By Andrew L. Jaffee

I’ve been in high gear once again after the Mohammed cartoon debacle and the savage destruction of Iraq?s golden dome of the al-Askari shrine in Samarra — pretty uptight, even succmbing to the us vs. them thing. But as I sit here tonight listening to a CD I made for a dear friend, a compilation of great American rootsy, cross-cultural jive, for lack of a better term; I took pause. The CD’s atists include The Jackson Jive, Elton John, Bill Haley, The Andrews Sisters, Elvis, The Rolling Stones, Cab Calloway, Mahalia Jackson, David Bowie, The Ohio Players, and a few others. What a beautiful syhchroncity has evolved from initial cultural clashes, then cross-polination of art, and then assimilation. These artists have borrowed from and shared with each other’s African, Appalachian, British, Mo-Town, Be-bop, and jazz genres, to make music that soothes the soul, and makes my hips gyrate. It gives me hope and the energy to search out any similar mojo creeping into the moderate Muslim world. Low and behold, I found a glimmer of hope, from Andrew Sullivan:

It’s hard not to be impressed by this astonishing public display in Bahrain of the real face of moderate Islam - appalled by the blasphemy of the Samarra mosque bombing. Here’s a slogan worth cheering: "No Shia, no Sunni. All of us denounce the exclusivists (terrorists)." Gateway Pundit has the goods. Invaluable commentary here.

Hope still remains. I wish the neighboring Iraqis will take note before they do something really stupid, like engaging in an all-out civil war.

As Bill Haley wailed, its time to “Shake, rattle, and roll” — peacefully and democratically, that is.

Hat-tip to Donnel.

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by L. Paul Bremer III
Simon & Schuster, 2006. 417 pp. $27.

Reviewed by Michael Rubin
Armed Forces Journal*
March 2006
http://www.meforum.org/
* Cross-posted with permission

Memoir’s of a president’s man

“I would be the only paramount authority figure — other than dictator Saddam Hussein — that most Iraqis had ever known.”

So reflected L. Paul Bremer as an Air Force C-130 began in its spiral descent into Baghdad International Airport on May 12, 2003, the start of his 13-month tenure as presidential envoy to Iraq and administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, or CPA.

A year and a half after his departure from Baghdad and the dissolution of the CPA, Bremer has produced a memoir that seeks to recast and rehabilitate his leadership of postwar Iraq. There is a fitting irony in this. The CPA was always a paper universe, a place where orders and diktats flew about with little reference to reality. That Bremer would seek to rewrite his place in history, then, is wholly appropriate.

Despite its self-interest, however, “My Year in Iraq” offers some valuable insights into Bremer’s administration. In particular, the book’s narrative captures well the twin, contradictory impulses that afflicted so much of U.S. policy under the CPA: a fierce determination to concentrate formal decision-making authority as narrowly as possible and, simultaneously, a glib and confused approach toward actually using it. Much like America in Iraq, Bremer’s memoir takes responsibility for everything and for nothing.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

The Bush administration has seen its share of problems recently, but it deserves kudos for an agreement reached Thursday building closer ties between the U.S. and India. What more natural alliance than one between two democracies? Yes, India is a nuclear power, but its arsenal is under the control of its people through democratically-elected representatives. India has given up on its failed socialist experiment, and is now a free-market powerhouse, with a middle class of 250 million. Also making the subcontinent a natural ally, India has suffered from the scourge of Islamo-fascism. India is an outpost of democracy in a sea of corruption and dictatorship. Pragmatically, what better strategic counter-balance would there be in Asia to the insane tyrants ruling countries like Iran, who insist that “Islam must ‘conquer the world’ by defeating the West?”

It should not be forgotten that India has broken from the Third World herd mentality, by voting against Iran at the UN, and forging diplomatic and military ties with the “pariah” State of Israel.

Despite its geographic location, India is practically part of the West, partially by virtue of its Anglosphere (British) legacy, but also because its major religious traditions, both Hindu and Buddhist, advocate quite tolerant philosophies.

