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Tehran, Iran -- Peacekeeping is indeed the primary task of the Security Council. But that task has been neglected for such a long time that the Middle East is in urgent need of a boldly enforced peace making plan. A durable plan with foreign troops on both sides of Israel's borders is needed.
Tehran, Iran - Recent events in the Middle East seem to justify scholar Samuel Huntington's rough view of racial purity and his resistance to intercultural encounters. He must be thrilled these days. War is a by-product of intellectual bankruptcy which presumes ingrained antagonisms between cultures.
Tehran, Iran - Hezbollah's impact on Lebanese politics is nothing new. It is a grassroots indigenous movement formed more than twenty-three years ago in reaction to the massacres of Sabra and Chatila -- Palestinian refugee camps -- by Ariel Sharon's army and the Phalangist forces in Lebanon. Hezbollah set out to rid Lebanon from foreign forces and their proxies.
Tehran, Iran - The United States' excessive spending in the Mideast and fiscal recklessness has led to a massive debt. This worries Asian countries that supply the U.S. goods. Like Bashir says, China might escape the consequences of this shifting U.S. demand for goods, but the impact on more fragile economies in the region will be significant.
Tehran, Iran - All wars must end. The United States must face reality in Iraq and announce a scheduled withdrawal. This move must be accompanied by several others actions in order to achieve stability.
We have to accept that we live in an era of intellectual rip-offs, tactics sold as policy and instant strategies broadcast live on TV. The show on the plastic box and talking-head spin-meisters will do the thinking and planning for us all. Accordingly, we lower expectations and shall not be surprised when we see childish games are sold as a mimic of statesmanship. His Excellency, the president of a superpower, is now demanding that the world forget what it knows and listen to his version of stories.
Welcome to commanding heights of hype with peculiar timing. It coincides with the issue of an Islamic banking license in Britain and a lively debate following the lecture of The Archbishop of Canterbury to lawyers when the highest clergy of the Church of England commented about the nexus of English and Islamic Sharia laws and a need for social policies and an aim to absorb British Muslims in the community.
Is the way Turkish women dress really worthy of world debate, and more importantly, does one's headwear symbolize what is in one's mind? And if it is a matter for world debate, should a superficial translation to English in the media suffice and reduce one's dress to a matter radicalization? Search the internet and it all has a whiff of Islamophobia. Simple-minded dark forces, with no mind for facts, are trigger happy to launch a collective punishment of all Muslims.
The Current Discussion: CIA Director Michael Hayden says al-Qaeda is more or less defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan. Should the Bush administration take credit? How much?
I am still trying to figure out the nature of the conflict or war and the basic fight or argument of al-Qaeda versus the United States. I wonder whether it all can be framed in the common perspectives of the rest of the world. It seems convenient that the apparent rise and defeat of al-Qaeda, a group with no pre-invasion presence in Iraq, is so timely with the American election season! What about the war on terror? Is that one over too, or will be put on the same backburner – where the war on drugs (for example) sits? Are these comments just telegraphic codes for election slogans for the next five months?
The Current Discussion: What did you think of Obama's speech in Cairo? What kind of change will, or won't, it bring?
The principle and offer of a new beginning by the American president is much welcomed, even if it is to repair damage and in apology for the Bush Era. However, one cannot help but recall an old Persian proverb that “two hundred speeches won’t sum up to half a deed”. Mr. Obama is a good orator. He communicates clearly as a master politician who wants to keep everyone happy. But it is time to show by tangible deeds and firm steps, and not be summarily dismissed as yet another speech of a novice president and his “I have a dream” speech of the Martin Luther King legacy.
During these first months, and as seen with America’s posture towards Cuba, his words have indicated little more than a mere rolling back of stated foreign policy goals to the Clinton era. A quick recall of Bill Clinton’s speeches delivered in the Muslim world in the1990s will leave the listener bemused that many passages were simply transliterated (with quotes from the Quran, the Bible and Torah.) The distinction is simply the delivery of rehashed words from a man presiding over a maxed-out bust on political, and financial, credit and short of return on political capital invested in places like Iraq (Clinton, for his part, rendered a post-Cold War tune in the tone of upbeat country music by a Sunday preacher).
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