Ali Ettefagh at PostGlobal

Ali Ettefagh

Tehran, Iran

Dr. Ali Ettefagh serves as a director of Highmore Global Corporation, an investment company in emerging markets of Eastern Europe, CIS, and the Middle East. He is the co-author of several books on trade conflict, resolution of international trade disputes, conflicts in letters of credit, trade-related banking transactions, sovereign debt, arbitration and dispute resolutions and publications specific to the oil and gas, communication, aviation and finance sectors. Dr. Ettefagh is a member of the executive committee and the board of directors of The Development Foundation, an advisor to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, and an advisor to a number of European companies. Dr. Ettefagh speaks Persian (Farsi), English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and Turkish. Close.

Ali Ettefagh

Tehran, Iran

Dr. Ali Ettefagh serves as a director of Highmore Global Corporation, an investment company in emerging markets of Eastern Europe, CIS, and the Middle East. more »

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Dear Candidate: Keep God Out of Your Wars

Dear Presidential Aspirant,

You have indeed picked an important moment in the history of your country. Oh, boy, have you ever! You are either incredibly motivated or extremely out of touch. I hope you are prepared to inherit a Japanese-style chronic recession after fifteen years of stealth asset inflation laced with hype and reckless short-sighted finance. Meanwhile, you will preside over a massive federal deficit that has left all IMF sermons on fiscal discipline in its rearview mirror. All international players, friends and foe alike, will awaken you to the fact that you find your country in a deep isolation. Demoralized taxpayers and their rapidly changing demographics will demand quick fixes and a relapse to yesteryears, the good times jazz age and massive fins on the back of their oversized cars. The foreign policy aspirations of your country might well have a whiff of USSR to them, all saddled with a global warming problem. Being president is a tough job and completely different from your occupation during the election campaign, which is about statistics and rapid reaction to instant polls.

But the good news is that you will thrive after a president that could easily be blamed for all ills of your country. This means the old tradition will give us all that dependability whereas, like all other American politicians, you will focus the first four years on your re-election in 2012!

So, dear aspirant, if you want to take any bold steps and attack another member country of the UN, please do not tell the rest of the world, once again, that God told you to do it. Please remember that the Ten Commandments are for everybody on this planet. Deep and childish desires to find the elusive fictional villains are a product of Hollywood, not the real world. Such desire is probably the only real enemy that you will have. Divine Intervention is not a glossy frame for politics in the global village, an exclusive veto power against others in this world or grounds to force others to prove a negative. Please keep in mind that an extremist named Osama also believes that he is doing the work of God, whilst the rest of the world never accepted extremism, no matter how it is packaged or alleged. The world will hold you to exceptionally high standards as you will be the leader of an exceptional land and hardworking people that have made great contributions to the rest of the world.

The rest of the world already knows that America is powerful and there is no need to project anger and force where reason and co-existence ought to be the essence of living by the Ten Commandments. Please do not confuse it with a game of American sports where there is “sudden death” and there must be a winner at all costs! Kindly return the symbol of liberty and reason, the Statue of Liberty, from Guantanamo and place it back where it deserves to be. In the words of T. S. Eliot, the only wisdom is the wisdom of humility as humility is endless. Cheap but bold labels or undignified one-liners will eventually fly back in your face.

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