The irony is certainly not lost on Iran. From Business in Africa, Sept. 22:

Cairo - The United States ambassador to Egypt, Francis Ricciardone, said his country has no problem with an Egyptian nuclear programme and was ready to supply nuclear technology to help.

We generally agree with the thrust of leftist Israeli commentator Uri Avnery's argument here, but he makes a few glitches which are all the more embarrassing in a piece which attempts to set the historical record straight (and which actually calls out the Pope on a scholarly glitch). As the Catholic Encyclopedia informs us, Constantine was declared Caeser by his troops in 306, but did not actually become emperor of Rome unitl the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in October 312. But the more important matter is that Avnery overstates his case—and therefore risks delegitimizing it. It is true that Jews and Chrisitians were generally treated better in the medieval Islamic world than Jews and Muslims were in the contemporaneous Christian world. But the tolerance of dhimmis in the conquered territories doesn't mean those territories weren't conquered by the sword. Yes, when the Crusaders took Jerusalem in 1099, they carried out a general massacre of the populace, Muslims and Jews alike. In contrast, when the Muslims under Caliph Omar took Jerusalem in 638, there was no bloodshed. But this was only after an 18-month siege following the defeat of the Byzantine armies at the Battle of Yarmouk. Funny how the very same event is cited by those who wish to debunk the notion of Islam as a region of peace (e.g. the Islam: Spead by the Sword timeline at the pro-secular Iranian.ws wesbite). History, it seems, is in the eye of the beholder. From Media Monitors Network, Sept. 24:

You knew that it would. But an interesting glimmer of hope is that in Egypt, where Muslim-Coptic tensions have exploded into violence all too recently, both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Coptic hierarchy are urging people to chill out. In vivid contrast, of course, to the ever-predictable "al-Qaeda in Iraq." From MSNBC, Sept. 17:

Islamic militants vow war after pope comments
'We are afraid,' Middle East Christians say in face of continued Muslim fury,
CAIRO - Al-Qaida militants in Iraq vowed war on "worshippers of the cross" and protesters burned a papal effigy on Monday over Pope Benedict’s comments on Islam, while Western churchmen and statesmen tried to calm passions.

A military court in Jordan Sept. 13 convicted 10 people in two cases involving conspiracies to kill "Americans training Iraqi police" at the Muwaqqar barracks outside Amman. The court said the defendants were found guilty of "conspiring to carry out terrorist acts and of illegal possession of automatic weapons," in two plots foiled last year.

From London Class War, July 26:

HezBollocks and IsRabies:
A Class War Federation statement on the War in Lebanon
Class War is appalled at the carnage that is occurring in the Middle East. We are also disappointed but not surprised at what is being said about it, especially by some "progressive" organisations.

A radical offshoot from the PKK seems to be emulating al-Qaeda tactics. From Reuters, Aug. 29:

Kurdish rebels warn of "hell"
ANTALYA, Turkey - A shadowy Kurdish rebel group threatened on Tuesday to turn Turkey into "hell" after a two-day bombing spree which killed three people and wounded dozens of others at popular tourist resorts.

Helicopter-borne Israeli commandos raided a supposed Hezbollah stronhold in the Bekaa Valley Aug. 20 in what Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora called a "naked violation" of the UN-backed truce. Three Hezbollah guerrillas were reportedly killed in a dawn firefight with the Israeli commandos. The Israeli army said it had suffered one dead and two wounded. Israel said the operation aimed to disrupt weapons supplies to Hezbollah from Syria and Iran. Both countries deny arming the group. (Taipei Times, Aug. 20)

Irshad Manji, the notorious "Muslim Refusenik" who supposedly advocates a principled, pluralist and secular Islam, has an op-ed in the Aug. 16 New York Times—where she once again betrays her disturbing flirtation with the very imperialism that fuels the fundamentalist backlash. The maddening thing about her is that she makes some vital points—only to blow her own credibility with obvious double standards. She is correct to call out the silence of (most) Islamic leaders on the Darfur genocide and the mutual Sunni-Shia carnage in Pakistan. But then she blows it by repeating the Dick Cheney line that terrorist attacks cannot be motivated by "foreign policy grievances" because the US hadn't invaded Iraq when 9-11 happened. How can she say this with a straight face while accusing others of "myopia"? There were "foreign policy grievances" galore in September 2001. The two al-Qaeda communiques in the immediate aftermath of the attacks (Oct. 7, 2001, Oct. 9, 2001) both invoked the US troop presence in Saudi Arabia, the Iraq sanctions and Washington's support of Israel. Just because the US has made the situation much worse in the intervening years doesn't mean that there were no "foreign policy grievances" behind 9-11! And however criminal al-Qaeda's tactics and however totalitarian its ideology, these grievances are legitimate—a reality we ignore to our own peril. Indeed, it smells like Manji fails to invoke the Sunni-Shia carnage in Iraq (which is even worse than in Pakistan), because there it is so evidently the fruit of Bush's blundering military adventure...