Iran Targets the Gulf
by Richard Miniter • May 12th
- Our allies are finally becoming force multipliers -- joining with America to use its talent and technology finally to defeat the jihadist threat. We should assist and encourage the UAE and Saudi Arabia, not abandon them.
The Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi. Iran offered "support to al-Qaeda in exchange for targeting the Gulf," according to CIA documents captured last year from Osama bin Laden's compound.
More than 7,000 miles from Washington and far from America's headlines, a war in Yemen is rewriting America's strategy against Iran and terrorism.
The three-sided civil war pits two radical Islamist forces -- Al-Qaeda's largest surviving army and Iran's biggest proxy force -- against each other and six of America's Arab allies. U.S. Special forces carry out covert raids and CIA drones rain down missiles on terror leaders.
The outcome of the Yemen war matters: U.S. forces are fighting there and a new strategy against terrorism is now being tested in the Middle East's poorest nation.
Iraq Election: Weak Government, Strong Society
by Amir Taheri • May 12th
- The first reason why this [the election] is still a big deal is that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis still seem committed to pluralist elections as the sole means of choosing their government.
- And it is a major step towards a more sophisticated form of democratic politics in which where-you-want-to-go is more important than where-you-come-from.
An overwhelming majority of Iraqis still seem committed to pluralist elections as the sole means of choosing their government. (Photo: U.S. Marine Corps/ Lance Cpl. Shane S. Keller/Wikimedia Commons.)
Iraqis are scheduled to go the polls tomorrow to elect a new parliament which would, in turn, choose a new government. You might say: So what? What's the big deal?
The first reason why this is still a big deal is that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis still seem committed to pluralist elections as the sole means of choosing their government.
In 2003, when talk of holding elections started in newly liberated Iraq, few people believed the Iraqis would understand the electoral process let alone develop a taste for it. One lost count of American and European "experts" who mocked the very idea of free elections in Iraq where, they opined, the "Arab mindset" was firmly entrenched against winning power at the ballot box.
Democrat Senator Joe Biden, the future US Vice President under Barack Obama, laughed the whole thing off. "One man, one vote, once!" he quipped. His recipe for Iraq was the division of the country into three mini-states, not democratic elections.
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