Thursday, November 23, 2006
Iran’s technology revolution
By Neal AbuNab
Last week’s Ted Koppel Discovery Channel documentary painted a meticulously-framed picture of Iran to support a hostile mindset. It was like a self-fulfilling prophecy; one always finds what he is looking for. He focused on the schisms of Iranian society much the same way that Iran always points out the schisms that exist in America. Koppel reminded Americans of the origin of this conflict when in 1954 the CIA toppled the democratically elected government in Tehran and appointed the Shah. Then, in 1979 the Islamic revolution kicked the Shah out and took over the US embassy and held up American hostages for over a year.
“Iran-the most dangerous nation” was the title of his show and the name said it all. It set out to prove just how much danger Iran presented to America and its darling Israel. Scenes of Iranian crowds marching in the streets chanting “Death to America and Death to Israel” faded in and out of the screen like a needle knitting all the stories together. By the end of the 2-hour documentary my mind surrendered to the message that Iran is America’s number one enemy.
It is the conclusion that any western viewer with an average education will reach. Koppel was laying the cultural foundation for the inevitable military confrontation with Iran. He began his story by saying: like any other country I visited which was ruled by an authoritarian regime…freedom of expression is almost non-existent…and women have to adhere to a repressive code of conduct. He interviewed political dissidents and people who’d been jailed by the Iranian regime and demonstrated how opposition views and newspapers were disappearing under the current president, Ahmadinejad. But he also showed the obsession of younger Iranians with the internet and western culture. They see American movies, dance to rap music and hold mixed sex parties at underground locations. The Iranian regime is obsessed with censorship and it shuts down numerous internet sites and spends lots of energy spying on its people.
They say that good things are either illegal, immoral or fattening. Iranians search for fun in breaking such prohibitions and doing naughty things in secret. “We used to drink in public and pray at home. Now, we pray in public and drink at home.” This is what Koppel heard everywhere he went in Iran. They are beginning to taste the fruits of peace and prosperity and women are teething for a sexual revolution. His photographer told him that her sister and the younger generation do not even know the name of their own president. Younger women in Iran today are mostly concerned with finding a career and having fun. Many of them are getting educated and rebelling against the rigidity of traditional customs. These are the signs of an affluent society in the making.
The brightest personal moment for Koppel in this episode happened when he clasped the hand of a young man who told him that he liked George Bush. A large portion of the documentary was devoted to the question of Iran’s nuclear energy program. But Koppel also reported that the price of Gas in Iran is 30 cents per gallon; people hardly pay any taxes; electricity and water services are highly subsidized, and education and healthcare are almost free. This was made possible by the skyrocketing oil prices.
Most Iranians believed that their nuclear program was peaceful in nature and that’s why they supported it. It was a matter of national pride to them to develop a home grown technology. Nuclear research sites are scattered all over the country and enrichment facilities have become numerous. Ahmadinejad announced last week that 30,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges will be installed within the next year. He also brokered peace between Syria and Iraq thereby making a goodwill gesture to the American negotiator indicating that Iran has something to offer in the way of stabilizing Iraq.
Koppel’s documentary closed by stating that the US had to negotiate with Iran over the Iraq issue, but at the same time it has to keep its military options open. That seems to be the current conclusion of most senior statesmen like Henry Kissinger and James Baker. The idea of national pride attached to the nuclear program is the easy explanation offered by most media. But the matter is more complicated and the Iranian regime is dealing with two vital issues regarding the nuclear program. The first one is called employment and the second one is called development of an industrial base.
More than 50% of Iran’s population of 70 million is under the age of 25 and about 800,000 people will be entering the job market every year. The nuclear program with its massive facilities under construction, provide employment for hundreds of thousands of people. This can not be simply shut down. It is like the nuclear construction boom of the sixties and seventies in America. Iran’s program has been set in motion irreversibly for the next 20 years.
Iran realizes that within the next 20 years there will be alternative sources of energy available to the industrialized world. Oil producing nations will be left in the cold if they do not use their current revenues to develop a real industrial base. Iran is building car factories, a defense industry and a home-grown technology base. CNN reported last week that Iran was making a breakthrough in embryonic stem cell research.
