: The Advocate As Europe Yields To Islamofascism, Is U.S. On The Same Path? By Herb Denenberg, The Bulletin 02/13/2008 The once mighty, the once invincible, the once courageous and brave-beyond-belief Britain is in the process of surrendering to Islamofascism without firing a shot. Here are the latest examples indicating how far along that process has gone: British government ministers have declared that Islamic terrorism will no longer be so described. In the future, Muslim fanatics, murderers and suicide bombers will be referred to as pursuing "anti-Islamic activity." This new language, turning the truth on its head, was announced...

Professor Gwyn Prins, one of the authors of the RUSI report made a most important point on the Today programme (0830) when he observed that 'we are at war', although we are behaving as if we are in peacetime. This is undoubtedly true and is the source of so much of the current confusion (Guantanamo, 42 days, etc) and wholly inadequate government and establishment response to the Islamist threat. As the report asks:Is there any longer a clear distinction between being at war and not being at war? A declaration of war is almost inconceivable today, and yet both our...

This links to an outstanding commentary (and a brief attempt at refutation) by a lucid, articulate woman who now, no doubt, has a price on her head. http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv&ak=nul

No mystery as to why Christian missionaries might be having their greatest success in the Kabyle. In Algeria, that remains the Berber heartland. It is where the Berbers, that is those who were not forcibly transformed, during the centuries of Arab rule (interrupted by 132 years of French rule) into "Arabs" (how many of those "Arabs" who now persecute the Berbers realize that they themselves are a generation, or two, or five removed from their clearly Berber origins?) The cause of the Berbers is hardly known in this country. The writer Kateb Yacine, a Berber who refused to write in...

Muslim Councillor Tells Rotterdammer: 'Shut Up, Minority' ROTTERDAM, 17/01/08 - Labour (PvdA) politician Bouchra Ismaili has reviled a citizen of Rotterdam in an e-mail. The man was told that as a member of the white minority in his district, he should not complain about the Islamic organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir. Ismaili, who has Moroccan nationality, is a council member for PvdA in the Rotterdam district council of Charlois. "You are the immigrants here!!!", she wrote to the white man who drew her attention by e-mail to statements by the controversial Muslim organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir. Ismali also wrote in her e-mail reply...

JEDDAH, 15 January 2008 — The history of science and civilization, as taught by many institutions in the West, often fails to include more than 1,000 years of Islamic heritage and civilization, according to Dr. Salim Al-Hassani of the UK-based Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilization. “The Renaissance couldn’t have happened out of nothing,” said Al-Hassani while speaking at Dar Al-Hekma College here yesterday. “In the West, there’s total ignorance of the contributions of other civilizations. Did modern civilization really rise from nothing?” Al-Hassani explained how many Western discoveries are of Muslim origin. There was a lost age of Muslim...

Reacting to the assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson told WND, "This is a war, a clash of civilizations." Thompson, commenting at the FAIR talk radio row in Des Moines, Iowa, said he suspected al-Qaida was responsible for the attack. "The chance that a secular woman had a possibility of ascending to power in Pakistan drove the more radical Islamic elements in the country to violence," Thompson said. The former Tennessee senator said the Bhutto assassination was "part of a much larger picture." "This is an international war we are engaged in," he...

With the ouster of the Taliban and eradication of the al-Qaida in Afghanistan, Islamic extremism has sustained a crushing defeat. But what continues to unsettle Americans is that film of Arab and Islamic people, wildly cheering the barbaric atrocities of Sept. 11. Is a war of civilizations coming? Clearly, not a few in the Islamic world and the West so believe, and ardently desire. And, with the War Party cawing for an attack on Iraq, with Sharon unleashed after the atrocities in Jerusalem and Haifa, with the U.S. press calling for a reappraisal of our ties to Saudi Arabia and ...

