~by E.D. Kain

This is a pretty apt description of the lefties whose apologism to Islamist radicals has gotten so out of hand, that publishers, theatres, and art venues have all started pre-censoring just about anything critical of Islam from Mozart to the new authour “The Jewel of Medina” by Sherry Jones.

(note: the link to Amazon above results in a dead search)

Mick Hume writes for the Times Online, and published an article recently decrying this abandonment of our freedoms. He writes:

The threat to freedom here does not come from a few Islamic radicals, but from the invertebrate liberals of the cultural establishment who have so lost faith in themselves that they will surrender their freedoms before anybody starts a fight.

Indeed, though the Islamists are responsible for initially causing a great deal of noise about the publication of various cartoons and pictures, it is the Left that has buckled, along with corporations fearful for their profits and employees’ safety.

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by David F. Winkler
Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2007. 244 pp. $34.95

Reviewed by Dale Eikmeier
U.S. Army War College

Written as a history of the U.S. Navy’s relationship with Bahrain and aimed at naval historians, Winkler’s book, Amirs, Admirals, and Desert Sailors: Bahrain, the U.S. Navy, and the Arabian Gulf, fills a void for scholars of U.S. Middle East policy. Winkler, director of programs and development at the Naval Historical Foundation in Washington, D.C., chronicles the history of the U.S. naval presence in the Persian Gulf from the mid-twentieth century’s petroleum and shipping offices to the present-day headquarters of the Fifth Fleet. He reveals how a series of naval officers with scant foreign policy experience forged productive relationships with Bahrain’s rulers based on mutual respect, the Navy’s need for oil, and Bahrain’s need for security. As Sheikh Essa is quoted saying to an American, “Your men and women, the ships and aircraft of the Fifth Fleet, are a mountain of fire that separates us from the Iranians, and that presence of naval forces is what has given us peace and prosperity.”

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by Michael Rubin*

FAIRFAX - As Iranian centrifuges spin and Russian tanks roll into Georgia, foreign policy has moved to the front of the presidential election debate. Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, promises change. Such rhetoric appeals to an electorate exasperated with President Bush, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and high energy prices. How ironic it is then that that by conflating change with pandering, Obama replicates Bush’s mistakes.

It was neither the Iraq war nor the failure to embrace multilateralism which undercut U.S. credibility under Bush, but rather foreign policy flip-flops. On June 24, 2002, amidst a rash of Palestinian suicide attacks, Bush won the plaudits of terror victims when he declared, “Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership [uncompromised by terror], so that a Palestinian state can be born.” His audience applauded.

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By Douglas Farah*

I am not a Russia expert and defer to Robert Kagan and others to paint the macro picture of what Russia’s incursion into Georgia means.

But there are several issues, outside of these, that need to be looked at in terms of Russia in the greater world, and our relationship to Russia, particularly in counter-terrorism and weapons proliferation issues.

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by Michael Rubin*

Press and pundits applauded George Bush’s decision last month to send a representative to Geneva to join a meeting with Iran’s nuclear negotiator. Barack Obama, the 2008 presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said, “Now that the United States is involved, it should stay involved with the full strength of our diplomacy.” Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, said the decision might be “the most welcome flip flop in diplomatic history”.

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by Michael Rubin*

Obama’s words are inspirational, but if anything will be learned from the Bush administration, it is that leadership must run deeper than rhetoric. Berlin’s freedom was won with blood and treasure. It was secured neither with withdrawals nor unilateral disarmament.

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A briefing by Douglas J. Feith*

Douglas J. Feith was undersecretary of defense for policy in the Bush administration (2001-05), and is a professor of national security policy at Georgetown University. He previously served in several capacities in the Reagan administration. His articles on foreign and defense affairs have appeared in the Middle East Quarterly as well as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Commentary. He was educated at Georgetown University and Harvard College.

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By Barry Rubin

Here’s what Israel thinks: Since Iran’s regime is thoroughly radical and deeply committed to its destruction, Israel can’t accept Tehran having nuclear weapons. Unless sanctions and pressures can stop this program Israel must attack in order to defend itself.

That’s a correct strategy. But there are problems with it, as is always true of even the best policies.

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By Shirzad Azad

This article suggests that Japan’s staunch support for the United States over the course of the Iraq War was substantially influenced by its foreign policy toward the Persian Gulf region in general and Saddam’s Iraq in particular after the 1990-1991 crisis, as well as by its security alliance with the United States.

In his January 2002 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush branded Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as the "Axis of Evil." Less than three weeks later, Bush made a state visit to Japan. After a speech at the Japanese parliament on February 18, 2002, he met with then Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Joined only by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Japan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Toshiyuki Takano, Bush informed Koizumi that the United States would attack Iraq.^[1] Koizumi had roughly 13 months to prepare the ground for Japan’s support for this development.

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by Caroline Sevier*

Almost as soon as it started, the democratization agenda that the Bush administration hoped would be the lodestar of its post 9-11 foreign policy has been all but shelved. The insurgency and sectarian bloodshed in Iraq, the regional threat posed by an expansionist Iran, and the Palestinian civil war have combined to help resurrect the U.S. embrace of regional stability as a foreign policy priority and have convinced President George W. Bush to reduce his emphasis on transformative diplomacy. Leaders such as Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Saudi King Abdullah bin Abd al-’Aziz, whom many administration officials viewed as embarrassing allies during Bush’s first term, now enjoy a renaissance of U.S. support. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, for example, said little as Mubarak crushed liberal dissidents, and shortly before Bush met the Saudi king, he parried questions after a Saudi court sentenced a 19-year-old rape victim to 200 lashes and six months in jail.[1]

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By Barry Rubin

Clearly, the conduct of negotiations by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government with Syria, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas, has an Israeli political dimension. Yet it is easy to misunderstand this relationship.

Olmert’s unpopularity and personal involvement with strong corruption allegations give him an incentive to conduct such talks. His basic argument is: I’m engaged in such important efforts to achieve peace as to render unimportant all these other petty issues. Stop distracting me.

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by Daniel Pipes*

With the Democratic Party primaries over, American voters can focus on issues of political substance. For instance: How do the two leading candidates for U.S. president differ in their approach to Israel and related topics? Parallel interviews with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, who spoke in early May with Democrat Barack Obama and in late May with Republican John McCain, offer some important insights.

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By Barry Rubin

Engagement doesn’t always produce marriage. In the U.S.-Iran case, diplomatic engagements have been repeatedly disastrous. Yet many think the idea of engagement was just invented and never tried.^[1]

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By Jonathan Spyer

At this past Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert issued a public statement relating to the revived negotiations with Syria. The talks, the prime minister wished to assure us, were “serious” and would be conducted with “all due caution.” All the ingredients familiar from peace processes past were present in Olmert’s statement: the gravitas; the quiet sense that history is presenting us with a chance that must not be missed; the necessary discretion. However, in the manner now familiar from Olmert’s tenure as prime minister, what we were presented with was the form of something, without its content.

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By Barry Rubin

Why is Israel negotiating with Syria and what happened in Lebanon? One of these events may be the Middle East’s most important development for 2008. Hint: it isn’t the first of them.

Let’s consider why the two sides are “negotiating” including the fact that they aren’t negotiating.

There isn’t going to be a deal. Both sides know it, yet have good reason to be seen talking, indirectly that is.

Start with six factors that account for Israeli government policy:

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