Well, there's no question that the president and Prime Minister al Maliki have to have a series of timetables and milestones that they speak about, but those shouldn't be for public pronouncement. You don't want the enemy to understand how long they have to wait in the weeds until you're going to be gone. You want to have a series of things you want to see accomplished in terms of the strength of the Iraqi military and the Iraqi police and the leadership of the Iraqi government.

Well, I wouldn't publish [a timetable] for my adversaries to see. [Instead he advocates] a series of milestones, timetables as well, to measure how well they're doing. But that's not something you publish for the enemy to understand, because of course they could just lay in the weeds until the time that you're gone. So these are the kinds of things you do privately, not necessarily publicly.

A Muslim store worker at Marks & Spencer refused to serve a customer buying a children's book on biblical stories because she said it was "unclean". Sally Friday, a customer at a branch of one of the famous stores, felt publicly humiliated when she tried to pay for First Bible Stories as a gift for her young grandson. When the grandmother put the book on the counter, the assistant refused to touch it, declared it was unclean and then summoned another member of staff to deal with the purchase.

The slithery Inayat Bunglawala pretends to share our indignation here, but he can't keep it up without revealing his world-view. Note the last comment: "Many Biblical stories complement the teachings of the Koran." Why is that relevant? What if the Bible stories did not, in his view, "complement the teachings of the Koran"? Do those stories only have value, and are only to be protected, or treated neutrally (and refusing to touch a book, calling it "unclean" is not treating it neutrally) because they may, as he puts it "complement the teachings of the Koran"?

One final query. Is it right and proper for non-Muslim clerks to handle a Koran? Or should they refrain from handling it, lest by their own "unclean" status--"najis" in the list provided at the Shia cleric Al-Sistani's website--they sully that book? In other words, would Muslims make clear to non-Muslims how we are to treat the Qur'an? Do we touch it, or not touch it? Do we wear gloves, or not wear gloves? Do we tug at our forelocks with one hand, or bow slightly if we are boys and curtsey if we are girls? What do we do with the Qur'an? And do the same rules apply to a collection, say by Al-Bukhari or Muslim, of the Hadith? Tell us. Infidel youth wants to know. Lest we offend.

It would also be worth checking where and how the Muslim employees arrange books on the shelves. We have read reports of other stores arranging books to ensure that the Qur'an is stored on shelves higher than books for other religions. We have also read reports that books critical of Islam are not kept in view in some bookstores, but are only available in the back, out of sight.

The point of the surge was to quickly move the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people. That is only now beginning to happen, and I believe in large measure because the Iraqi government ... they watch us, they listen to us, I know very well that they follow everything that I say (she emphasized "I"). And my commitment to begin withdrawing our troops in January of 2009 is a big factor--as it is with Senator Obama, Senator Edwards, those of us on the Democratic side--it is a big factor in pushing the Iraqi government to finally do what they should have been doing all along.

What Marxists and Islamists have in common is a narrative in which the West exploits, abuses, and marginalizes the Islamic world. A quote from Flemming Rose (Danish journalist and cultural editor at the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten): “The Role of the victim is very convenient because it frees the victim of any responsibility, while providing a posture of moral superiority.”

The mainstream Islamist position is that Western ideologies (capitalism, communism, and democratic government) all need to be replaced by Sharia law, but we face today a quirky alliance between Mideastern dictators, radical imams, and Europe’s traditional left wing. This alliance, however, is fragile. Khomeini deposed the Shah with the help of Marxist students. Once in power, he banned Marxism and killed off its leaders. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who favors stoning gays, is a supporter and good friend of gay rights activist Red Ken (mayor of London). Islamist parties in the Arab world are generally composed of people who are very poor, and this may account for their use of anti-capitalist rhetoric.

Some history: Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Muslim youth gravitated toward Marxism. They rarely touted their Muslim identities, and most viewed the folk Islam of their parents as moribund. 1989 represented a huge shift for Muslims. With the collapse of the communist regimes in the East, Marxism ceased to be a credible alternative to European liberal society, and the Rushdie affair inspired Muslims to mobilize around the banner of Islam.

Flemming Rose and Giles Kepel write about this phenomenon.