On its 60th anniversary, Israel is still concerned about survival. Even with nuclear weapons and the strongest military in the Middle East, the Jewish state remains anxious. Iranian leaders are similarly concerned about the future of their administrations, even as the country approaches the 30th anniversary of its Islamic revolution.

Twenty years ago in the summer of 1988 the clerical regime in Iran committed one of the most horrific massacres in history. In an edict Ayatollah Khomeini ordered: "Those who are in prisons throughout the country and remain steadfast in their support for the Monafeqin [Mojahedin], are waging war on God and are condemned to execution.... Annihilate the enemies of Islam immediately. As regards the cases, use whichever criterion that speeds up the implementation of the [execution] verdict."

CAIRO – When it seemed that all was going smoothly on the Cairo-Tehran diplomatic front and full relations were not far off after a near 30-year hiatus, out comes a movie in Iran praising the assassins of late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat that throws both governments into a bitter row.

As a professor of anthropology in the United States, I often begin my college lectures on Islamic culture by asking students to write three adjectives to describe Arabs. Most responses include the word terrorists, an association they see and hear in the media.

Back in Oct. 2005, two months after he had become president, Irans Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – or as Jay Leno calls the tongue-twister, "Im-a-dinner-jacket" – drew world attention when he called for Israel to be wiped off the map. Denials were slow in coming. Various Iranian experts said he had been misquoted when he painted the broad brush strokes of history when a purely Jewish state would cease to exist.

On September 12 a U.S. plane flying food supplies to Malian troops was hit by gunfire coming from Tuareg rebels. This is just one of the latest examples of how the situation in Africa has become volatile and dangerous.

BEIRUT -- At first glance, life in Beirut seems to be moving along normally. Road traffic is congested as usual. People are going about their daily lives, heading to their offices, walking the streets with their colorful shopping bags, friends chatting over a good meal and drinks at the stylish restaurants and cafés as if everything is perfectly normal.

Carter, Hamas, and Pragmatic Solutions to Islamism?