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The riots ignited by the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten's derogatory images of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) have escalated into violent protests that are no longer aimed at the offending newspaper or even against its homeland, Denmark. Protesters in several Muslim countries, including Pakistan and Indonesia, have targeted American and other Western interests as well as Christian churches.
In 1958, an American U-2 spy plane flying over Israel spotted an unusual construction site near the small Negev Desert town of Dimona. The facility featured a long perimeter fence, building activity and several roads. Israeli officials initially called the facility a textile plant; they later changed their minds and described it as a "metallurgical research installation."
A successful Russian modernization is the most reliable basis for the foreign attractiveness of the country. Volumes of energy resources as such will not make Russia a great power, energy is not the same as leadership, nor is harshness the same as effectiveness. This is precisely how a post-imperial project differs from a neo-imperial one.
Several developments has turned the tide against the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The political fortunes of the DPP, which rose to power in 2000 by championing a new Taiwanese identity and recklessly challenged the fragile status quo in the Taiwan Strait, has been waning. Its leadership has lost credibility, both with a majority of Taiwan's voters and with Washington.
Concern in the U.S. for Arab liberals has taken on a desperate edge, as though all this activity were a last ditch attempt to support a political alternative that ballot boxes in the Arab world have proved too fragile to sustain. The Carnegie Endowment's Amr Hamzway comments on the numerous factors that contribute to this misreading of current political trends in the Arab world in a new editorial.
Ahmadinejad's threat to external security and internal freedoms is bringing forth an opposition coalition that sees more clearly the dangers of confrontation with the West. A nimble U.S. policy, one that plots a strategy beyond the next Security Council vote, can help these forces inside Iran succeed.
The inherent weaknesses of the U.S.-Pakistan alliance were exposed in the aftermath of the recent U.S. air strike inside Pakistani territory. Pakistan's military regime would either have to deliver on its promises to the US or run the risk of further American actions that may not always be pre-approved by the Pakistanis.