There is more to Indo-U.S. relations than strategic and tactical concerns. Indian culture started making inroads into U.S. society during the 60’s, as flower-children looked to expand their horizons by exploring alternative spiritual traditions. But Indian cultural influence has never been as strong as it is now. Many Indians have immigrated to the U.S., and their contributions to our society are no less than amazing. Their ties to the homeland help bind our two nations together.

Young Americans are dancing to Punjabi Bhangra music. More and more U.S. citizens are tasting Indian cuisine. Americans are discovering the beautiful teachings of the Bhagavad-Gita and Upanishads. Poets and writers are voraciously consuming the verses of Rabindranath Tagore. Indian-American engineers have helped fuel America’s great tech/Internet revolution (e.g., through companies like Juniper Networks or Exodus — worth about $235 billion in stock market value).

India is a free market, pluralistic society — the biggest on Earth. It is destined to become one of the world’s most influential countries — economically, culturally, technologically, and strategically. It is only natural for the U.S., the most powerful democracy, to ally itself with the most important up-and-coming democracy.

To my amazement, the Washington Post agrees, and describes other positives which could result from Bush’s visit to the subcontinent:

The clearest win out of yesterday’s bargain is a closer relationship with India, the world’s most populous democracy, an emerging powerhouse in engineering and medicine, and a potential counterweight both to militant Islam and China. But there are other wins, too. Allowing India to import foreign technology for its civilian nuclear program will boost global efforts to develop new sources of energy, particularly sources that won’t increase the level of climate-warming gases. In exchange for the opportunity to import nuclear know-how, India will disentangle its civilian nuclear program from its weapons-building facilities, subjecting the civilian side to multilateral inspections designed to ensure that technology or fissile material isn’t diverted for military purposes. Again, this represents a gain: Currently only four of India’s nuclear facilities are subject to foreign safeguards, and these are less muscular than the inspections to which India will be submitting. Finally, India will promise not to export nuclear equipment or material deemed sensitive by other nuclear powers. At present, India respects these international rules; in the future it would be formally committed to them.

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Editor’s note: In response to an article I wrote which mentioned the term “Islamism,” a friend accused me of “see[ing] all moslems as barbaric.” Jesus Maria, I work for a Shiite Muslim. But I have no need to defend my bona fide liberalism. The truth of the matter is that many “liberals/leftists” are just plain ignorant of what is going on in the world. In their desire to be “progressive,” they see the conflict between Muslim extremism and the West as a repeat of the civil rights movement. They cannot — perhaps will not — distinguish between real moderate Muslims, like Fareed Zakaria, Kamal Nawash, Fouad Ajami, and Mansoor Ijaz; and questionable groups like CAIR. These lefties ignore the fact that “The 9/11 commission noted that Islamist terrorism is the ‘catastrophic threat’ facing America.” I cannot write as eloquently as Daniel Pipes, so I leave it to this very tolerant expert on Middle East studies to explain the difference between “Islam” and “Islamism.”

by Daniel Pipes
Center for Strategic and International Studies*
June 30, 1998
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/954
* Cross-posted with permission

This is a very auspicious date to discuss the subject of Islam and the West, for it was exactly 200 years ago today, by the usual reckoning, that Islam’s pre-modern era came to an abrupt end. Tomorrow, on July 1, 1798, Napoleon landed in Egypt. That was the date when the Muslim world became far more aware of Europe, and after which Europe had a more dramatic and direct impact than ever before. If any single date can delineate the beginning of a new era, this one does.

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Donnel Jones

An ocassional guilty pleasure is tabloid gossip, especially the devilish anti-idolatarian spite of Matt Drudge when he spits in Hollywood’s direction, as well as the pointless intrigue of self-absorbed nitwits in that town who aspire to political discourse and, yes, even greatness.

Not to be disappointed, I find Front Page of New York Daily News has published Spike Lee’s take down of Condi Rice.

Here’s his only “fact finding” piece of his rant:

“People say, ‘She’s so successful’ and ‘Look at her position as a black woman.’ She is a black woman who grew up in Birmingham, Ala., and said that she never experienced a day of racism in her life,” Lee tells the April issue of Stuff magazine.

