END STATES WHO SPONSOR TERRORISM

It looks like Dr. Leonard Peikoff's article, End States Who Sponsor Terrorism, has received attention from jihadists, al Qaeda ideologues and Islamists. Here is an expert from Hassan Nafaa's article, Runaway administration.

When I was researching for this article, I looked for material that may help me identify any change that may have occurred in recent US foreign policy. I found an article written by Leonard Peikoff, founder of the Ayn Rand Institute. What caught my eye was not just the title of his article, "End States Who Sponsor Terrorism", but that it was published first 2 October 2001, right after 9/11 and immediately before the war on Afghanistan. The article was republished 9 September 2005, on the fourth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. This says volumes about the vision of the US rightwing, and its persistence.

Peikoff believes that the appeasement policies pursued by successive US administrations towards the Islamic world are responsible for the latter's belligerence, which climaxed on 9/11. Fifty years ago, Truman and Eisenhower's abandonment of oil rights tempted the Muslim world to take its first stabs at freedom. The second stab came from Khomeini's Iran, where US diplomats were held hostage. President Carter, Peikoff goes on, wavered in his response, which encouraged the Muslim world to shed American blood. The first killers were Palestinians who hijacked planes in the late-1960s, before being joined by others eager to get in on the game, Peikoff argues. (Al-Ahram Weekly, issue #811.)