Free Republic

President Barack Obama has launched a wave of high-stakes US diplomacy in the Middle East as Washington seeks to ratchet up pressure on Iran over its nuclear program. Obama has enlisted his top deputies in the diplomatic drive to isolate Tehran and impose stricter sanctions on the regime, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, chief military officer Admiral Mike Mullen and senior diplomats travelling to the region this week and Vice President Joe Biden due next month. Clinton signaled the administration's tougher tone during a visit to the Gulf, warning on Monday that Iran was turning into a “military dictatorship”...

I usually write my own column, but recent events in the Middle East call for voices from that region to be heard among the mainstream media din. Some Muslims promote Jihad while others support democratic reform. It has long been my contention that --contrary to the caterwauling of the American and European left--the forces of the current Islamist Jihad are limited by their preferred method of combat and by one of their main tenets; opposition to democratic institutions. The first is a fact of nature: A movement whose main weapon of choice is the martyrdom of an entire generation of...