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Interview with Daniel Pipes
ABC Lateline (Australia)*
March 2, 2006
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3429
* Cross-posted with permission

TONY JONES: Well Saddam’s trial may have adjourned for a short break, but there’s been an orgy of violence throughout Iraq since last week’s bombing of the Shi’ia Muslim holy site, the Golden Shrine, in Samarra. The wave of attacks and killings has left many fearful that the country is on the brink of descending into civil war. But at least one influential commentator, the director of the Middle East Forum, Dr Daniel Pipes, believes that while a civil war in Iraq would be a humanitarian tragedy, it would “not be a strategic one”. Daniel Pipes joins us now from Philadelphia. Thanks for being there.

DR DANIEL PIPES, DIRECTOR MIDDLE EAST FORUM: Thank you, Tony.

TONY JONES: Can you explain to me how you could regard a civil war in Iraq as anything but a strategic disaster?

DR DANIEL PIPES: Well, let me start by emphasising that it it is a humanitarian disaster and in no sense do I want one to take place. It’s a horrible prospect. Should, however, it take place I don’t, think from the point of view of the coalition it is necessarily that bad for our interests.

TONY JONES: Can you tell us why you think that? And I suppose the broader question is do you think that other people, that people within the administration are thinking the same way?

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

On Tuesday, February 21, Christopher Hitchens appealed to people of good conscience to take a stand against the Muslim rampaging, killing, and burning against a series of caricatures of Mohammed published by a Danish newspaper. Some enlightened citizens heeded his call, and attended a peaceful rally in support of Denmark — more on that later. But Hitchens’ essay, “Stand up for Denmark!” (in Slate), is worth mentioning first:

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By Ted Belman

I recently wrote an article in which I tried to deal with the implications of the recent SC decision in Israel on education budgets or “priority areas”. Bill Narvey commented on it (below) and here is my response.

Thanks for this. Most of it I agree in the main.

1. I think we both recognize the tension between democracy and equality. If democracy means majority rule, when and to what extent do minority rights trump democracy?

2. We also recognize that in all democracies, governments reduce equality to achieve equality. It all depends on how you define equality. For instance we have progressive tax rates. ( or is it regressive?) i.e. higher tax rates for higher incomes is inherently unequal but it is done to create greater equality of net income. Wealth transfer in general serves this purpose as do all restrictions on capitalism.

3. Democracies make use of the use of super majorities for deciding issues considered more important.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Finally, from the Washington Times:

Only three major U.S. newspapers — the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Austin-American Statesman in Texas and the New York Sun — have reprinted the cartoons. …

Tony Blankley, editorial page editor for The Washington Times, which has not published the cartoons, attended [a] rally [in support of Denmark].

“The paper has not made a decision yet” about the cartoons, he said.

Later is better than never, but one would think that the Washington Times would have the guts to exercise free speech. Hopefully more American journals will step up the plate. The blogsphere certainly has.

Special Report: Danish Cartoons

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

How many times have we heard the politically-correct equate the liberation of Iraq with Saddam’s atrocities, or carefully phrased NPR commentaries implying that things just might have been “better” under Saddam (among public radio’s other ridiculous stunts)? Well, Andrew Sullivan, no wilting flower, lays this sophistry to rest in his usual eloquent fashion:

The blogger Michael Totten continues his tour of Kurdistan. Here’s his latest - a visit to Saddam’s former torture chambers. The photograph above is a memorial to six Kurdish children murdered by Saddam’s thugs. I have made a great deal of fuss over torture committed by the Bush administration, but that is because I believe in this country as a beacon for freedom, not because I hate it, or want to see its honorable war fail. It’s because I love this country and believe in the cause of this war that I am so distressed by this horror. And it’s always important to say, although it of course goes often without saying, that there is no moral equivalence between the kind of abuse and torture allowed during military detention by George Bush, as a misguided part of intelligence gathering, and the orchestrated, impervious, brutal torture-state controlled by Saddam. Totten tours a building where over 10,000 people were murdered. In Abu Ghraib under General Miller, we’re talking six. All torture is evil; but there is no equating the sins of the liberator with the crimes of the dictator.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Someone set off a bomb today in Ahwaz, a city in Iran’s south. This was not an isolated incident, only one in a series of bombings in Iran, and there are continuing signs of popular dissatisfaction with the Islamist regime. From the BBC:

A bomb exploded in the southern Iranian city of Ahwaz, hours after two men were hung for an attack last year, according to Iranian reports.

