saddam hussein

Illustration of the elephant Abu al-Abbas

Despite the official holy war between Islam and Christendom, Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid and Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne exchanged lavish gifts, including an elephant named Abu al-Abbas, and built a largely forgotten alliance. This reveals how Christians and Muslims can simultaneously be foes and friends and how sharing a religion is no guarantee of peace, just as belonging to different faiths is no assurance of war.

How not to fight extremism in America

A sudden lurch from ignoring or underplaying the threat of right-wing extremism in America to treating white crusaders like jihadis and QAnon like al-Qaeda will set off the insurgency timebomb rather than defuse it.

The mediocrity of evil

Many of the leaders held up as representing the epitome of evil were extraordinarily and spectacularly untalented, incapable and incompetent. With this mediocrity of evil, it is almost a wonder that they managed to rise to the top at all.

Saddam Hussein: Laughing in the face of tyranny

In light of the continuing legacy of Saddam Hussein’s rule and the US invasion of Iraq, is it appropriate to stage a comedy about the former despot?

The real battle against ISIS is political and social

If ISIS is a virus, then fighting it with the antibiotic of ill-conceived deadly force and repression could create ever-more deadly strains.

The death throes of Arab thuggery

Arab civilisation has not collapsed but the thuggish political, economic and religious mafias dominating the region are dying violently.

The caliphate illusion: “Restoring” what never was

The tyranny of Arab secular dictators and destructive Western hegemony combined to enable ISIS to “restore” a brutal caliphate which never existed.

Bush, Blair en de blitzkrieg in Irak

Gezien de verreikende gevolgen van de Amerikaanse invasie van Irak, laten we het idee om Bush en Blair voor het gerecht te brengen nieuw leven inblazen.

Criminally reckless architects of Iraq invasion must face justice

The US invasion and occupation caused Iraq to implode into anarchy and then explode into civil war. For that reason, its architects must be prosecuted