Conversations with Terrorists

Drawing on original research and firsthand interviews, Conversations with Terrorists offers critical portraits of six Middle Eastern leaders often labeled as terrorists: Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad, Hamas top leader Khaled Meshal, Israeli politician Geula Cohen, Iranian Revolutionary Guard founder Mohsen Sazargara, Hezbollah spiritual advisor Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Fadlallah, and former Afghan Radio and Television Ministry head Malamo Nazamy. Veteran journalist Reese Erlich offers them a chance to explain key issues and to respond to charges leveled by the United States. Critiquing these responses and synthesizing a broad range of material, Erlich shows that yesterday's terrorist is today's national leader, and that today's freedom fighter may become tomorrow's terrorist. He concludes that the global war on terror has diverted public attention from the war's real goal-expanding U.S. influence and interests in the Middle East-and offers policy remedies.

Reese Erlich, Baer Robert

Chapter 1 Will the Real Terrorists Please Stand Up?; Chapter 2 Hamas's Khaled Meshal: MiddleEast's Most Wanted; Chapter 3 Geula Cohen: Jewish Terrorist?; Chapter 4 Syria's President Bashar al-Assad: State Sponsor of Terrorism?; Chapter 5 Lebanon's Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Fadlallah: CIA Victim; Chapter 6 Mohsen Sazegara, Terrorist Governments, and Iran's Democracy Movement; Chapter 7 Mohammad Nizami: The Taliban's Golden Voice; Chapter 8 Media Distortions, Obama's Policies, and Ending the Waron Terrorism; afterword Afterword: Terrorism and Empire;