In the nineties Clinton worked so hard to complete the human genome project which produced the human genetic map in 1999. Stem cell research would’ve taken off in America if Bush had not slowed down the program because he “respected the sanctity of human life.” Iran, as well as the rest of the world, benefited from Clinton’s work and it had its Mullahs issue a religious Fatwa in 2002 that embryonic stem cell research was Halal and sanctioned by the Qur’an. They ruled that the “spirit” entered an embryo at the age of 121 days. Thus, aborting a fetus up until that point does not amount to killing a human life. Iran is bringing questions of religion and technology together in a way that is surpassing the Vatican’s pace.
Iran’s research program brought back movement to a rat’s paralyzed limb. Its stem cell research is more advanced today than America’s. Iran is in a hurry to build a solid home-grown technological base with scientists that can champion inventions in every field from electronics to medicine. This will provide opportunity to build factories that can employ millions of people and fuel a robust economy.
In the aftermath of the 1979 revolution Iran suffered from a massive exodus of scientists, educators and thinkers. In the eighties it suffered from the enormous toll of death and destruction imposed on it by Saddam Hussein. Today’s Iran does not look like a nation preparing for war. It looks like a nation hard at work trying to re-build itself and chart a path towards modernity. The erosion of the freedom of the press indicates that it has chosen to follow the Chinese model. These are state-mandated necessities that most people disagree with just like sacrificing civil liberties in America in the name of security.
Iran is trying to make itself look attractive to business leaders who prefer autocracy to achieve fast growth. It is creating a higher standard of living for its people and at the same time becoming the most influential player in the Middle East. Its nuclear program is the most visible symbol of the bubbling technological revolution. It seems determined to make the transformation to a fully industrialized self-reliant nation making it the first one in that region. It will never give up its nuclear program voluntarily. In fact, it is already talking about exporting the technology to places like Venezuela and Egypt.
By Neal AbuNab
Last week’s Ted Koppel Discovery Channel documentary painted a meticulously-framed picture of Iran to support a hostile mindset. It was like a self-fulfilling prophecy; one always finds what he is looking for. He focused on the schisms of Iranian society much the same way that Iran always points out the schisms that exist in America. Koppel reminded Americans of the origin of this conflict when in 1954 the CIA toppled the democratically elected government in Tehran and appointed the Shah. Then, in 1979 the Islamic revolution kicked the Shah out and took over the US embassy and held up American hostages for over a year.
“Iran-the most dangerous nation” was the title of his show and the name said it all. It set out to prove just how much danger Iran presented to America and its darling Israel. Scenes of Iranian crowds marching in the streets chanting “Death to America and Death to Israel” faded in and out of the screen like a needle knitting all the stories together. By the end of the 2-hour documentary my mind surrendered to the message that Iran is America’s number one enemy.
It is the conclusion that any western viewer with an average education will reach. Koppel was laying the cultural foundation for the inevitable military confrontation with Iran. He began his story by saying: like any other country I visited which was ruled by an authoritarian regime…freedom of expression is almost non-existent…and women have to adhere to a repressive code of conduct. He interviewed political dissidents and people who’d been jailed by the Iranian regime and demonstrated how opposition views and newspapers were disappearing under the current president, Ahmadinejad. But he also showed the obsession of younger Iranians with the internet and western culture. They see American movies, dance to rap music and hold mixed sex parties at underground locations. The Iranian regime is obsessed with censorship and it shuts down numerous internet sites and spends lots of energy spying on its people.
They say that good things are either illegal, immoral or fattening. Iranians search for fun in breaking such prohibitions and doing naughty things in secret. “We used to drink in public and pray at home. Now, we pray in public and drink at home.” This is what Koppel heard everywhere he went in Iran. They are beginning to taste the fruits of peace and prosperity and women are teething for a sexual revolution. His photographer told him that her sister and the younger generation do not even know the name of their own president. Younger women in Iran today are mostly concerned with finding a career and having fun. Many of them are getting educated and rebelling against the rigidity of traditional customs. These are the signs of an affluent society in the making.
The brightest personal moment for Koppel in this episode happened when he clasped the hand of a young man who told him that he liked George Bush. A large portion of the documentary was devoted to the question of Iran’s nuclear energy program. But Koppel also reported that the price of Gas in Iran is 30 cents per gallon; people hardly pay any taxes; electricity and water services are highly subsidized, and education and healthcare are almost free. This was made possible by the skyrocketing oil prices.
