Yesterday, The Los Angeles Times ran an article entitled ‘Terrorism meets xenophobia in Russia’. Its authors suggest that If current demographic trends continue, within the next half-century Muslims will constitute a sizeable part, perhaps even a plurality, of Russia's population. Indeed, Moscow currently has more Muslim inhabitants than any other European city. The difference between the Russian and European situation, according to the authors, is the following: unlike those in Amsterdam or Paris, most of Moscow's Muslims are citizens, not immigrants — products of the Russian Empire's 19th century southward expansion. The Domodedovo Airport bombing points to the need for better intelligence and policing to protect all of Russia's citizens. But the larger challenge for Russian citizens and their government involves coming to terms with a future in which the Muslim periphery is no longer so peripheral, the authors conclude.
The same media agency also published analytical article concerning developments in Egypt. It suggests that the fear of Islamists coming to power has long paralysed U.S. policy but it shouldn't guide US approach to Egypt. According to the author, more democracy in Egypt may give the U.S. headaches. But if Mubarak tries to cling to power in the coming weeks and months — against the wishes of hundreds of thousands of defiant, determined Egyptians — the U.S. will have a far larger problem. America will always have an "Islamist dilemma." But it can be managed. Egypt is a good place to start trying. Another article on the same subject, headlined ‘Cairo is not Tehran’, suggests that on the surface, there are parallels between the Islamic revolution and present situation in Egypt. The author poses a question: Is that what will happen in Egypt in 2011? And is President Obama another Jimmy Carter, fecklessly abandoning a loyal ally despite mortal dangers ahead? The author answers this rhetorical question himself: Egypt isn't Iran; Obama isn't Carter. In some respects, Obama has steered a very different course from Carter's a generation ago. Carter stood by Iran's doomed shah for months before scrambling to look for alternatives; Obama bluntly told Mubarak his time was up after only a week of demonstrations in Tahrir Square. And unlike Carter, Obama has a strategy; he's placing his bets on Egypt's military command to oversee a peaceful change of power.
The Washington Post published an article entitled ‘Iran's opposition leaders hope to draw from protests in Egypt’. According to it, the uprising in Egypt has served as vindication of their country's Islamic revolution 32 years ago for Iranian leaders, but for the opposition, the scenes on the streets of Cairo have brought stark reminders of their own unfinished quest for political reform. The author sites Abbas Abdi, an analyst critical of the government, who said Iran's support for Egyptian and Tunisian protesters could boomerang. "They do not realize that by supporting the North African demonstrations, they are also supporting protests in general," said Abdi, who was among the revolutionaries who helped to topple the shah in 1979. "In the future it will make any clampdown on protests by Iranian people a lot harder."
The New York Times points out another aspect of long-term US-Iran struggle: according to the media-agency, the trial of the three American hikers accused of espionage and illegally entering Iran began behind closed doors on Sunday, (February, 6) and not guilty pleas were entered on their behalf. Only two of the Americans, Joshua F. Fattal and Shane M. Bauer, both 28, appeared in court on Sunday. The third American, Sarah E. Shourd, 32, who is Mr. Bauer’s fiancée, was released on bailin September for medical reasons and returned to the United States. The three were arrested near the border with Iraqi Kurdistan in June 2009. The judge, presiding over the Americans’ trial, is known for sentencing a number of opposition protesters to death after Mr. Ahmadinejad’s re-election in June 2009.
