Whoever is behind Muslimmedia.com, I don't consider them too reliable. Here's what they were saying about the Afghan war recently:
More than a month after beginning the attacks on Afghanistan, the US appears to be little closer either to a military victory against the Taliban, or to overthrowing them. While pressure for a quick result is growing, the Americans appear increasingly bogged down in the sort of military and political quagmire that has confounded numerous foreign invaders of Afghanistan over the centuries. The US’s military might and political weight may yet prevail, but the Afghans — both the Taliban and the West’s supposed allies — are giving them a far harder time than either London or Washington can have expected.
They also claim central Asian oil and gas is "the real reason for the US's war on Afghanistan", a ridiculous assertion.
The passage you quoted is from a favorable review of a book entitled "A Brutal Friendship: The West and the Arab Elite" by Said Aburish. Here's a critical review by Daniel Pipes - with a few choice excerpts:
danielpipes.org
...nearly all the problems of the Middle East are due to a vast British and American conspiracy that aims to perpetuate what he calls "Western political hegemony" in the Middle East.
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Revealingly, the only Westerners Aburish praises for seeing through this vast deception are Noam Chomsky and Edward Said, two stars in the firmament of the conspiracist Left.
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To anyone not versed in matters Middle Eastern, the conspiratorial and extremist bent of A Brutal Friendship might make it seem like the slightly deranged musings of one out-of-touch intellectual. Unhappily, its outlook cannot so easily be dismissed. However outlandish his book may be, it represents the mainstream of Arab thinking, as expressed repeatedly by leading politicians, military officers, religious authorities, journalists, and academics. The central lines of his argument-that the Arab plight results from Western greed and hatred; or that Jerusalem belongs exclusively to Muslims-have great resonance on the Arab "street." Aburish may appear to inhabits the fringe of the Arab political spectrum, but he actually stands smack at its center.
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