After months of wishing away young anti-American Shi’a alim Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr, Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki is trying to marginalize the Sadrist Current (al-Tayyar al-Sadri) by military means. But the Iraqi military offensive against the Sadrists, which was supposed to demonstrate the power of the central government, has actually laid bare its weaknesses and highlighted the political weight of Sadr’s movement. Operation Cavalry Charge (Sawlat al-Fursan), which began on March 25 in Basra and set off clashes with Mahdi Army fighters in several cities throughout southern Iraq and in the Baghdad itself, has also underlined the growing influence of Iran in post-Saddam Iraq.
Five years and still sinking. That is what may well best describe the overall status in the world of its “sole superpower” as it careens from one war-euphemism to another. The United States of America, the inheritor of twentieth-century superpower rivalry, has been scrambling propaganda flares to distract attention from its downward movement ever since it invaded Iraq.
In 2003 the US invaded Iraq on the basis of a fabricated threat of “weapons of mass destruction” (WMDs), backed up by the dubious misinterpretation of intelligence materials. Last year, the US’s military intelligence community effectively vetoed a White House and administration plan to attack Iran using similarly dubious claims about its nuclear program.
Getting on the wrong side of the US involves great risks, but being its friend is no less dangerous. No country proves this better than Pakistan. Since its creation, successive Pakistani regimes have attempted to cultivate close links with Washington. The result has been an unmitigated disaster: today Pakistan is on the verge of disintegration, thanks to the stifling embrace of the US, especially since 9/11, and to Washington’s deliberate attempts to undermine the country.
When US president George W. Bush claimed last month that Iraq had been a victory for the US, hollow laughter echoed around the world. In this article, KHALIL FADL considers the real legacy of the Iraqwar, five years after the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
As NATO heads of state converge on Bucharest, the Romanian capital, in the first week of April, the question uppermost on everyone's mind will be the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. Despite the presence of more than 50,000 NATO troops, the security situation has worsened and the insurgency has escalated.
On March 3, there was further evidence of the US's involvement in Ethiopia's occupation of Somalia, when a Tomahawk missile fired from a US submarine hit the town of Dobley in southern Somalia, five miles from the border with Kenya, destroying at least one house and injuring six people.
The US and its allies are not only losing the war in Afghanistan, but their military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), is also on the verge of unravelling as a result of this failure. Several Western officials, including US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, defence secretary Robert Gates, British foreign secretary David Miliband and Lord Paddy Ashdown, a British peer, have in recent days given dire warnings about NATO’s impending collapse.
With their zeal, courage and discipline, Hizbullah's intrepid fighters stood off Israel's military juggernaut in the hilly, forested landscape of southernLebanon. Ensconced in villages and towns throughout southern Lebanon, Hizbullah's fighters weathered 33 days of intense Israeli air-strikes and a series of tank-led ground incursions, and emerged victorious.
Hizbullah's stunning victory over Israel has boosted many people's morale, especially Muslims who are struggling for peace and justice all over the world. By defeating the most powerful military machine in the Middle East, Hizbullah has not only demolished the myth of Israel's invincibility but also shaken the Arab potentates in their huge palaces to their boots.
Hizbullah has won a stunning victory over the Israelis in southern Lebanon. That is a reality recognised by virtually everyone around the world, despite the efforts of the Israelis and their supporters in the West to pretend otherwise.
The international arms trade is one of the largest and most profitable in the world, with developing countries spending vast amounts on Western arms. ABDAR RAHMAN KOYA discusses how the West abuses its power in this unequal and exploitative relationship.
As international pressure on Sudan to admit UN peacekeepers in Darfur appeared to flounder by mid-August, the US and Britain – the two main powers behind the scheme intensified their effort to break the resolve of president Omar Hassan al-Bashir to resist their ill-disguised plot to prepare for the eventual separation of the Western region from the rest of Sudan.
Kyrgyzstan was an ally of the US during the 15-year rule of president Askar Aliyev, who was toppled in an unexpected uprising last year. By contrast the new president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was elected on July 10 to replace his predecessor (who had fled the country), has turned to Russia and China for support.
Ethiopia – which has been amassing forces along the border with Somalia while secretly maintaining some inside – openly sent troops on July 20 to the town of Baidoa. This move was made not only to protect the Somali transitional government there against the advancing militias of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), but also to take a leading role in the US's ‘war on terrorism' in the "failed state".
The current invasion of Somalia by Ethiopian troops – armed and funded by the US, which has military and intelligence units placed in neighbouring Djibouti – has already rekindled Somali fellow-feeling and pride in Islam. The result is that the people of Somalia are now united in strong support for the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) and opposition to the almost vanished transitional government in Baidoa.
1The fighting in Darfur has taken a new turn since the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) split up into two factions that are now locked in battle with each other, ending their unity against the Sudanese army.
Time was obviously not on the side of Australia and the US, right from the day respected alim Abu Bakar Basyir was sentenced to jail two years ago for a crime he was too frail to plan or carry out. On 14 June, it was like a discordant alarm-clock that went off too early for Canberra, the self-appointed deputy sheriff of Bush's international police force.
The death of Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi in an American air strike on June 7 has been greeted with joy by the beleaguered US regime. Among Muslims, his image was mixed: some saw him as a courageous resistance leader, fighting against a global superpower, others as a murderous sectarian extremist. NASR SALEM discusses the life and legacy of a symbol of modern Iraq.
Even before the annual meeting of heads of member-states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) opened on June 15, officials in Washington were pulling their hair at what they perceived as a challenge to US hegemony in the vital Eurasian region.
