The Turkish Parliament, acting in accord with the will of the people as expressed in recent elections, have defied the Turkish military and elected Abdullah Gul as the nation's new president.

Beaming as the votes were counted, a veteran government figure with roots in political Islam won a parliamentary vote to become Turkey's president Tuesday, in defiance of the country's strongly secular military. Abdullah Gul's triumph presented Turkey's generals with a choice: overthrow Gul in what would be a deeply unpopular coup or accommodate the rise of political Islam in the Muslim world's most rigidly secular state.

Gul immediately sought to reassure the military and other doubters. "Turkey is a secular democracy. . . . These are basic values of our republic, and I will defend and strengthen these values," he told parliament after taking the oath as Turkey's 11th president.

Many Turks say the popularity of Gul's mildly Islamic Justice and Development Party after five years in power, and the unprecedented economic prosperity it has brought, will probably shield it from any immediate putsch. Turkey's military sees itself as the guardian of the secular state established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923. Generals have driven out four governments since 1960, including an overtly Islamic government in the 1990s in which Gul held a cabinet post.

The election of Gul, as I noted yesterday, offers a model for the Muslim world of a Democratic government that respects Islamic values while not imposing a sharia-based theocracy. The Bush administration needs to strongly support Gul's election, and make it clear to the Turkish military that any attempt to undo it will not receive favorable treatment from Washington.

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In other words, the cut-&-run crowd, whether they intend it or not, are advocating turning Iraq over the Mahmoud the Mad and the murderous Mullahs of Iran.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boldly declared Tuesday that U.S. political influence in Iraq is "collapsing rapidly" and said his government is ready to help fill any power vacuum.

The hard-line leader also defended Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a fellow Shiite Muslim who has been harshly criticized by American politicians for his unsuccessful efforts to reconcile Iraq's Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

"The political power of the occupiers is collapsing rapidly," Ahmadinejad said at a news conference, referring to U.S. troops in Iraq. "Soon, we will see a huge power vacuum in the region. Of course, we are prepared to fill the gap, with the help of neighbors and regional friends like Saudi Arabia, and with the help of the Iraqi nation."

The last thing we want to see in Iraq is another hardline Islamic theocracy. And at a time when US policy in Iraq seems to be working, pulling out so that one can be established by an enemy of the United States is precisely the wrong policy.

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Now the Red Chinese are working to turn the internet into the same sort of freedom-free zone as the rest of their country.

Police in China's capital said Tuesday they will start patrolling the Web using animated beat officers that pop up on a user's browser and walk, bike or drive across the screen warning them to stay away from illegal Internet content.

Many of the sites that will bring the cyber-cops to your screen are those that have politically questionable content. You know, advocacy of freedom, democracy, and human rights. All things that have undermiend communism in every nation where such ideas are able to take hold in the hearts and minds of the people.

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And if Gul can successfully walk the fine line between the nation's secular constitution and the desire of religious Turks to see their values reflected in the nation's laws, there may be a real model for Muslims to follow.

After being shut out of the presidency last spring, Abdullah Gul, a religious man in the assiduously secular realm of Turkish politics, allowed himself a little soul-searching.

“Has the government limited women’s rights?” Mr. Gul, 56, asked a panel of newspaper editors on national television, hoping to persuade Turkey’s establishment that it had nothing to fear from his candidacy.

After all, he argued, his party was already in power, but “has the government closed down places where young people or modern people go? Has the government done some secret things and those been disclosed? What happened?”

As he saw it, he had done everything right. As foreign minister, he pushed for Turkey to join the European Union. He called for changes to a law that punished writers for “insulting Turkishness.” He raised Turkey’s profile abroad and helped devise a set of democratic reforms.

But for TurkeyÂ’s secular class, all that was beside the point. Mr. Gul came from a party that espoused political Islam, his wife wore an Islamic head scarf and the fear that inspired outweighed his accomplishments. A high court blocked his candidacy at the request of the main secular opposition party.

Four months later, he is running again, after Turks voted overwhelmingly for his party in a national election. This time, in todayÂ’s parliamentary vote, he is almost certain to win.

