UK -Politics & World Current Affairs

First published in London-Saturday  November 18,2006

By Adel Darwish

Ignoring some challenging issues to focus instead on self gratification when their adversaries are in trouble is a phenomenon bedeviling left wing intellectuals, whether British and Europeans or Egyptians and Arabs. And since “my enemy’s enemy is my friend,'’ the leftists’  anti-Americanism has pushed them, perhaps by coincidence rather than by choice, into the same camp of backward, reactionary, and extreme fascist and other totalitarian movements.

To prove their point that America’s project to promote democracy in the Greater Middle East was a daft idea, many lefties wish Iraq’s government – the first democratically elected in half a century in that country- to fail. And since the main target of the so called Iraqi ‘resistance’ are ordinary Iraqis including women and children, it is blindly obvious that the price of the lefties  ‘proving their point’ is  Iraqis and Afghanis blood, while other oppressed nations’ would miss a historic opportunity to break free from despotism. Wouldn’t this put the leftist intellectuals in the same bloc as forces of corruption, darkness and totalitarianism? 

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London- 16 Novmber

In His annual speech at the Lord Mayor’s dinner at the Gild Hall in the City of London, where Prime Ministers traditionally outline their foreign policy strategy, Tony Blair gave a review of his and provided some options for President George Bush to sort out the mess in Iraq.

By Adel Darwish

 British Prime Minister Tony Blair was quick to call for some practical steps to discover the sliver lining in the clouds of the latest electoral storm to hit President George W. Bush’s ship which was sailing with a broken compass using ancient charts on which there were no marks to identify some new currents and streams of some dangerous perils. Blair’s diplomacy is subtle and wise. He does not embarrass his allies nor does he antagonise his adversaries. He used the traditional Prime Minister’s speech during the Lord Mayor’s dinner at the Guildhall in the city of London – an annual event marking the election of the new Lord Mayor  John Stuttard- to  explain British foreign policy. The Prime Minister outlined the priorities of his policy commencing with solutions to issues in the Middle East and Iraq, and the war against terrorism.

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Monday 16 October 2006 

The Leader of the Commons and former Foreign Secretary  Jack Straw dropped a bomb shell a few days ago by writing a column in his constituency local paper saying he asked veiled Muslim women to consider removing the Niqab (full veil)  when visiting him in his surgery. The surprise was that many of them obliged, but the attack on him, from self-styled Muslim leaders and from British left came as no surprise.

By  Adel Darwish.

The heat of the ongoing debate about the Muslim full-veil Niqab  in Britain today mustn’t let us overlook some constitutional, democratic and cultural aspects which the controversy touches.  The debate, or rather the uproar among Muslims, and sections of the British left, began when the leader of the   Commons Jack Straw revealed that during his meetings with his female Muslim constituents in his weekly surgery in Blackburn, North West England, he asked them politely (not demanded) to consider the niqab from a broader perspective; and to think whether it was a barrier to their fully communicating with their, male and female, fellow citizens?

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London- 11 August :

A group, of mainly British Muslims, was plotting for the past eight months, to smuggle chemicals aboard planes and assemble liquid bombs during the flights and blow them above the Atlantic or above US cities, three at a time, causing maximum death. But fighting terror by security measure alone is not enough; we must fight the ideology of the terrorists, and free young Muslim minds from the hands of evil clergy who preach violence and terror. By  Adel Darwish.

The stress to Londoners and the tension engulfing the place, not to mention to mention financial and economic losses especially among British Muslims, were only comparable to those that followed the terrorist attacks on 7/7 last year, which claimed more than 50 lives, and injured more than a hundred of from several ethnic and religious backgrounds including Muslims. If it wasn’t for a mixture of luck – or divine providence –, alertness of MI5, Special Branch and other security agencies and the cooperation from many British Muslims, the disaster would have been of a much larger scale than 7/7 and the loss of life would have been much higher than that of last July, and even the losses at of Bali, Taba, Sharm al-Shaykh, and perhaps 9/11.

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London- 26 July 2006 

Prime Minister Tony Blair’s handling of last month Middle East crisis alarmed British elder diplomats as they sensed the ghosts of Suez  hovering above Downing Street. It also serve asa reminders that the Americans will always put their interest first as they did in 1956 when they gave Britain the cold shoulder instead of standing `shoulder to shoulder’ and stabbed the ‘historic friend’ in the back to further their interests in the Middle East at Britain’s expense.
By Adel Darwish.

Fifty years ago( July 26, 1956)  Anthony Eden’s dinner party for young King Faisal II of Iraq and his Prime Minister the seasoned Nuri Pasha al-Said, was interrupted by news of Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser had Nationalised Suez Canal, just nine years before its concession agreement granted by the Egyptian government was to run out. Grabbing the world’s most vital water-way, was illegal under both Egyptian and international laws. The shareholders weren’t just  big investors, but a considerable number were Egyptians and others, including WW2 widows, investing their life savings, or disability and war compensation.

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I penned this coulmn a few hours after the terror attack on London 7/7

Published Friday, 8, July, 2005 

London - Adel Darwish 
 
The barbaric terrorist attacks in London yesterday were condemned by all civilized nations. In addition to condemning the atrocities, Muslim and Middle Eastern leaders were among the first to send messages of support, sympathy and solidarity with Britain.

Words of condemnation and solidarity are fine and great in their symbolic value, but they are not enough unless backed by practical measures in cooperation with Britain and the rest of the civilized world to defeat the evil forces of terrorism.

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This column was first published  on Wednesday, 6, April, 2005

London - Adel Darwish
President George Bush vowed to correct flaws in intelligence gathering exposed by a bipartisan presidential commission concluding that US intelligence was “dead wrong’’ on Iraq and that flaws were still all too common among America’s intelligence community. The report outlined 74 recommendations for improving information sharing among the agencies and fostering dissent.

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This Column was first published on Monday, 28, February, 2005

London - Adel Darwish

British Home Secretary Charles Clarke’s Prevention of Terrorism Bill was condemned by at least 30 members of his own Labour Party, including eight of his former Cabinet colleagues, who voted with the opposition against the bill on Wednesday (Feb. 23).

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This blog is edited by Adel Darwish. A Veteran Fleet Street reporter, and Middle East Specialist