The New York Sun reports that, “one of Al Qaeda’s senior theologians is calling on his followers to end their military jihad and saying the attacks of September 11, 2001, were a ‘catastrophe for all Muslims.’”

The article says that from a prison in Egypt, Sayyed Imam al-Sharif has released a manifesto blasting Osama bin Laden for deceiving the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, and for insulting the Prophet Muhammad by comparing the September 11 attacks to the early raids of the Ansar warriors. The article says that Sharif is calling for the formation of a special Islamic court to try Osama bin Laden and his old comrade Ayman al-Zawahri and that some analysis see the defection of Sharif as a “beginning of the end for Al Quada.” Thanks to the web-site Ohpinion for bringing attention to this report. Excerpts from the article:

• The author of “Inside Al Qaeda,” Rohan Gunaratna said in an interview this week, “There is nothing more important than a former jihadist as important as Dr. Fadl criticizing the jihadist vanguard.” Mr. Gunaratna, who acts at times as a consultant for American and Western intelligence, described the reformed theologian as “both an ideologue and operational leader, but he was primarily an ideologue.”
• An expert on Islamic terrorism with the Jamestown Foundation, Steven Ulph, also said the defection of Mr. Sharif could hemorrhage support for Al Qaeda. “The important point to make, when you have the combination of a respected ideologue, plus someone who was in the field, say these things it is more important than having a Saudi sheik that moderates his message,” he said.
• The director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University, Frank Cilluffo, said, “Here you have someone with the stature and credibility, who more or less wrote the book on jihadism and is oft cited by other jihadists, making the case against it. This is someone with the heft on legal and religious grounds to make the counter argument that we can’t.”
• Mr. Sharif, currently serving a life sentence in an undisclosed Egyptian prison, wrote in the 1980s two of the modern seminal texts for Sunni jihadism and in particular Al Qaeda, in “Fundamental Concepts Regarding Jihad” and “The Five Ground Rules for the Achieving of Victory or Its Absence.” Those books are scholarly justifications, citing the Koran and Hadiths, for joining a war against Muslim apostates such as the Egyptian ruling class and for a broader jihad against the far enemy of America.
• Originally rounded up in the arrests following the 1981 assassination of Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, Mr. Sharif served in an Egyptian jail with Ayman al-Zawahri, who would later go on to be the deputy to Mr. bin Laden. In 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks, Mr. Sharif was arrested in Yemen and was later sent to Egypt in 2003 or 2004.
• His latest texts are a renunciation of his earlier work, saying the military jihad or war against apostate states and America is futile. But the ex-jihadist also calls into question the virtue of Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahri. In some ways the manifesto reads in parts like a spicy Washington memoir by an embittered former official.
• On Monday, an American intelligence official familiar with the interrogation of Mr. Sharif said that in 2004 the Al Qaeda cleric was tortured. “All I am saying is that screw drivers were involved,” this official, who asked to be anonymous, said. When asked if Mr. Sharif was tortured, Mr. Gunaratna responded by saying, “He spent time in an Egyptian prison.”
• But (regardless of an Al Qaeda charge that Sharif’s manifesto is the result of Egyptian torture) Mr. Gunaratna said he believed Mr. Sharif’s conversion was genuine. “He has had a genuine change of heart because we are seeing a trend today in Egypt where the original members of both of the major jihadist organizations are turning, the senior members of these groups, many have gone back and been remorseful,” he said. “He is not an exception because there is a trend. . . The traditional jihad movement is almost coming to an end. What has it accomplished in more than 25 years?”

From the New York Sun, written by Eli Lake, Staff Reporter of the Sun

The Nation magazine says the 2008 election presents a historic opportunity to start a progressive realignment in U.S. politics. It calls for a progressive “broadly based small-d democratic movement.” The magazine in its recent editorial says, “There is ferment in the air, a yearning for change and for a resuscitation of America’s most inspired dreams of justice and equality. The kindling is in place, but the right spark has not yet been struck.”