A global Islamic revival is creating conflicts that go beyond the War on Terrorism. Much of the civil unrest around the world—in Indonesia, East Timor, the Philippines, Sudan, among others—has to do with Muslims attacking Christians. Meanwhile, in tribal villages from Asia through Africa, Islam and Christianity are competing for the souls of the people. Even the jihadist assaults against America and Europe may be seen as a Muslim war on the civilization that Christianity produced. Though the secularists cannot imagine such a thing, the world is convulsed in a religious war. The Washington Post's Phillip H. Gordon recognizes that...

In WORLD's pages we often describe man's desperate need for the saving grace brought by Christ's sacrifice. But theologians also talk about common grace, the grace that, like rain, falls on nonbelievers as well as believers. When the cravenness of some Christians shames us, it's a good time to look for evidence of God's mercy in unlikely places. Last month's largest cowardice report came from the Netherlands, where a Catholic bishop said that Christian-Muslim animosity could be reduced through one simple measure: "Shouldn't we all say that from now on we will call God Allah?" Sure—and shouldn't we also wear...

Radical Islam’s Goal is Global Conquest By Andrew G. Bostom FrontPageMagazine.com | July 2, 2007The largely failed (and/or thwarted) acts of jihad terrorism at the end of this past week in London and Glasgow show once again that the aim of the current Islamic crusade against the West is global in scope, is not about Iraq and is not a fringe development in Islam itself. What Samuel Huntington aptly termed “Islam’s bloody borders” around the globe—flow from the timeless logic of jihad. Franz Rosenthal, the late (d. 2002) Yale University scholar of Islam, who, 50 years ago, translated Ibn...

What is your most lofty aspiration? Death for the sake of Allah!" That is the charming verse kindergarteners in a Hamas classroom chanted last week during their graduation ceremony. The girls dressed in butterfly costumes. The boys donned camouflage, black masks, green bandanas and toy semi-automatic rifles. The video aired by the Middle East Media Research Institute (www.memritv.org) features the children wielding swords and guns while mimicking paramilitary exercises. And how are we preparing the children of the West to defend themselves against these little soldiers of Allah? Scene 1: In New York City, one nursery school dragged 3-year-old toddlers...

By now, dozens of critics have weighed in on the massive box office success of 300, but not one I’ve read has figured out the reason for it. I have: it’s a terrific picture, one of the best in years. When I compare it to the movies that were nominated for Best Picture Oscars last year, it makes them seem to be exactly what they were: watered-down warm milk for liberal baby boomers who want to close the curtains on World War III, and snuggle down under their tie-dyed covers for a long winter’s nap full of tangerine dreams. They...

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today that any effort to stop growing violence between Islamic and Western societies must include an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Annan spoke after receiving a report from a high-level group of experts on ways to alleviate Muslim-Western clashes and misunderstandings. "We may wish to think of the Arab-Israeli conflict as just one regional conflict amongst many," said Annan, who leaves his post at the end of the year. "It is not. No other conflict carries such a powerful symbolic and emotional charge among people far removed from the battlefield." Annan said he would work...

Pope Benedict's comments last week that sparked such a furor have united the Muslim world. But the bigger story is the effect those comments are having among Catholics. Anger toward Pope Benedict xvi is unifying Muslims, but a growing sense of sympathy and loyalty to the pontiff is rousing Catholics and Europeans to his defense. We have all seen the images of rage-ridden Muslims rioting in the streets, torching churches and demanding and re-demanding an apology from the pope. Largely underreported, however, is the growing number of Catholics and Europeans surging to Benedict’s defense. Islamic rage is igniting a deeper...

JERUSALEM – Pope Benedict XVI's apologies for worldwide reaction to his remarks about Islam and his invitation today for Muslim leaders to meet with him next week are "mere diplomatic acts" and prove the pontiff does not really regret his words, a prominent Gaza Strip preacher told WND. Sheik Abu Saqer, leader of Gaza's Jihadia Salafiya Islamic outreach movement, which seeks to make secular Muslims more religious, called for holy war against the pope. He said Christian leaders such as Benedict are "afraid" because they realize Islam is Allah's favorite religion and they are going to hell unless they convert....