The percussion bomb shattered the windows of a building in the Kianpars area of the city on Thursday evening, but no casualties were reported.

The attack is the latest in a series to hit the restive Khuzestan Province, at the heart of Iran’s oil industry.

Eight people died in bomb attacks on a government office and bank a month ago.

Iran has accused British forces stationed just across the Iran-Iraq border of co-operating with ethnic Arab separatist groups who said they were behind the blasts. The UK has denied any involvement.

See the links provided in this BBC story for more information on other bombings in Iran.

Note that the Beeb added:

In November, protests erupted in Ahwaz after ethnic Arabs accused Iran’s Persian majority of discrimination.

Popular unrest has not yet again reached the level of that experienced in 2004, when thousands of Iranians protested in the streets of Tehran and other cities. But signs of popular discontent with the current mullahcracy persist.

Iranians didn’t exactly celebrate the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution with enthusiasm. Sporadic protests broke out in Tehran last month. Tehran’s Collective Bus Company (TCBC) employees went on a very public strike recently. Clashes between citizens and official security forces rocked the city of Sannandaj in January. Iranian young people vented their frustrations at a soccer game in December.

There have been many other instances of unrest — see here or click here and enter the search term “Iran protests.”

While it sometimes seems hopeless, just one incident could end up igniting a fire that the mullahs can’t put out. Let us hope that Iranians can topple their Islamist regime before the mullahs get the ultimate guarantee for staying in power — nuclear weapons.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Pope John Paul II did much help bring down the Evil Empire, er, ah, Soviet Union, and not just because he was Polish, but because he believed in free expression. We knew that he pissed off the Soviet leadership, but now:

An Italian parliamentary commission has concluded that the former Soviet Union was behind the 1981 assassination attempt on the late Pope John Paul II.

The head of the commission, Paolo Guzzanti, said it was sure beyond “reasonable doubt” that Soviet leaders ordered the shooting.

Turkish national Mehmet Ali Agca, now 48, shot the Pope in St Peter’s Square on 13 May 1981, hitting him four times.

Agca never gave a motive, and mystery has continued to surround the shooting.

A link between Agca and Bulgarian agents, and through them to the Soviet Union’s KGB, has been the subject of speculation over the years.

It galls me to hear from old, washed-up, die-hard leftists that things were “better” under the Soviets than they are now in Eastern Europe. Better then? People in the old satellites can now vote, start businesses, publish and/or read independent newspapers, surf the web, and practice their faiths openly. Countries are no longer surrounded by mine fields and barbed wire; people can travel as they will. People can make a phone call without fearing that some apparatchik is listening. Citizens can speak freely in restaurants without worrying that someone is listening, and will denounce them to the KGB/NKVD. Parliaments now ring with open discourse. People can now expect open trials in independent judiciaries. Children can grow up learning about their own cultures, and are not subject to Russification and communist indoctrination. There are a few exceptions, like Belarus, but things were “better” under the Soviets?

This pining for the good ol’ days is a leftover from the worn-out, grass-is-greener socialist dogma which still disdains “establishment” religions like Judaism and Christianity. I doubt we will hear much from the Left on the attempted assassination of the Pope, as the pseudo-commies are still trying to sweep the crimes of Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, Ho-Chi Min, Brezhnev, Andropov, and Castro et al under the historical carpet.

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SMCCDI (Information Service)
March 2, 2006

The Islamic regime has increased its activities in order to use the baseless claim of some of the Persian Gulf’s Arab sheikhdoms, on the false ownership of the 3 Iranian islands of the Lesser and Greater Thunbs and Aboo Moossa, in its favor. The Islamist leadership, well aware of the nationalistic feelings of Iranians, hopes that the subject will help to consolidate its shaky power.

The UAE which is composed by seven little sheikhdoms has increased its baseless propaganda against the Iranian Nation by trying to benefit of the ill policies of the Islamic regime and Iran’s increasing isolation in order to prepare some grounds for a future seizure of the 3 Iranian islands.

Its leadership hopes that the western world would endorse such an illegitimate move in exchange of this country’s help against the Islamic republic.

