2009 started out with a bang. Unfortunately, the bang was the sound of explosions in Gaza as the Israeli air force and artillery relentlessly bombarded several sites in the Gaza strip in order to stop the launching of Hamas Qassam rockets. On January 3rd, Israel launched a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip catapulting the Gaza War into its second week.

On the other side of the globe, Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th and first African American President of the United States. His inauguration speech was viewed by billions across the globe; including those who live in the Arab & Muslim worlds. In an effort to reach out to those in the region, the newly elected president opted to grant his first official interview to an Arab television network: Al Arabiya TV. He also addressed 1.5 billion Muslims from the podium of Cairo University.

Meanwhile,  another election brought turmoil to the Middle East.

On June 12, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was reelected as the president of Iran. During the following weeks, supporters of defeated candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi protested the results. The resultant violence is said to be the worst seen in Iran since the Iranian revolution of 1979. The death of Neda Agha-Soltan, an Iranian student shot during a protest, was captured on what quickly became a viral video, turning Neda into an international symbol of the civil unrest following the presidential election.

The year 2009… From the war in Gaza to the election in Iran, how did Arab, Israeli and Iranian media cover the news?

Join me in this Mosaic 2009 Special: Connecting the Dots in the Middle East.

Eight years have passed since the horrific events of September 11, 2001, and the U.S. government is still waiting to pay the $25 million reward it has offered to anyone who provides information leading to Osama bin Laden's capture.

Meanwhile, almost eight years have passed since the U.S. has launched Operation Enduring Freedom, less than a month after the attacks of 9/11, in order to destroy al-Qaeda and the Taliban government that harbored the group. It was supposed to be a swift and decisive victory until the U.S. botched an effort to nab bin Laden in late 2001 in Afghanistan's Tora Bora region. His trail has since gone cold, and everything has gone wrong.

George W. Bush shifted his attention to Iraq. We were told that the Land of the Two Rivers was ruled by a horrible man who was stockpiling WMDs and was bent on setting the region on fire. We were told that he also had something to do with 9/11. We found out that we were duped:

"Never mind," they said, " he is still a bad man." And Saddam was hung.

We were also told that democracy is contagious, and once we plant it in Iraq, it will spread all over the Middle East. They then showed us the "purple fingers," and we rejoiced. But now Iraq has become the "bad war"; it has been deemed a "war of choice." The "good war" we are told is in Afghanistan, "a war of necessity" in Obama's own words.

Today, America mourns the memory of those who perished eight years ago. But today America needs to reassess what has been done in the name of the victims of 9/11: two horrible and unwinnable wars. This is the reality of the situation.

No Afghans or Iraqis have been directly involved in the attacks of 9/11. All 19 hijackers were Arabs, mostly from Saudi Arabia, and their leader is in hiding. Exacting revenge for 9/11 was and still is a job most suited for the CIA, anti-terror units, and other international security agencies.

However, President Obama has already ordered the deployment of 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan by the end of the year, bringing the U.S. total to 68,000 and the coalition total to 110,000. This is despite the fact that now, for the first time, a majority of respondents (51 percent) in a recent Washington Post-ABC poll said the war was not worth the fight.

This past August was the deadliest month for US troops since the start of the war in October 2001, according to the Pentagon. Taliban forces have gained ground, and coalition troop casualties have steadily risen; therefore, an increase in American troops on the ground in Afghanistan will only lead to more casualties. You do not have to be a military general to figure this out.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has done a mediocre job on the intelligence side in the hunt for bin Laden. According to a recent article in the Times Online "the fruitless search [for bin Laden] has essentially been outsourced by the U.S. to a network of Pashtun spies run by the Pakistani intelligence services."

One of the former CIA agents, called Mr. Keller, interviewed for this article "spoke no Middle Eastern languages, and was not an expert on al-Qaeda or Pakistan."

Now we know why the reward for bin Laden's head remains unclaimed!

There is no "good war" and "bad war" in the aftermath of 9/11...there is bad strategy...and it has been bad all along.

Originally published on the Huffington Post