From The Nation, a special issue on Afghanistan: Obama's Fateful Choice. From Rolling Stone, Robert Dreyfus on The Generals' Revolt: Obama faces two insurgencies: the Taliban and the Pentagon. From Commentary, Max Boot on how we can win in Afghanistan. Remembering Afghanistan’s Golden Age: From the 1930s to the 1970s, Afghanistan had a semblance of a national government and Kabul was known as “the Paris of Central Asia”. Jason Zengerle on Rory Stewart, the T. E. Lawrence of Afghanistan. From Red Pepper, Alastair Crooke on Red Shi’ism, Iran and the Islamist revolution (and two responses). The new hostage crisis: Why Iran's rulers imprison people they know are innocent. Larry Franklin on his secret plan to overthrow the mullahs. From New Internationalist, a special issue on Islam in power. From LRB, a review of Murder in the Name of Honour by Rana Husseini; In Honour of Fadime: Murder and Shame by Unni Wikan; and Honour Killing: Stories of Men Who Killed by Ayse Onal. The introduction to Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought: Texts and Contexts from al-Banna to Bin Laden. From Foreign Affairs, a review of Forces of Fortune: The Rise of the New Muslim Middle Class and What It Will Mean for Our World by Vali Nasr; and under the leadership of the AKP, Turkey's foreign policy is becoming more Islamist — can the country's history of cooperation with the West survive? Geopolitical grandstanding, from a Turkish perspective: What a global empire based on pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism would look like, a mega-state combining the Ummah (the lands where Islam dominates) with Turan (the name for all countries and regions inhabited by Turkic people).