The UAE, blinded by the flow of petroleum money and some British and American support, is forgetting the fate of Saddam Hussein and how millions of Iranians stood for defending another part of the Iranian territory.

Many Iranians hope that the U.S. Administration will follow President Bush’s last July statement on “the need to respect the territorial integrity of Iran” and would oppose any British-UAE conspiracy seeking to occupy the 3 Iranian islands.

In reality, the UAE was formed, in 1971, by seven little sheikhdoms and following the departure of the British troops from the region. The area was formerly known as the “Pirates’ Coast” while Iran is known to be one of the oldest countries of the world.

The following study gives a better understanding of the issue:

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Twelve authors, including Salman Rushdie and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, have issued an elegant statement condemning Islamic totalitarianism, penned in reaction to the Muslim rampaging, killing, and burning over the Mohammed cartoons. The letter’s full text, along with a list of its signatories, is shown below, from the BBC. The statement was originally published in the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo, but it should be noted that even Aljazeera covered the statement.

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new global totalitarian threat: Islamism.

We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

Recent events, prompted by the publication of drawings of Muhammad in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values.

This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field.

It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism between West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

Like all totalitarian ideologies, Islamism is nurtured by fear and frustration.

Preachers of hatred play on these feelings to build the forces with which they can impose a world where liberty is crushed and inequality reigns.

But we say this, loud and clear: nothing, not even despair, justifies choosing darkness, totalitarianism and hatred.

Islamism is a reactionary ideology that kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present.

Its victory can only lead to a world of injustice and domination: men over women, fundamentalists over others.

On the contrary, we must ensure access to universal rights for the oppressed or those discriminated against.

We reject the “cultural relativism” which implies an acceptance that men and women of Muslim culture are deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secularism in the name of the respect for certain cultures and traditions.

We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of “Islamophobia”, a wretched concept that confuses criticism of Islam as a religion and stigmatisation of those who believe in it.

We defend the universality of the freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit can exist in every continent, towards each and every maltreatment and dogma.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits in every country that our century may be one of light and not dark.

Signed by:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Chahla Chafiq

Caroline Fourest

Bernard-Henri Levy

Irshad Manji

Mehdi Mozaffari

Maryam Namazie

Taslima Nasreen

Salman Rushdie

Antoine Sfeir

Philippe Val

Ibn Warraq

Also from the BBC: Some background on the signatories:

• Salman Rushdie - Indian-born British writer with fatwa issued ordering his execution for The Satanic Verses
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Somali-born Dutch MP
• Taslima Nasreen - exiled Bangladeshi writer, with fatwa issued ordering her execution
• Bernard-Henri Levy - French philosopher
• Chahla Chafiq - Iranian writer exiled in France
• Caroline Fourest - French writer
• Irshad Manji - Ugandan refugee and writer living in Canada
• Mehdi Mozaffari - Iranian academic exiled in Denmark
• Maryam Namazie - Iranian writer living in Britain
• Antoine Sfeir - director of French review examining Middle East
• Ibn Warraq - US academic of Indian/Pakistani origin
• Philippe Val - director of Charlie Hebdo

Special Report: Danish Cartoons

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Middle East Quarterly*
Winter 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/915
* Cross-posted with permission

American Oil Diplomacy in the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea

by Gawdat Bahgat
Gainesville, Fla: University Press of Florida, 2003. 214 pp. $39.95.

Reviewed by Brenda Shaffer
Caspian Studies, Harvard University

Energy will be a defining issue in international relations in the twentieth-first century, yet few political scientists have tackled the geopolitics of oil and gas. Bahgat’s welcome addition to this short list will be of special interest to policymakers and journalists. His study examines trends in the global energy market, focusing on the U.S. strategy for global energy security, and Washington’s relations with Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea region states. The overview chapters are particularly valuable to assign to students, who will also benefit from the book’s excellent glossary.

Some observations on the book: Bahgat’s important contention that “independence, not dependence, is the cornerstone of today’s global energy markets” underscores why U.S. policies aim to ensure not only U.S. energy security but also global energy supplies. It also highlights why supply interruptions affect not just specific consumers but cause global price hikes.

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