Turkey’s secular class is still clearly uncomfortable with the choice. Turkey’s powerful military, which has ousted four elected governments, said on its Web site on Monday that there were “centers of evil” that “systematically try to corrode the secular nature of the Turkish Republic.”

But TurkeyÂ’s secular elite won only a fifth of the vote last month, and Mr. Gul, an outsider from TurkeyÂ’s religious heartland, seems to be calculating that he no longer needs its consent.

His approval will thrust a group of young, reform-minded members of the Islamic middle class into the upper echelons of secular power in Turkey, a fundamental reversal of the hierarchy in place since the founding of the state in 1923. For most of TurkeyÂ’s history, upper-class Turks have occupied the presidency and imposed Western values onto the conservative Anatolian heartland below. With Mr. GulÂ’s election, that heartland is on top.

Given that Gul and his supporters appear to be the Muslim equivalent of the Christian Coalition, I hope they are successful in their efforts to balance religion and politics.

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With the government of Mahmoud the Mad insisting that it "will use these (bombs) against our enemies when the time comes", that isn't even a question.

Iran vowed Sunday to use a new 2,000-pound "smart" bomb against its enemies and unveiled mass production of the new weapon, state television reported.

The government first announced development of the long-range guided bomb Thursday, saying it could be deployed by the country's aging U.S.-made F-4 and F-5 fighter jets.

"We will use these (bombs) against our enemies when the time comes," Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said on state television Sunday.

Iran often announces new weapons for its arsenal, but the United States maintains that while the Islamic Republic has made some strides, many of these statements are exaggerations.

The broadcast included a brief clip of a fighter jet apparently dropping one of the bombs, which destroyed a target on the ground.

The defense minister continued his threats as state television showed him unveiling a mass production line for the weapon in Tehran.

"We will use this weapon where we want to ... hit enemy's strategic and defense targets," Najjar said. "This will be used against our enemies, against those who violate our land and air space."

Israel said the claim underlines its concerns over Iran's arms buildup.

The Israeli government rightly notes that every nation in the region is concerned about Iran's expansionist military build-up. And given the regular threats to wipe Israel off the map which emanate from Tehran, I wonder how long it will be until the Israelis shut down this production line "with extreme prejudice".

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Whether that means several smaller independent nations emerging in its place, or some sort of national confederation of regions drawn based upon ethnicity and religion is subject to discussion and debate, the political status quo is difficult to overcome following decades of dictatorship during which the Baath Party exploited the divisions between different religious and ethnic groupings.

In part, of course, Iraq remains a place pocked by violence and fear, which makes compromise difficult. But more important, say Iraqi political commentators and officials, Iraq has become a cellular nation, dividing and redividing into competing constituencies that have a greater stake in continued chaos than in compromise.

In most areas, for most Iraqis, the central government today is either irrelevant or invisible. Provinces and even neighborhoods have become the stages where power struggles play out. As a result, Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds — or elements of each faction — have come to feel that they can do a better job on their own.

“No one can rely on the political participants who lack a common view of the public interest,” said Nabeel Mahmoud, an international relations professor at Baghdad University. “Such a concept is completely absent from the thinking of the political powers in Iraq’s government, so each side works to get their own quota of positions or resources.”

Because of their autonomy, the Kurds are perhaps best positioned to benefit from the governmentÂ’s failures. American protection in the final years of the Hussein government helped disconnect the Kurdistan region from the rest of Iraq, bringing glass office towers and foreign workers to cities like Erbil.

Earlier this month the Kurds took another step in that distancing process, passing a regional oil law that will reach its full potential only if a national oil law is never implemented.

Shiites and Sunnis, however, are still the factions with the greatest responsibility for IraqÂ’s political stalemate, and the ones most able to gain from the dysfunctional status quo.

Personally, I prefer the confederation model, which I believe would produce more a more viable Iraq.

Why the problem? For the same reason we find instability in a number of Middle Eastern and African nations. Boundaries were drawn by imperialist powers in the late 19th and early 20th century without regard to the traditional affinities and antipathies of the groups that would be impacted by the borders.

In Africa, that got us Rwanda and Darfur. In the Middle East, that created Iraq and Lebanon. Rarely have the results been good.

