Interesting News From Around The Web

Walid Phares assesses the state of terrorism around the world. "In short, there are several "wars" on terror worldwide. . . . America is leading the widest campaign, but efforts around the globe are still dispersed, uncoordinated, and in many cases, contradictive."

At NRO, a symposium on Pakistan with a wide variety of views on Bhutto’s assassination and how we should interact with Pakistan, including this assessment from Victor David Hanson: "Pakistan is a nuclear dictatorship, with a thin Westernized elite sitting atop a vast medieval Islamist badlands that it cannot control."

Bhutto’s 19 y.o. son is expected to be named the successor as head of her political party. If he actually wins in the Pakistani election, this seems like it will lead to the sort of "palace intrigue" not seen since the days of Cardinal Richelieu.

More reflections on fallout from the Bhutto assassination here. And the Telegraph has an incisive article on the Frankenstein’s monster of terrorism nurtured by successive Pakistani governments, including Bhutto’s, that now threatens to overtake all of Pakistan. Former PM Sharif, an Islamist with Saudi support, is not what we want to see in charge of Pakistan. For some good background, see this Stephen Cohen article on the jihadi threat in Pakistan. And this from Tariq Ali on the Saudi connection to the madrassahs and terrorists in Pakistan.

Michael Ledeen examines more State Department pro-Iranian spin.

2007 was "a year that strode boldly into the stall of human events and took a wide stance astride the porcelain bowl of history." Read David Barry’s hilarious year in review.

A politically incorrect Aussie’s wish list for 2008.

Classical Values has some thoughts on our rather insane primary system that gives special weight to Iowa and New Hampshire.

A New Years Resolution for Congressional Republicans that all conservatives can get behind. End the earmarks.

And some late blogging of things I did not have time to get to earlier . . .

Hillary Clinton almost takes the cake for sublime idiocy. The last thing Pakistan needs at this point is further destabilization, but we have Hillary calling the current government illegitimate and demanding an international tribunal to investigate Bhutto’s assassination. While Obama does take the cake – finding that Bhutto’s assassination was caused by our prosecution of the Iraq war. If only we had surrendered earlier to al Qaeda, perhaps this would not have happened. Even the incredibly cynical John Edwards called that one a bit of idiocy.