Dr Koenraad Elst, one of Belgium’s best orientalists and an occasional contributor to this website (if I had time I would translate more of his Dutch-language contributions into English), told me last week that he thinks “Islam is in decline, despite its impressive demographic and military surge” – which according to Dr Elst is merely a “last upheaval.” He acknowledges, however, that this decline can take some time (at least in terms of the individual human life span) and that it is possible that Islam will succeed in becoming the majority religion in Europe before collapsing. I am not a...

LET US SUPPOSE, for the sake of argument, that the war declared by al-Qaeda and other Islamists is under way. Let us further suppose that thousands of “terrorist” attacks carried out in Islam’s name during the past decades form part of this war; and that conflicts that have spread to 50 countries and more, taking the lives of millions — including in inter-Muslim blood-shedding — are the outcome of what Osama bin Laden has called “conducting jihad for the sake of Allah”. If such war is under way, there are ten good reasons why, as things stand, Islam will not...

Blog | Talk Radio Online | Columnists | Your Opinion | The News | Photos | Funnies | Books & Movies | Issues | Action Center Embrace the Clash By Doug Giles Saturday, August 26, 2006 The Islamofascists would love nothing more than to turn the American Dream into a nuclear nightmare. And this Islamic ill will is wished upon all Americans, not just the hawkish conservatives. Get it right, you who still don’t get it, these bug-eyed, helix-missing, religious zealots (someone must have pee’d in their gene pool), do not, I repeat, do not give a camel poop about:...

Does the United States have the power to eliminate terrorists and the states that support them? In terms of capacity, as opposed to will, the answer is a clear yes. Think about it. Currently, the U.S. has an arsenal of 18 Ohio class submarines. Just one submarine is loaded with 24 Trident nuclear missiles. Each Trident missile has eight nuclear warheads capable of being independently targeted. That means the U.S. alone has the capacity to wipe out Iran, Syria or any other state that supports terrorist groups or engages in terrorism -- without risking the life of a single soldier....

* The First Phase Known as "the awakening"... or more precisely from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001... The aim of the attacks of 9/11 was to provoke the US into declaring war on the Islamic world and thereby "awakening" Muslims. * The Second Phase "Opening Eyes" is, according to Hussein's definition, the period we are now in and should last until 2006. Hussein says the terrorists hope to make the western conspiracy aware of the "Islamic community."...Iraq should become the center for all global operations * The Third Phase This is described as "Arising and Standing Up" and...

Many people believe you couldn't have found a more conservative, religious and docile town in America than Greeley in 1949. There were many churches, and no bars or liquor stores allowed in town. But a six-month stay here in Greeley by an Egyptian student in 1949 made him so angry that he wrote books to express his anti-American diatribe. His name was Sayyid Qutb (SIGH-yid KUH tahb) and he became one of the founders of Islamic terrorism. Television specials, literary magazines, stories in major newspapers, thousands of blogs and now a new book have noted Greeley's influence on the man...

US foreign policy and political Islam today are deeply intertwined. Every US president since Jimmy Carter has had to deal with political Islam; none has been so challenged as George W. Bush. Policymakers, particularly since 9/11, have demonstrated an inability and/or unwillingness to distinguish between radical and moderate Islamists. They have largely treated political Islam as a global threat similar to the way that Communism was perceived. However, even in the case of Communism, foreign policymakers eventually moved from an ill-informed, broad-brush, and paranoid approach personified by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s to more nuanced, pragmatic, and reasonable policies...

The current issue of The Wilson Quarterly features an essay by Martin Walker, editor of United Press International, called "Europe's Mosque Hysteria." The basic message: "Don't worry, be happy." Sure, there are "significant numbers of potential terrorist cells" throughout Europe that reject such Western delicacies as democracy, a respect for individual liberty, the separation of church and state, freedom of religion, women's rights, and so on (I expand a bit on the list that Mr. Walker supplies), but, hey, "there are other, more promising currents" of Islamic thought. "Muslims are being changed by Europe," Mr. Walker assures us, "just as...