The Nation chose not to endorse any candidate. Excerpts from the article

• The leading candidates share positions that were considered political suicide as recently as 2004, and topics once shunted aside, like global warming, are of central importance. Unfettered free trade, a hallmark of the Clinton Administration, is now viewed by most Democrats as an untenable position. Healthcare for all, an idea that many thought would doom Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, is a mainstream proposition. And it is not just these issues that have taken center stage but the core progressive values they represent: diplomacy over militarism, workers’ rights, the responsibility of government to see that social needs are met.
• In his stands on the issues, Dennis Kucinich comes closest to embodying the ideals of this magazine. He has been a forceful critic of the Bush Administration, opposing the Patriot Act and spearheading the motion to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. He is the only candidate to have voted against the Iraq War in 2003 and has voted against funding it ever since. Of all the serious candidates, only he and Governor Bill Richardson propose a full and immediate withdrawal from Iraq. And only Kucinich’s plan sets aside funds for reparations. Moreover, Kucinich has used his presidential campaigns to champion issues like cutting the military budget and abolishing nuclear weapons; universal, single-payer healthcare; campaign finance reform; same-sex marriage and an end to the death penalty and the war on drugs. A vote for him would be a principled one.
• But for reasons that have to do with the corrupting influence of money and media on national elections as well as with his campaign’s shortcomings–such as its failure to organize a grassroots base of donors and web activists–a democratic mass movement has not coalesced around Kucinich’s run for President. The progressive vision is there, but the strategy necessary to win and then govern is lacking. In most cases, the rules of the Iowa caucus require that a candidate reach 15 percent of the vote to achieve “viability”; supporters of candidates who fail to do so can choose another candidate. Simply put, many Iowans will soon face a question that the rest of us may have to answer later: if not Dennis, then who?
• The leading Democratic contenders–Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama–have been covered from various points of view in these pages. There are aspects of each candidate and campaign to be admired, and also those that cause concern. Hillary Clinton has proven herself a dedicated centrist, and when the center moves left, she has shown, she can move too. When it comes to trade and globalization, she has shifted from being an ardent supporter of NAFTA to calling for a “timeout” on all such deals (although she recently signaled her support for the Peru Free Trade Agreement). Clinton may not have apologized for her vote for the Iraq War, but she has called for its end. Her plan, however, would begin slowly and would involve retaining a “reduced residual force,” perhaps as many as 60,000 soldiers, to combat terrorism and train Iraqi military forces. As she indicated by voting for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment–which classified the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization–her shift on Iraq did not reflect a fundamental political reorientation. Indeed, a Hillary Clinton administration could see a revival of her husband’s advisers and their procorporate neoliberal policies. Certainly the presence of familiar and high-priced pollsters and lobbyists in the upper echelons of her campaign, as advisers and donors, is a worrisome sign. (Both Obama and Edwards have declined lobbyist donations.) The experience Clinton touts is likely to frustrate the change she promises. To be sure, her election would represent a historic breakthrough for women, and a Clinton presidency even modestly responsive to an ascendant left would be far better than a Clinton presidency triangulating in the wake of the Reagan revolution. But there’s little reason to believe it would make ample space for a progressive agenda.
• In contrast, Barack Obama and John Edwards are reaching for new ground. Each also presents the risks–and promises–of unknown potential.
• On the campaign trail Edwards has displayed a smart, necessary partisanship–denouncing corporate power and its crippling influence on government. He has argued with conviction that government does best when it does more for its citizens. His campaign has met some roadblocks. He has not managed to consolidate the traditional Democratic base, and while he has loyal supporters among organized labor, he has not sewn up union support across the board, nor has he excited a cohort of previously disenfranchised voters. Perhaps some have been turned off by the media’s relentless fixation on the “three H’s”–haircuts, hedge funds and houses–symbols of the gap between his populist rhetoric and his lifestyle. Nonetheless, he has been at his best when taking on spiraling economic inequality. In a series of bold initiatives, he has called for an end to poverty in thirty years, universal healthcare, a hike in the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2012 and an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050–accomplished in part by the creation of a green-collar jobs corps. His policy proposals are not always perfect, but they are uncommonly detailed and crafted in conjunction with progressive organizations. Most important, his programs were announced first, and they clearly pushed Clinton and Obama in a progressive direction. His healthcare plan stops short of a single-payer program, but it unapologetically includes employer mandates and tax increases. Likewise, although he voted for the Iraq War and his plan to end it doesn’t commit to full and immediate withdrawal, he has repudiated that vote and proposes a faster pullout than his two main rivals. And Edwards is the only leading candidate to connect the war and the home front, bravely arguing that an ambitious domestic agenda would require cuts to the military budget. His is the campaign that has most effectively responded to the spirit of progressive populism that lifted Congressional Democrats to victory in 2006.
• Many observers have attributed a talismanic power to the personage of Barack Obama–his mixed race heritage; the circumstances of his birth and childhood; his middle name, Hussein, often discussed as if it were in and of itself a foreign policy. But beneath the surface of symbols is a politician who was not only born different but who made different choices from other Beltway-bound Ivy Leaguers–especially in his early career as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago. Of all the leading contenders, Obama shows the most potential to energize disaffected voters. He has campaigned for himself and others in states long written off by the Democratic establishment, and when he appears on the trail it is often alongside grassroots organizers and ordinary citizens. His team of advisers includes familiar former Clinton staffers but also experts plucked from academe and activism whose presence in Washington would represent genuine and welcome change.
• An Obama presidency would contain fresh faces–but would it have fresh ideas? We would like to answer with a resounding yes, but Obama has lagged behind Edwards in offering innovative policies and politicizing neglected issues. His healthcare plan is virtually identical to Hillary Clinton’s–except it does not include mandates, a conservative feature he has curiously decided to emphasize. Likewise, his plan to exit Iraq exhibits the “strategic drift” toward leaving behind a significant residual force, as if fewer troops could accomplish what more have failed to do. Like Clinton, once in the Senate he has continued to vote for funding the war. These last two matters are especially unfortunate because they undermine what ought to be one of his greatest assets: Barack Obama was opposed to the Iraq War from the very beginning. When so many Democrats backed Bush’s military adventure, Obama exercised fine judgment–a quality his campaign has stressed. Since then that judgment has seen some praiseworthy reprises–as when he bucked conventional wisdom by insisting on face-to-face negotiations with Iran, Cuba and Syria–but it has often tilted toward caution and centrism. Obama has skillfully cultivated the image of a postpartisan leader, one with enormous appeal to broad swaths of voters alienated from politics as usual. But if he governs that way, how will progressives who want to take on entrenched interests fare in his administration?
• In the following weeks, The Nation will continue to cover the campaign, and the candidates, with the hope that a progressive insurgency will make its influence even more deeply felt.
• No matter which candidate is chosen, progressives will have to build the public support vital not simply for winning the election but for capturing the opportunity to transform the country. It is that task to which we lend our support and our endorsement.

From The Nation, “Election ’08,” written by the editors of The Nation