Journalist Fouad Hussein reveals Al Qaeda's long-range plan:

The First Phase Known as "the awakening" -- this has already been carried out and was supposed to have lasted from 2000 to 2003, or more precisely from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington to the fall of Baghdad in 2003. The aim of the attacks of 9/11 was to provoke the US into declaring war on the Islamic world and thereby "awakening" Muslims. "The first phase was judged by the strategists and masterminds behind al-Qaeda as very successful," writes Hussein. "The battle field was opened up and the Americans and their allies became a closer and easier target." The terrorist network is also reported as being satisfied that its message can now be heard "everywhere."

The Second Phase "Opening Eyes" is, according to Hussein's definition, the period we are now in and should last until 2006. Hussein says the terrorists hope to make the western conspiracy aware of the "Islamic community." Hussein believes this is a phase in which al-Qaeda wants an organization to develop into a movement. The network is banking on recruiting young men during this period. Iraq should become the center for all global operations, with an "army" set up there and bases established in other Arabic states.

The Third Phase This is described as "Arising and Standing Up" and should last from 2007 to 2010. "There will be a focus on Syria," prophesies Hussein, based on what his sources told him. The fighting cadres are supposedly already prepared and some are in Iraq. Attacks on Turkey and -- even more explosive -- in Israel are predicted. Al-Qaeda's masterminds hope that attacks on Israel will help the terrorist group become a recognized organization. The author also believes that countries neighboring Iraq, such as Jordan, are also in danger.

The Fourth Phase Between 2010 and 2013, Hussein writes that al-Qaeda will aim to bring about the collapse of the hated Arabic governments. The estimate is that "the creeping loss of the regimes' power will lead to a steady growth in strength within al-Qaeda." At the same time attacks will be carried out against oil suppliers and the US economy will be targeted using cyber terrorism.

The Fifth Phase This will be the point at which an Islamic state, or caliphate, can be declared. The plan is that by this time, between 2013 and 2016, Western influence in the Islamic world will be so reduced and Israel weakened so much, that resistance will not be feared. Al-Qaeda hopes that by then the Islamic state will be able to bring about a new world order.

The Sixth Phase Hussein believes that from 2016 onwards there will a period of "total confrontation." As soon as the caliphate has been declared the "Islamic army" it will instigate the "fight between the believers and the non-believers" which has so often been predicted by Osama bin Laden.

The Seventh Phase This final stage is described as "definitive victory." Hussein writes that in the terrorists' eyes, because the rest of the world will be so beaten down by the "one-and-a-half billion Muslims," the caliphate will undoubtedly succeed. This phase should be completed by 2020, although the war shouldn't last longer than two years.

This is plausible, bordering on likely in my opinion. Go read the entire Der Speigel article. The very interesting thing is how well this theory comports with the Generations/Turnings theory of Strauss and Howe, which predicts a crisis period for American civilization lasting into the 2020's. Regular readers will know that I think the conflict between radical Islam and western civilization is that crisis.

It is entirely possible that the Bush Administration is taking this plan seriously as well, and the real reason for the Iraq war is to short-circuit this strategy, by taking Iraq away from the radical Islamicists and dealing them a blow in Phase Two. The fate of Iraq is still in doubt. If the attempt to install democracy in Iraq fails, then this plan is alive and well. If Syria heats up in the next 12 months, this will tend to confirm this plan as well.

European diplomacy is reaping the expected benefits in Iran:

The Iranians themselves are now admitting that all of this is no happenstance but is a calculated effort to exploit what the mullahs perceive to be American weakness and Europe's lack of will. An internal Iranian government document recently obtained by an opposition group says that "The talks process ended the suffocating economic pressures that our country was being subjected to in the months prior to the October 2003 agreement. . . . With the Americans deeply stuck in a quagmire in Iraq, the Europeans know that they will have to ultimately accommodate our just demands."

The company you work for is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy in an industry where retirement pensions are notoriously underfunded. What to do? Well, call a strike, of course! That'll teach 'em!

After talks broke off late Friday, union negotiator Jim Young said the mechanics would rather see the airline go into bankruptcy than agree to Northwest’s terms. The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association represents about 11 percent of Northwest’s 40,000 employees.

Something about killing the goose that laid the golden egg?

Sunnis are feeling left out of the Iraqi constitution talks:

The Sunni Arabs said they had been invited to just one meeting with other community negotiators since last Monday, when the previous deadline expired. The statement urged the United States, the United Nations and the international community to intervene to prevent a draft constitution moving forward without unanimous agreement, "which would make the current crisis more complicated".

An Iraqi government spokesman suggested that if the factions cannot agree on a draft by tonight, the government may have to amend the interim constitution yet again to extend the deadline to prevent the dissolution of parliament.