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I've never been comfortable with our nation's relationship with Pakistan's dictator, General Pervez Musharraf. I've never felt we have had his full support in the Crusade Against Jihadi Terrorism. Perhaps this ruling will lead to a return to democracy in that nation -- and a more faithful ally in our fight against al-Qaeda.

PakistanÂ’s Supreme Court ruled today that the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who was thrust into exile in 2000 after a military coup, could return to the country, in what could be a direct political challenge to PakistanÂ’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

Mr. Sharif, a critic of the current government, leads one of the strongest political movements against General Musharraf, and he wants to run against him for president in elections later this year. The ruling could lend momentum to the return to the country of Benazir Bhutto, Mr. SharifÂ’s predecessor as prime minister, who has also been living in exile and is another potential challenger to the president.

As a rival to both General Musharraf and Ms. Bhutto, Mr. SharifÂ’s return could challenge WashingtonÂ’s strategy of backing the president as the linchpin of its fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the region, and some American officialsÂ’ preference to see the general and Ms. Bhutto in a power-sharing agreement in the country.

General Musharraf seized control from Mr. Sharif in a bloodless coup in 1999. Mr. Sharif was imprisoned on corruption and other charges and then entered an understanding with the government to go abroad for 10 years in return for having the charges against him dropped. He has been living in exile in Saudi Arabia. Today at a news conference in London, he said he intended to return to Pakistan as soon as possible.

“It is the beginning of the end of Musharraf,” he said, according to Reuters.

Bravo to the Pakistan Supreme Court, for its courageous refusal to be bullied by a dictator.

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I've got serious questions about the man's character, but I do like what he has to say on this issue.

In a sweeping repudiation of the conventional wisdom that America's war on terrorism must address Palestinian Arab national grievances, the leading Republican contender for the presidency is warning of the dangers of pressing too soon for Palestinian statehood and is asserting that Israeli security is a "permanent feature of our foreign policy."

"Too much emphasis has been placed on brokering negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians Â-- negotiations that bring up the same issues again and again," Mayor Giuliani writes in an essay published yesterday in Foreign Affairs. "It is not in the interest of the United States, at a time when it is being threatened by Islamist terrorists, to assist the creation of another state that will support terrorism."

In some of the boldest language on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict used thus far by any presidential candidate, Mr. Giuliani writes: "Palestinian statehood will have to be earned through sustained good governance, a clear commitment to fighting terrorism, and a willingness to live in peace with Israel."

That language appears to be a direct shot at President Bush and Secretary of State Rice, who are making just such a push for final status negotiations between President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert in September, despite Hamas's takeover of Gaza in June.

And Rudy is dead right on this one. The creation of a Terrorstinian state would be fundamentally destabilizing to the region, and undermine the security of the one truly free nation there. Furthermore, any argument over whether or not Israel "should have been" created is a moot point -- the Jewish presence in the region has been increasing for over a century, and after sixty years the Israelis are not going to go anywhere. Any attempt to make them do so would inexorably result in a new Masada.

Am I an uncritical supporter of Israel? No, I am not. but any American policy in the Middle East that undermines Israel is not in America's best interests -- and at a time when we are fighting forces of radicalism that tend to create instability in the Middle East, we should not be creating a new state to serve as a home for such radicalism.

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Iranian President Mahmoud the Mad demands that Israel move so that the Terrorstinians can have their own state.

I don't know about you, but this strikes me as a great idea.

Iran's outspoken President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on Israel to "go find somewhere else" for its state and leave its territory for the creation of a Palestinian state, according to an interview published Saturday.

"Our support (for the Palestinian people) is unconditional. As for the Israelis, let them go find somewhere else," Ahmadinejad told several Algerian newspapers ahead of an visit to Algiers that starts Monday.

Iran consistently refuses to recognise Israel's right to exist in the Middle East, and Ahmadinejad sparked outrage abroad by stating after coming to power in 2005 that Israel should be "wiped from the map."

He also provoked a storm in June by saying a "countdown" had begun that would end with Lebanese and Palestinian militants destroying Israel, and his government last year hosted a conference on the Holocaust questioning the German Nazis genocide of the Jews during World War II.

My proposal looks something like this.

Do I hear any objections?

ADDENDUM -- Anybody want to propose an alternate map? I'll be glad to post it if you do.

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