During my visits to the blogs, I have noticed some of the commenters, who are not aware of the facts about Islam as a religion and a path of life. I have to say much of the misinformation and disinformation existing in our society comes from the media. This has caused the spread of racism and bigotry in America. Considering the fact that the prosperity of Americans is very much interrelated with the prosperity of people all around the world with different cultures and religions, and since US is very much involved in the Middle East, it is very much helpful Americans learn more about Islam and its core values.
As someone with some knowledge of Islam, Quran and constitution of the United States, I can tell you with confidence; constitution of the US is one of the best set of administrational principles in the world and includes many of the values and principles which are cherished in Islam. These rights and freedoms are supposed to be the core principles for any administration in the Muslim world, the reason it is not, is the rule of dictatorships and support of US government of these dictatorships, also estrangement of many Muslims from the principles of their own religion does not help either. Spread of "Wahabism" which is a distorted ideology and has nothing to do with Islam with the support and sponsorship of Saudi Royal family has done a lot of damage to the true knowledge of Islam as well. Wahabism is the ideology of Taliban and Al-Qaeda, Islam is not their religion.
If I may, for those who are interested, I suggest books written by Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hossein_Nasr , in this field. He is one of handful of greatest academic scholars in the field of Islam, spirituality and comparative religions and a professor at George Washington University. He is a graduate of Harvard and MIT and has written many best selling books. One of the most recent ones which was written after 9/11 to inform people who unfortunately are so misinformed by the media, is titled "The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity" http://www.amazon.com/Heart-Islam-Enduring-Values-Humanity/dp/0060730641 . It is a great read. There is also a video of a discussion with Professor Nasr on this http://info.worldbank.org/etools/bspan/PresentationView.asp?PID=697&EID=360 . (You can click on high speed and watch.)
I strongly believe gaining more awareness of the rest of the world by Americans greatly affects our foreign policy, and solve many of the problems we face at this moment in history.
The recent exposure of the NIE report regarding Iran halting the Nuclear program in 2003, and the unwillingness of the US administration to declare the truth about it sooner, proves only one thing. A devious group (Neocons) has taken the full control of US government and they force their ideological agenda over the American interest and morals and principles of humanity.
The root of their agenda is some kind of distorted religious belief taught by very few extremist preachers that Iran has some connection with the fate of the world and we have to enter in to a conflict with Iran. They even wrongly reference their distorted idea to some biblical phrases which discussing that is out of the scope of this blog.
Now, the only way they can force their agenda down the throat of American people is through FEAR. Politics of fear promoted after 9/11 by this administration has been only a vehicle to convince American people of the need to do preemptive actions against Iraq and Iran.
The only way to defeat their agenda is through the politics of hope. This kind of politics will dissolve the fear mongering and gives a kind of vision to see the truth to the American people to defeat these agenda driven ideologues. Senator Obama is an inspirational preacher of “politics of hope” and therefore his presidency is the only hope in preventing future wars and conflicts and creating a serious shift in US foreign policy.
Probably you have heard from Senator Obama something like this statement, "We not only have to end the war in Iraq, but we have to change the mindset that got us in to Iraq in the first place".
Often we have heard: "All democrats want to end the war" or "All democrats want to extend diplomatic efforts" and so on.
The reality is even if they want to do those things as long as their mindset is framed the same as before they are not going to be successful in achieving those goals.
Senator Clinton campaign has been successful in blurring the key differences between Senator Obama's positions and her positions on foreign policy. What is important about these differences is that they are due to different mindsets. One is basically the same mindset which has been governing US foreign policy for many years (not only Bush era) and the other one has not been tried for a very long time. One is rooted in arrogance and self-centrism and the other is based in leadership, values and professionalism.
Some elements of the first mindset which will be the future picture of her possible presidency in foreign policy are as follow:
1) Unconditional support and friendship for dictators if they are considered allies even if they are suppressing their people.
This element will not change anything with regard to terrorism, because the suppressed people will hate US even more and ordinary people will be recruited to organizations such as Al-Qaeda. Plus US will not have any clout over some of these unconditional friends such as Saudi and Pakistani dictators to deal with their sponsorship of "Wahabism" which is a distorted branch of Islam sponsored by Saudi Royal family and the ideology of Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
2) Categorizing leaders of the countries in to "good guys" and "bad guys" , and considering presidential talk to bad guys a reward to them, and this prevents US from engaging with serious negotiations with those so called "bad guys". The example of those who are categorized in this group are Iranian leaders.
Based on this element negotiation only happens when the preconditions are met by the other side of the negotiation before the negotiation even takes place. This approach is more close to bullying others than negotiating with them and negotiation would never even takes place because accepting those preconditions are in the control of the other side and they would not accept US preconditions because those preconditions are objectives of the negotiations which must be followed through out diplomatic efforts with offering Carrots besides sticks. So basically this mindset always offers sticks and "no carrots". Therefore no real negotiation ever takes place despite the gesture of willingness to negotiate.
3) The US is so powerful that it does not "NEED" any help from other nations and international community.
This element prevents US from offering any incentives to nations such as Iran in return for help needed on different issues challenging US. So basically it promotes the idea of "Sticks without carrots".
Now does this mindset sound familiar? Yes, that is exactly what governs Bush's foreign policy. So when Senator Obama says "I don't want Bush-Chaney Lite", he is not exaggerating about his opponent’s mindset.
