Conflicts Forum

By the Rt. Hon. Michael Ancram, MP, Middle East Institute, April 19, 2007
“It is often a better use of time to talk to your enemies than your friends,” so said a wise, experienced and senior Israeli to me a few weeks ago. In a similar vein last summer following the cessation of hostilities in Lebanon […]

By Mark Perry, Bitterlemons, November 2, 2006
We might now take George Bush at his word: in the wake of the September 11 attacks, he named three nations as the “axis of evil”: North Korea, Iran and Iraq. The statement had a solid tripartite ring to it, conjuring images of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial […]

Part five: The politics of indignation
By Mark Perry and Alastair Crooke, Asia Times, June 8, 2006
The foundational belief of the “war on terrorism” is that militant Islam is hollow. We are not fighting a credible movement with a set of core beliefs, but “evildoers” - people who have nothing to say, who are without values, […]

Part three: An exchange of narratives
By Mark Perry and Alastair Crooke, Asia Times, June 3, 2006
There was a time in the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001, when Western intellectuals debated the meaning of the attacks that occurred on that day and the most appropriate way to counter them. There was a welter of voices, […]

Part two: Handing victory to the extremists
By Mark Perry and Alastair Crooke, Asia Times, April 1, 2006
After the writers of this article and our colleagues visited the Middle East for talks with some of the leaders of political Islam (see Part 1: Talking with the ‘terrorists’), our work was greeted warily - when even acknowledged […]

Part one: Talking with the ‘terrorists’
By Mark Perry and Alastair Crooke, Asia Times, March 31, 2006
Seventy-two hours before the Iraqi people voted on a new parliament, on December 12, 2005, we were told by a senior US administration official that “detailed data received by the White House” pointed to a “decisive win” for Ayad Allawi’s […]