Salman Rushdie knows first-hand what it’s like to stir up controversy in the Muslim world. In 1989, the year following the publication of his critically-acclaimed novel, The Satanic Verses, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death due to the book’s supposedly blasphemous nature. Lest Rushdie mistakenly believe that the Islamic Republic has let bygones be bygones, the bounty on Rushdie’s head has, as of two weeks ago, been raised to $3.3 million. So when Rushdie stopped by The Daily Show last week to promote his new memoir, Joseph Anton, which recounts his life under the shadow of Khomeini’s death warrant, it seemed like a pertinent question for host Jon Stewart to ask in light of the protests, riots, and even deaths occurring throughout the Muslim world over the anti-Islam “Innocence of Muslims” movie trailer posted to YouTube:

One of my colleagues here at Aslan Media, Parisa Saranj, posted on Facebook yesterday that she’s going to have to break out a pin she wore back in 2003 when the United States invaded Iraq. The pin exclaims, “NO WAR on IRAN!” and unquestionably portrays the feelings of many Iranians and Israelis alike. While it’s impossible to be completely certain, I’d venture to say that Parisa and likeminded Iranians and Israelis need not worry – Israel won’t (and shouldn’t) attack Iran.

Michael Rubin, a scholar at the neoconservative think tank AEI, recently argued in a blog post for (equally neo-conservative) Commentary that Turkey should not host the 2020 Olympic games. Why? Well, for a slew of very bad reasons.

Two blog posts ago, I argued that the differences between Mitt Romney’s and Barack Obama’s stances toward Iran were negligible. In his recent visit to Israel, the Republican presidential hopeful reiterated these similarities with one significant exception.

Maybe it was a Freudian slip. The fine folks at CNN’s Security Clearance blog tweeted on Monday, “EXCLUSIVE: Israel in ‘open war’ with Iran,” only to correct their mistake an hour later: “Clarifying – Our original tweet should have said that Israel’s president said #Iran is in an ‘open war’ with #Israel.” Not a big deal, really. I’ve surely made a hapless error or two on Twitter as well. CNN would have been right, either way, though. Iran and Israel are at war with each other, and have been for some time. Call it a “shadow war,” or a “covert war,” or a “secret war” – it’s all the same. Iranian and Israeli operatives are playing a macabre game of Spy vs. Spy, and there are no signs that it will be abating anytime soon.

Mitt Romney, when looking for weaknesses to exploit in President Obama’s Iran policy, has often described current US policy toward the Islamic Republic as feckless. What we need, according to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is credibility: “Only when the Ayatollahs no longer have doubts about America's resolve will they abandon their nuclear ambitions.” When it comes to putting that oft-referenced other option on the table, we simply aren’t convincing. What would a President Romney do to reassert American military credibility vis-à-vis a country that simply refuses to bend to the will of the US and its allies? Among other things, he would “restore the regular presence of aircraft carrier groups in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf region simultaneously.”

Osama bin Laden maven Peter Bergen argued last week that it’s time to declare victory against al-Qaeda “and move on to focus on the essential challenges now facing America, notably the country’s sputtering economy.” Bergen maintains that America’s “quasi-war” with the jihadist organization will continue indefinitely into the future for the simple reasons that we’re not going to succeed in killing or capturing (most likely killing) every last member of al-Qaeda, and al-Qaeda isn’t going to surrender. Therefore, Bergen continues, because al-Qaeda is on the ropes and America’s defenses are robust, we ought to declare victory and call it a day.

It’s difficult, if not impossible, to say something that hasn’t already been said about Egypt’s presidential election. Here’s the news, though, in case you’ve missed it: The Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate (officially of the Freedom and Justice Party), Mohamed Mursi, has taken the prize, edging out the more secular member of the old guard, Ahmad Shafiq, by a slim margin—a million or so votes, according to initial tallies.

With the aid of al-Qaeda “baseball cards,” Barack Obama personally approves of every drone strike in Yemen and Somalia, and has the final say on approximately a third of those in Pakistan. Who are the targets of these attacks? Suspected al-Qaeda militants, of course, and those deemed to be affiliated with al-Qaeda, among whom are “military-age males … unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.” This cheery sneak peek behind the scenes of America’s ongoing war against al-Qaeda (or “War on Terror” or “Overseas Contingency Operations” or whatever you want to call it) is compliments of a 6,000-word piece by the New York Times and “three dozen of [Obama’s] current and former advisers,” who helped shed a little light on one of the most opaque components of Obama’s national security policy—especially for an administration that was supposed to usher in a new era of transparency.

Happy belated Memorial Day, dear readers. For those of you living outside the United States who may not know, Memorial Day is an annual holiday in which Americans commemorate those men and women who died while serving their country in the United States Armed Forces. For better or for worse, it also serves as an opportunity to get out of town and visit family and friends, or head to the beach for an extended weekend. In any case, what better time to blog about Arlington Cemetery.