LONDON -- Let the recriminations begin! In the aftermath of Israel's abortive, on-again, off-again military campaign against Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, there are calls for a no-confidence vote to unseat Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. In Washington, critics of President Bush cite the latest round of Mideast violence and the discovery of a suicide plot to bomb U.S.-bound aircraft as reasons to spurn Republicans at the polls this November. In Lebanon, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah claims that Hezbollah's "victory" gives him a new mantle of political authority. His assertion is supported not just by his zealous followers -- but by governments...

Poster's note: this is a long read, but well worth it. Solzhenitsyn describes succinctly what many of us feel, but cannot express.Text of Address by Alexander Solzhenitsyn at Harvard Class Day Afternoon Exercises, Thursday, June 8, 1978 I am sincerely happy to be here with you on this occasion and to become personally acquainted with this old and most prestigious University. My congratulations and very best wishes to all of today's graduates. Harvard's motto is "Veritas." Many of you have already found out and others will find out in the course of their lives that truth eludes us if we...

Libyan Reformist Writer Dr. Muhammad Al-Huni Criticizes Abuse of the Term 'Resistance' in Arab Political Discourse In an article titled "The Lexicon of Resistance" posted on the reformist website Elaph.com on August 5, 2006, Libyan reformist writer Dr. Muhammad 'Abd Al-Muttalib Al-Huni criticizes the abuse of the term "resistance" by Islamic fundamentalists and other extremist groups.(1) The following are excerpts from the article: Resistance "Has Brought Nothing but Destruction Upon the Region" "The word 'resistance' has come to be constantly used in the killing fields known as the Middle East. The old ways resist modernity; barbarity resists civilization; the ideology...

Three of the alleged ringleaders of the foiled airplane bomb plot have been identified by western intelligence agencies involved in unraveling the plot. Two of them are believed to have recently traveled to Pakistan and were later in receipt of money wired to them from Pakistan, reportedly to purchase tickets for the suicide bombers. Sources identify the three, who are now in custody, as: --Rashid Rauf --Mohammed al-Ghandra --Ahmed al Khan

Police statement on airline bombing plot LONDON (Reuters) - Following is the full text of a statement issued by London Deputy Commissioner, Paul Stephenson on Thursday morning: "We are confident that we have disrupted a plan by terrorists to cause untold death and destruction and commit mass murder. The Commissioner has been fully briefed and he is at New Scotland Yard today. He and I want to pay tribute to officers from the Met's Anti-Terrorist Branch and the security services for the work they have undertaken to disrupt these activities. We believe that the terrorists' aim was to smuggle...

Baptist Press NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Among the nearly 68 million people in Iran, the vast majority are Muslim who place their hope not in modern-day politics or rulers but in a person who walked the earth centuries ago and is promised to return. “Both Islam and Christianity have a very well-defined eschatology, or period of the last days; both of them cannot be correct …,” said William Wagner, senior professor at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary and author of the book, “How Islam Plans to Change the World.” A majority of Shiite Muslims traditionally believe that the “12th Imam” (Islamic religious...

This year, we are told, the Muslim commemorations associated with their calendar date 27 Rajab will occur on August 22... [snip] If as the president of the Reform Party in Syria, Farid Ghadry claims, “Ahmadinejad is planning an illumination of the night sky over Jerusalem to rival the one that greeted the Prophet of Islam on his journey,” then it is difficult to imagine anything other than a full-scale Iranian nuclear attack. As Spencer continues, “a nuclear attack on Jerusalem or even an all-out conventional assault against Israel by Iran would be consistent with Ahmadinejad’s oft-repeated denials of Israel’s right...