In a textbook example of "how to alienate your base", Senator Charles Hagel (R-NE) throws in the towel over Iraq:

Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record), who received two Purple Hearts and other military honors for his service in Vietnam, reiterated his position that the United States needs to develop a strategy to leave Iraq. Hagel scoffed at the idea that U.S. troops could be in Iraq four years from now at levels above 100,000, a contingency for which the Pentagon is preparing.

"We should start figuring out how we get out of there," Hagel said on "This Week" on ABC. "But with this understanding, we cannot leave a vacuum that further destabilizes the Middle East. I think our involvement there has destabilized the Middle East. And the longer we stay there, I think the further destabilization will occur."

Continuing to "fight the last war" won't win this one.

Army general says they've planned through 2009.

Schoomaker, who spoke aboard an Army jet on the trip back to Washington from Kansas City, Mo., made no predictions about the pace of political progress in Iraq. But he said he was confident the Army could provide the current number of forces to fight the insurgency for many more years. The 2007-09 rotation he is planning would go beyond President Bush's term in office, which ends in January 2009.

The fairly consistent media spin on this is that the military expects (not "plans," but "expects") to be in Iraq in large numbers in 2009. This is, I think, not likely. I think there will be some permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq, but nothing like, say, Germany or Japan.

Harvard scientists turn skin cells into stem cells:

There is a limited supply of human eggs, which are needed for creating embryos through cloning, and egg donors face a slight health risk. The new cell fusion technique would enable scientists to create vastly greater quantities of embryonic stem cells for research.

That would mean they could do far more experiments aimed at understanding what happens when a regular, adult cell is transformed into an embryonic stem cell, a process known as ''reprogramming." Researchers are struggling to determine how a cell that is ''adult," already committed to its role in the body as, for example, a nerve cell or skin cell, regresses back to the proto-state in which, as a stem cell, it could still potentially become any of the hundreds of types of cells in the body.

The more shrill right/center voices (of which I am on occasion) are increasingly discussing "treason,", "sedition," and "aid and comfort" in the context of numerous anti-war commenters. Volokh (a law professor at UCLA) gives us an Assignment for discussion:

What do people think is right? Please post your thoughts in the comments, and think through the counterarguments. (For instance, if your observation is simply that George Galloway's speech is clearly protected because all criticism of the government is protected, you might want to at least explain how this would apply to Axis Sally's criticism of the government. Conversely, if your observation is that speech should be unprotected whenever it seems likely to help the enemy, you might want to confront the question of how we can have meaningful elections when no candidate can criticize the war effort — or even criticize the war's morality — for fear that such speech might help the enemy and might thus lead him to be thrown in prison.)

At some point, we will need to confront the blatant destructive speech coming from some quarters regarding the conflict between civilization and militant Islam. How? Public counter-demonstration (probably the best approach) or turning to the law (never the best option)?

Related: Victor Davis Hanson on what he terms "biteback."

The Cato Institute sifts through a Pentagon report on mainland China and finds little hysteria:

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the latest report is its tone. It lauds a "cooperative and constructive" relationship that has emerged between the United States and China since the 2001 EP-3 spy plane incident. At the same time, it seems to acknowledge the seriousness of China's warnings about Taiwan. It recognizes China's recent anti-secession law as "a rhetorical counter to the U.S. Taiwan Relations Act," and cites a Chinese general who worries about Taiwan for strategic reasons. In the general's view, reunifying with Taiwan is of "far reaching significance to breaking international forces' blockade against China's maritime security"

America's interest is in managing China's inevitable rise to great power status without needlessly embroiling Americans in a war. Doing so requires a dispassionate assessment of China's views on Taiwan. The DOD report is a good step in that direction. The report acknowledges that controlling Taiwan is a "core interest" for China, and for good reason: aside from the motive of national pride regarding reunification, roughly 80 percent of China's energy imports pass through the waters adjacent to Taiwan.
. . . The chest-beating at the House Armed Services Committee hearing over the Unocal deal should ring alarm bells in American security circles. Demagoguing the China issue may be useful for political purposes, but it can be incredibly damaging to the U.S.-China diplomatic and economic relationship. The fact is, China is a rising great power, and even if we wanted to, there is little we could do to stop it. But by dispassionately assessing China's intent and capabilities, we can accommodate that country's rise in a way that protects American interests and defuses the risk of a conflict. The new tone of the Defense Department's report seems to be a modest step in the right direction.

New research indicates our galaxy has a bar:

A thin band of relatively old stars, the feature (represented by the bright, diagonal band at the center of the above illustration) is uncommon among spiral galaxies. Astronomers confirmed its presence after conducting the most detailed analysis ever made of the Milky Way.

Yeah, I'm mainly doing this story to use the obvious "Milky Way Bar" headline.

Illustration courtesy: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC/Caltech)