I want to add my voice to subterranean chorus about a significant event in Iran. A respected cleric proclaims a fatwa on the Palestinian suicide bombers. This piece also proposes that the Iranian regime is getting desperate to retain control of the people. A new and secular revolution may be brewing. And to all this the Western press is strangely oblivious.

And maybe it's time for the West to stop apologizing for being successful. Even many of that oppose the West want to have the benefits of Western culture.

Now it's time for Western culture to stand up again. Worries about imperialism, especially cultural imperialism, should be cast off. Global free trade isn't imperialistic; it's the spread of a natural right, economic freedom. Demanding that a country respect its people's basic rights isn't imperialistic, and neither is standing for an unfettered media. No one wants to bring back colonial empires.

Continuing in an Islamic theme today, Ralph Peters thinks the U.S. is backing the wrong horse in the Islamic culture wars. Forget that ancient Arabian nag and check out the future of Islam as it is developing in the non-Arabic world.

On the Bush-watch front, the once-independent Council of Economic Advisers has now become just another parrot for whatever the administration wants to say. In previous administrations it could be counted on to tell the truth based on actual data even if the White House chose to ignore its advice for political reasons. The current administration's policies are not only lacking in supporting data but are actually contradicted by reality. But ideologues can not be bothered by mere facts. Any real analyses produced by the CEA are internally ignored and only the "right answers" that the administration wants to hear come out. When it comes to tax cuts and privatized Social Security, this emperor must have quite a draft on his backside.