Muslims and Liberals

Myriad East-West interactions renewing religious and secular values

Iran deal: Break it and you own it

Posted on by Mustafa Malik

America can start a conflict with Iran and throw a “Mission Accomplished” party after a likely initial victory. But only Iran could end the war. With its network of activists and militias across the “Shiite Crescent,” the Islamic Republic could set the Middle East on fire, which probably wouldn’t stop before consuming many of America’s interests and endangering its hegemony in Muslim west Asia.

Hijab and Muslim women

Posted on by Mustafa Malik

Muslim women’s headgear, or hijab, is “a symbol of a dangerous purity culture” among people “obsessed with honor and virginity.” I realize that Asra Nomani, who made this comment, has acquired an Islamophobic prejudice about hijab.  Many Westerners, especially Islam-baiters, say that the hijab is imposed by bigoted Muslim men on unwilling women. Ms. Nomani was...

Gaping cracks in liberalism

Posted on by Mustafa Malik

“Bernie Sanders won’t beat Hillary” Clinton. And “Jeremy Corbyn probably won’t be Britain’s next prime minister.” All the same, “liberalism is living dangerously,” and you would be wise to “hedge [your] bet” against its demise. After all, “all orders pass away.” I was floored by these year-end thoughts of Ross Douthat, a right-wing columnist for...

‘Radical Islam,’ Islam, liberalism

Posted on by Mustafa Malik

The U.S. Army chief of staff, Gen. Mark Milley, appears to be out of sync with his commander-in-chief on the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The general says ISIS is a product of “radical Islam or militant Islam,” which endangers Western societies based on liberalism. President Obama and his administration...

ISIS war beckons kurdish state

Posted on by Mustafa Malik

ON SUNDAY NIGHT President Obama called on Turkey, again, “to seal its border with Syria.” He was giving a status report on America’s war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Last week Defense Secretary Ashton Carter demanded, somewhat impatiently: “Turkey must do more to control its often porous border” with Syria. Other...

How Islamic ‘Islamic terrorists’?

Posted on by Mustafa Malik

It was bloodcurdling! On Friday night when I saw on my television screen Islamic State terrorists mowing down unsuspecting Parisians, chills ran down my spine. Those Muslim killers, most of them French-born, slaughtered 132 people and wounded 350 others. The same kind of horror had also struck me when I saw mangled bodies of Pakistani...

‘Islamic bomb’ scare, again!

Posted on by Mustafa Malik

“Persuading Pakistan to rein in its nuclear weapons program should be an international priority. “The major world powers spent two years negotiating an agreement to restrain the nuclear ambitions of Iran, which doesn’t have a single nuclear weapon. Yet there has been no comparable investment of effort in Pakistan.” – The New York Times Editorial Board...

God help Israel

Posted on by Mustafa Malik

I SUSPECT that you can still make a buck selling snake oil to folks at the Wall Street Journal. The newspaper laments that John Kerry’s plan to install cameras on Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount in East Jerusalem wasn’t working. Palestinians and Israelis were still fighting and dying. Surprise! Surprise! Apparently Rory Jones, the writer, and his...

Cow, Crescent and Star in Postcolonial States

Posted on by Mustafa Malik

Middle East Policy2015 In November 2014, President Obama accepted India’s invitation to be the chief guest at its Republic Day celebrations. He will be the first American president to do so. I was in Kolkata (Calcutta), India’s “cultural capital” when this was announced. Most of my interlocutors there were euphoric about the news, especially the...

Declare Middle East nuke-free

Posted on by Mustafa Malik

Persian Gulf monarchies are petrified by the anticipated Iran nuclear deal, being negotiated in Geneva. Last week Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates threatened to try to acquire nuclear weapons technology if they didn’t get one of two things from the Iran deal. One, they wanted the Islamic Republic’s uranium enrichment program shut down...