August 22 By BERNARD LEWIS *** The phrase "Allah will know his own" is usually used to explain such apparently callous unconcern; it means that while infidel, i.e., non-Muslim, victims will go to a well-deserved punishment in hell, Muslims will be sent straight to heaven. According to this view, the bombers are in fact doing their Muslim victims a favor by giving them a quick pass to heaven and its delights -- the rewards without the struggles of martyrdom. School textbooks tell young Iranians to be ready for a final global struggle against an evil enemy, named as the U.S.,...

TWENTY years ago, during the Reagan administration, I encountered a young producer at National Public Radio who said she and her husband had decided not to have children because they were convinced they'd die in a nuclear war. Immediately, I told her, "Please, have children. There's not going to be a nuclear war." I have no idea what she did. Today, I might give the same advice, but not so swiftly. Children born into the 21st century face a far more perilous future than those in the 20th century - partly because adults now seem to lack the courage and...

The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam will Shape the Future. Vali Nasr. Norton. 304 pages. $25.95. Shiite Muslims have a saying: ''Every day is Ashura, and every city is Karbala.'' The adage evokes the murder of Husayn, the prophet Mohammed's grandson and, according to Shiites, his rightful successor. More generally, the phrase recalls Shiites' collective identity as the underdog, a neglected and often persecuted minority. Every year, on the 10th day of the first month of the Islamic calendar, Shiites worldwide mark Ashura, the day that commemorates Husayn's death in the Iraqi city of Karbala in 680 A.D. From...

ESCONDIDO – Longtime Escondido resident Vojin Joksimovich has traded his authority as a nuclear safety specialist and risk analyst to deal in the power of words. In his new book, “Revenge of the Prophet: How Clinton and his Predecessors Empowered Radical Islam� (Regina Orthodox Press), Joksimovich outlines for readers how he believes Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and other terrorist networks rose from obscurity to become a global threat during the Clinton years. He says that Clinton and others' lack of resolve to fight terrorism helped encourage terrorists. Though the book's title puts President Clinton in the hot seat, Joksimovich stressed...

Referring to the Israeli war with Hizbollah the Indonesion president is quoted as saying "This war must stop, or it will radicalize the Muslim world, even those of us who are moderate today," said Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who leads the world's most populous Muslim country. "From there, it will be just one step away to that ultimate nightmare: a clash of civilizations." The title of the article is "Muslims press U.N. for truce in Lebanon."

Global battle is for hearts and minds, prime minister says British Prime Minister Tony Blair: "This is a global fight about global values."******************************LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- The conflict in the Middle East, as well as others involving Muslim extremists, revolve around "modernization within Islam" and whether the Western system of values can "beat theirs," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in a speech Tuesday.Speaking to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, Blair went on to say that the struggle was between moderate, benign values versus the hatred and intolerance of fundamentalism."Even the issue of Israel is just part of...

Survey reveals Muslim views on violence Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta Up to 1.3 percent of Indonesian Muslims nationwide admit using violence against people or objects they consider contradictory to their beliefs, a survey found, with more than 40 percent ready to wage war for their faith. Acts of violence in the survey on religion and violence by the Center for Islamic and Social Studies (PPIM) ranged from 0.1 percent of respondents admitting their involvement in demolishing or arson of churches constructed without official permits, to 1.3 percent who committed "intimidation" against those they considered had blasphemed Islam....

" ... I planned the basis of this speech several weeks ago. The crisis in the Lebanon has not changed its thesis. It has brought it into sharp relief. The purpose of the provocation that began the conflict was clear. It was to create chaos, division and bloodshed, to provoke retaliation by Israel that would lead to Arab and Muslim opinion being inflamed, not against those who started the aggression but against those who responded to it. It is still possible even now to come out of this crisis with a better long-term prospect for the cause of moderation in...

MANY IN THE WEST see the mini-war between Israel and Hezbollah, now in its fourth week, as another episode in a tedious saga of an Arab-Jewish conflict that began with the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, a political version of the “original sin”. The conventional wisdom in the West is that the whole tale would end if Israel were to return the occupied territories to the Palestinians, allowing them to create a state of their own. But that analysis does not reflect the Middle East’s new realities. All the wars in that region of the past century,...