Globe Trot 11.05

Election Eve is a fit time to call on Teddy Roosevelt, who said after winning the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize:

“Peace is generally good in itself, but it is never the highest good unless it comes as the handmaid of righteousness. … No man is worth calling a man who will not fight rather than submit to infamy or see those that are dear to him suffer wrong.”

Tomorrow’s vote may turn on the economy or the Middle East or immigrants, evangelicals, autoworkers, or Nevada’s culinary union, but the reality is no president elected in November knows what challenges he must confront come January. But confront, he must.

Walid Phares launches a provocative review and analysis of the Obama Middle East doctrine. Phares has been advising the Romney campaign, but also authored a book, The Coming Revolution, that predicted Arab Spring movements and their fallout long before they began. He explains Mitt Romney’s policy toward Iran better than perhaps Romney has, pointing out that he would favor tightened sanctions, like President Obama, but also partner with Iranian “forces of civil democratic reform,” something the Obama administration has failed to do.

At WORLD we’re looking at a number of factors that could prove deciding in a close election, including immigration and the Hispanic vote. Pastors at Phoenix-area Redemption Church give some on-the-ground lessons learned in seeking to minister to immigrants and how to navigate the difficult policy issue.

Visit worldmag.com for ongoing election coverage (today: the Amish vote in Ohio and Pennsylvania, plus a review of battleground states) and up-to-the-minute results tomorrow.

Who’s writing AFP headlines these days? Not the Obama-ites over at Associated Press and CNN, clearly: “Sudanese Bin Laden-linked Islamist wants Obama win.”

“He’s gentle towards the Muslims generally,” said Hassan al-Turabi, a key figure in bringing to power the Islamist regime in Sudan after a 1989 coup and later sheltering Osama bin Laden for five years. Turabi also promised that Arab Spring revolts will lead to “a new Islamic wave.”

The United Nations’ deputy high commissioner for human rights, Kyung-wha Kang, rejected blasphemy laws and “the notion that freedom of expression and freedom of religion can be ‘contradictory.’” Her comments to a gathering of international human rights representatives in Morocco are among some of the most pointed against efforts from Organization of Islamic Cooperation countries to press for anti-blasphemy laws at the United Nations and in Western countries like Great Britain.

Syrian rebels have captured an oil field near the country’s border with Iraq following three days of intense fighting. Syrian opposition leaders meeting in Qatar hope this may be a turning point to spur transition from the Assad regime.

An attack on a church in eastern Kenya has left one dead, the church’s pastor, and injured at least 11. Two other churches in Garissa, near the border with Somalia, came under attack in July with 17 worshippers killed and more than 60 wounded.