Many in the Bush administration believe that Iran's nuclear energy program is a smokescreen for developing nuclear weapons. Tehran has agreed with the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it will temporarily suspend its uranium enrichment program.

The future of America's profoundly strained relations with the Arab and Muslim world depends, to a great extent, on educating the public. Yet the very people who are in a position to perform this vital task have instead found themselves under siege from extremist pressure groups and craven politicians.

Recent U.S. Iraq policy has moved from toppling a genocidal autocrat to seeking to create a pluralist, prosperous Arab democracy and inducing neighboring regimes to replicate it. The mainstream media discuss what this might mean for the region at large, but what about for Christians in the Middle East?

The reality is that the Intifada has gone global, and that master propagandists have hijacked both the world media and the Western academy. The reality is that as soon as we speak truth to one lie, a thousand more spring up in its place.

The world is watching the goings-on in Tehran with some trepidation. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on 23 February that Iran's "flawed" elections would have an impact on the already stalled trade talks between Tehran and the European Union.

When looking at the coverage of children’s deaths, The Oregonian reported 100% of Israeli children’s deaths in news articles and 100% in news headlines, while 28% of Palestinian children’s deaths received coverage in news articles and 2% received headlines.

They are making the case that current animosities between the West and the Islamic world are being fueled by the narrow agendas of two cults: American neoconservatives and al Qaeda.

If democracy is any more up for a redefinition anywhere, now would be the time and the Middle East would be the place. Events in Iraq and the elections of the Palestians had a contageous effect in other Middle Eastern countries too.

Feeling vindicated by dramatic events in the Middle East since the Iraqi elections Jan. 30, especially the growing international clamour for Syria to withdraw from Lebanon, neo-conservatives are calling on Pres. George W. Bush to seize the moment by pressing for ”regime change” in Damascus and Iran, as well.

Two Queens men who immigrated to the U.S. as kids and went to Iraq as soldiers with the famed Fighting 69th Infantry Regiment have died in a bomb blast in Baghdad, military officials said yesterday.

Arab “exceptionalism” has produced its own scholarly literature of explanation (and apology). Now, however, the era of Arab exceptionalism may be drawing to a close. Despite the Bush administration’s admirable rhetorical commitment, it remains to be seen...

After a centuries-long winter of despotism and autocracy, the first shoots of democratic yearnings are starting to emerge in Arab soil. It's happening more quickly, and with far more support from Arab elites and ordinary people than expected...

September 11, 2001, was a catalytic event that revealed the core character of the Bush administration’s national security team. As rival factions fought for the president’s ear, the transformative ideals espoused by the neocons gained ascendancy...

Osama bin Laden remains Public Enemy No. 1 but recent developments raise questions about the ability of U.S. forces to track down the elusive terrorist and the resources dedicated to the hunt more than three years after the Sept. 11 attacks.

In quick succession, Palestinians have voted in a free and fair election for a new president, eight million Iraqis have defied the bloody insurgency to elect a representative Government and even conservative Saudi Arabia has tasted its first morsel of democracy...

With the emergence of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance as the majority party in Iraq's National Assembly, the scene is set for the drafting of a permanent constitution that will specify the Shariah, or Islamic law, as the main source of Iraqi legislation.

More than two years have passed marking the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on our nation, yet we are still recuperating from the shock that this sad and tragic event has caused us, as a society.

What happened in Lebanon this week, analysts say, is the beginning of a new era in the Middle East, one in which popular demand pushes the momentum for democracy and people's will can no longer be disregarded.

While Washington has succeeded — largely due to the enormous amount of unemployment its invasion of Iraq has produced — in getting large numbers of Iraqis to join its puppet army and police, it has had little success in winning their loyalty.

Amid all the swirling rhetoric about the future political shape of the Middle East, it’s easy to lose sight of a simple but vital distinction: Democracy and political liberalization are not the same thing.

"The sense of complete and unfettered freedom is not a widely held value" among the Arab masses, says Jon Alterman, a former U.S. diplomat and Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Furthermore, close observers have noted important signs of change within Hamas over time. From remarks made by its spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, before his assassination last year,

The challenge posed to the rest of the international community lies in the militant ethnic as well as religious bigotry so rife in the Arab world. How are this challenge and its threats to be addressed?

In Najaf, the holy Shi'ite city, the grand ayatollahs are busy advancing a religious agenda: Ali al-Sistani, Mohammad Ishaq al-Fayad, Bashir al-Najafi and Mohammad Said Hakim compose the al-marja' iyyah (source of infallible authority on all religious matters).

The war in Iraq not only drained that reservoir of goodwill; it also dragged the United States into what many see as a conflict with the Muslim world, or ummah, in general.

As the insurgency continues in Iraq, the risk is that the country becomes a regional training ground for terrorists - as Afghanistan was in the 1990s - creating newly radicalized and experienced jihadis who return home to cause trouble in Saudi Arabia...

After Afghanistan and Iraq, a new phase in the United States' "war on terror" is under preparation in which the military-minded decision-makers in Washington have short-listed various possible targets, including Iran and Syria.

Are the neoconservatives "up" or "down" in the second Bush administration? Will their agenda of transformational regime change in the Middle East be dominant in Bush II, or will their influence be reduced?

The critics have been proved wrong, both the so-called realists, more accurately denigrators, and some of the so-called friends and supporters, more precisely previous or expectant participants in the profits of tyranny.

Is Iraq on its way toward becoming an Islamic state? As the vote-counting winds down from the country's Jan. 30 election, the broad outlines of the outcome seem clear. The largely Shiite group called the United Iraqi Alliance,