I have posted this comment on the HQ blog; However I am fascinated by this long interview by Senator Obama so I created this post. Here is the interview:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/us/politics/02obama-transcript.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1194723479-KxbzNiZPxBeH2GlCDDYQcg .As someone familiar with the Middle East, I have to say I am really impressed with Senator's plans on Iraq and Iran.There are several points which are extremely important in his plan which are unprecedented in recent American foreign policy approach.1) He considers the people of Iraq as an important entity in his plan. Unfortunately this has been neglected by US policies in recent years. He limits the US assistant to a unified Iraqi government, not taking side with one faction against other sides which will create more instability in the long run.2) His plan is comprehensive. All of Iraq's neighbors are taken seriously in his plan. Not just so called US friends. So he understands nothing will be achieved without Iraq's neighbors and US really NEED them as well as international community.3) His plan towards Iran shows he is one of the extremely rare politicians who understands NEGOTIATION and how it is done. He understands a negotiation first of all must be without precondition and second it should be done with equal stands for both sides and not with threatening the other side or bullying them.4) He understands no option could be considered in isolation. That is why his plan is comprehensive. He understands that how people in the world view America, is an important factor in negotiation ability of the US.Generally his vision and his views are professional, effective and rare among today's politicians. I commend him for it.
There was this reply for my comment :
Q: I have a couple of questions: 1) Given the fact that many folks in the Middle East have extremely long memories, will they be willing to accept such a plan? 2) And would their acceptance truly ameliorate the sitation on the region or at least begin the process?Here is my answer:
A: You are absolutely right about the long memory and significance of history in the Middle East. However the reason it has been hard for the people to overcome their mistrust, is the continuous effect of some of the US policies on people's lives. Let me give you an example, you have a village and there are two parties with a conflict in the village and nobody in this village has a gun, now some powerful force comes and give one side of the conflict weapons, obviously the group which does not have the gun will loose and they will hate that external power. Now the US has done this in the Middle East, not only that but US has shifted its support sometimes for one side of the conflict other times for other side of the conflict. Most of the times US has supported the dictators instead of people, this has caused people to be suppressed by their government and prevented people from doing reform in their government. Now having said that, if US changes its approach in which instead of taking side in the conflict or threatening a government, help the people with humanitarian effort (as this is the case for Senator's plan for Afghanistan and Iraq) or supporting a unified government instead of meddling in the internal struggles between different groups in the country, obviously that would have a direct positive impact on the people’s lives. Now add to that the fact that US makes it clear that they don’t want to create permanent bases in the Middle East (As this is Senator’s intention). That would significantly change the US perception among the people and alienates those organizations such as Al-Qaeda and take away their reason to recruit new members. Changing this image which only would happen with a serious shift in foreign policy, can change that memory and at least start a new phase in US –Middle Eastern relations.
It has been a while since I have this feeling that US government has a devious idea of promoting a new war with Iran. I like to ask you as citizens of Unite States as well as Senator Obama to be aware of some facts and do not trust the media on this issue. Do your own research and try totally new channels for information. Try sources who know Persian and are aware of cultural issues of Iran as well as political language and use of rhetoric and bluffs in their leaders speeches. The next paragraphs are some of the comments I have put forward in some of the blogs, I present them as I have commented them.
I am sorry to say the media has done so much disservice to American people by misinforming them about Iran. Only because they wanted to create "The other one" to replace Soviet Union. Just because the US foreign policy needs to have an enemy even if they have to create one.
I am sorry to say most people are misinformed, when they use the word dictator referring to Iranian president. (I don't like him either but this has nothing to do with it). There is no country in the world which has had so many elections in the past 20 years, as Iran. There is no country in the world whose populations are so involved in politics and elections.(not suggesting those elections are totally acceptable by our standards).
The percentages of Iranians who participate in elections are highest in the world. Iranian people were amongst the first who sympathized and lighted candles for victims of 9/11. The Iranian president at the time was among the first world leaders who sympathized with the victims. There was not even one Iranian involved in the crime of 9/11.(Iranians are Persians and not Arabs).
Iranian government ideologically is the enemy of Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda considers people of Iran infidels and their blood is permissible to shed. That is why Iran helped US to topple Taliban in Afghanistan. Maliki government is supported by Iranian government, while Saudi king has pledged lots of money to topple the Iraqi government just because of his religious affiliation.
All these are after US supported Saddam in his attack and 8-years war with Iran which caused 1'000'000 young Iranian deaths. The west even supplied chemical weapons to Saddam to use against Iran. The victims of that chemical weapons are still suffering and dying after 15 years one by one in Iran. US CIA toppled the only democratically elected government of Mosaddeq at the time of Iranian dictator shah of Iran 50 years ago.
Iranian people based on their religion do not accept usage of nuclear bomb. Even if the accusations of trying to acquired nuclear weapons were true which there is no proof for it (watch this clip to see how credible sources are totally neglected by media http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StL4VWN2bq8 ), No government is able to use nuclear weapon because of religious reasons.
Iranian people see the peaceful achievements of their scientists very honorable and a source of pride. They see political efforts of US as a mean to stop their scientific progress which has nothing to do with their government. Many Iranians at this time don’t like their president, however many Americans don’t like their president either. That is why the president of Iran most probably won’t be elected again.
I hope people in America get informed and see that all the foreign policy mistakes of US government and the sanctions has only caused suffering and pressure and death on Iranian people who have no animosity towards American people and even American government. I wish for peace for everyone. You are only afraid of what you don’t know. If people are provided with the right information, they would see things differently.
