Free Republic

This week's upsurge of violence in Iraq, coinciding with the onset of Ramadan, shocked opinion in the Arab world. There was grief that so many of the victims were civilians and dismay at the targeting of international humanitarian aid workers. There was criticism of US security failures. There was anger that resistance fighters could be so careless of the lives of ordinary Iraqis. The Baghdad attacks were judged to be a "political mistake" as well as a crime that could be used to justify and prolong the occupation. Ramadan is the holiest month in the Islamic calendar, a time of...

Saudi Arabia recently announced that it would hold elections for municipal council positions. The Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C., heralded the news as part of the kingdom's reform agenda and echoed an address by King Fahd last May in which he vowed to "broaden popular participation in the political process." The eventual scope of Saudi reform remains to be seen, and the reasons driving such a decision are debatable. Yet even a small step towards democracy in the conservative kingdom raises eyebrows as questions reemerge about the future of participatory government in the Islamic world. How compatible are Islam and...

The ayatollah's grandson calls for a U.S. invasion of Iran. I have no respect for the hereditary principle and neither does Shiite Islam, which considers earthly kingship to be profane. But no one can be completely uninterested in heredity per se, and my first thought, on meeting Hossein Khomeini, was that he has his grandfather's eyebrows. Still, our conversation quickly banished the notion that this 45-year-old cleric is the least bit interested in running for his grandpa's job. He is a relatively junior cleric—a sayeed—but he wears the turban and robe with some aplomb and was until recently a resident...