Commentary Archives
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The New Administration's First 100 Days
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September 29th, 2008
from the Middle East Strategy blog at Harvard
Islamism and the Media
from the Middle East Strategy blog at Harvard![]()
by Hillel Fradkin
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March 28th, 2008
Jerusalem Post Interview with Hillel Fradkin
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January 30th, 2008
Jihadists on the US-Iran Standoff
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by Daniel Kimmage
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April 3rd, 2007
The current debate raging on Sunni jihadist Internet forums about the standoff between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran highlights basic disagreements within the radical Sunni movement over how to understand contemporary political affairs. It also shows how these disagreements have prevented jihadists from forging a unified position on this issue.
Jihadist Reactions to the Execution of Saddam Hussein
The execution of Saddam Hussein, though badly botched as an impartial exercise of state power, could not have been more perfectly contrived to pose a thorny dilemma for jihadists. Before his fall, Saddam had been for them the very image of an apostate Arab tyrant, an unbelieving nationalist who cut down Islamists and ruled without regard for Qur'anic injunctions. Yet he died at the hands of the jihadists' greatest foes -- captured by "crusader" American soldiers and hanged by jeering "heretical" Shiites -- and, in shaky images caught by a mobile phone and broadcast around the world, he faced death with dignity and apparent piety, his steady-voiced recitation of the Muslim profession of faith cut short only when the trap door swung open and the noose snapped his neck.![]()
by Daniel Kimmage
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February 20th, 2007
Jihadist Virtual Culture
With jihadists able to operate openly only in conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia, the internet has become their natural refuge. Fully aware of the medium's accessibility and openness, they use it less a place to hatch plans and discuss operational details than as a web of virtual ties that bind together an imagined community of the likeminded. Yet their ultimate designs are real, not virtual, and the network of loosely linked websites that is for now the clearest expression of what might be called jihadist virtual culture speaks volumes about the current state of this global movement, its evolving ideology, emerging tendencies, and, finally, the vision of the future its adherents would like to impose on those around them.![]()
by Daniel Kimmage
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February 20th, 2007
Reading Ahmadinejad in Washington
WILL THE UNITED STATES declare war on the Islamic Republic of Iran? For months, this question has been the theme of diplomatic and public discourse--with horror usually expressed at the idea. But it now seems that we have this backwards. For the import of the letter that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, sent to President Bush in the first week of May is that Ahmadinejad and Iran have declared war on the United States. Many reasons are given, but the most fundamental is that the United States is a liberal democracy, the most powerful in the world and the leader of all the others. Liberal democracy, the letter says, is an affront to God, and as such its days are numbered. It would be best if President Bush and others realized this and abandoned it. But at all events, Iran will help where possible to hasten its end.![]()
by Hillel Fradkin
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May 29th, 2006
America in Islam
FOR ALL PRACTICAL PURPOSES, THE QUESTION OF ISLAM IN AMERICA is little more than a generation old. Yet it is already extraordinarily complicated and burdensome, both for Muslims and non-Muslims alike, with no signs of becoming any less so. This is true for a number of reasons, the most important of which is that there are not one but two questions: that of Islam in America and America in Islam.![]()
by Hillel Fradkin
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December 10th, 2005
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