Most Iranians believed that their nuclear program was peaceful in nature and that’s why they supported it. It was a matter of national pride to them to develop a home grown technology. Nuclear research sites are scattered all over the country and enrichment facilities have become numerous. Ahmadinejad announced last week that 30,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges will be installed within the next year. He also brokered peace between Syria and Iraq thereby making a goodwill gesture to the American negotiator indicating that Iran has something to offer in the way of stabilizing Iraq.
Koppel’s documentary closed by stating that the US had to negotiate with Iran over the Iraq issue, but at the same time it has to keep its military options open. That seems to be the current conclusion of most senior statesmen like Henry Kissinger and James Baker. The idea of national pride attached to the nuclear program is the easy explanation offered by most media. But the matter is more complicated and the Iranian regime is dealing with two vital issues regarding the nuclear program. The first one is called employment and the second one is called development of an industrial base.
More than 50% of Iran’s population of 70 million is under the age of 25 and about 800,000 people will be entering the job market every year. The nuclear program with its massive facilities under construction, provide employment for hundreds of thousands of people. This can not be simply shut down. It is like the nuclear construction boom of the sixties and seventies in America. Iran’s program has been set in motion irreversibly for the next 20 years.
Iran realizes that within the next 20 years there will be alternative sources of energy available to the industrialized world. Oil producing nations will be left in the cold if they do not use their current revenues to develop a real industrial base. Iran is building car factories, a defense industry and a home-grown technology base. CNN reported last week that Iran was making a breakthrough in embryonic stem cell research.
In the nineties Clinton worked so hard to complete the human genome project which produced the human genetic map in 1999. Stem cell research would’ve taken off in America if Bush had not slowed down the program because he “respected the sanctity of human life.” Iran, as well as the rest of the world, benefited from Clinton’s work and it had its Mullahs issue a religious Fatwa in 2002 that embryonic stem cell research was Halal and sanctioned by the Qur’an. They ruled that the “spirit” entered an embryo at the age of 121 days. Thus, aborting a fetus up until that point does not amount to killing a human life. Iran is bringing questions of religion and technology together in a way that is surpassing the Vatican’s pace.
Iran’s research program brought back movement to a rat’s paralyzed limb. Its stem cell research is more advanced today than America’s. Iran is in a hurry to build a solid home-grown technological base with scientists that can champion inventions in every field from electronics to medicine. This will provide opportunity to build factories that can employ millions of people and fuel a robust economy.
In the aftermath of the 1979 revolution Iran suffered from a massive exodus of scientists, educators and thinkers. In the eighties it suffered from the enormous toll of death and destruction imposed on it by Saddam Hussein. Today’s Iran does not look like a nation preparing for war. It looks like a nation hard at work trying to re-build itself and chart a path towards modernity. The erosion of the freedom of the press indicates that it has chosen to follow the Chinese model. These are state-mandated necessities that most people disagree with just like sacrificing civil liberties in America in the name of security.
Iran is trying to make itself look attractive to business leaders who prefer autocracy to achieve fast growth. It is creating a higher standard of living for its people and at the same time becoming the most influential player in the Middle East. Its nuclear program is the most visible symbol of the bubbling technological revolution. It seems determined to make the transformation to a fully industrialized self-reliant nation making it the first one in that region. It will never give up its nuclear program voluntarily. In fact, it is already talking about exporting the technology to places like Venezuela and Egypt.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Hamas learns a hard lesson
By Neal AbuNab
Domestic policy and local issues have always played the primary role of bringing political parties to power. But no Palestinian organization has ever promised internal reform and won except Hamas. The struggle of Palestinians remains as a conflict with an external enemy in the first degree. Israel has made its policy of survival dependent on the methodical annihilation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. The Palestinians can talk all they want amongst themselves, conduct mock elections as if they are a free people, and have a so-called democracy but all that does not change the aim of their enemy.
All this internal fighting between Fatah, Hamas and the zillions of other factions has only served to strengthen the ruthless hand of their enemy. Since the death of Arafat, two years ago, the Palestinians have been engaged in an internal power struggle to replace him or to divide all that power that was concentrated in one person. Israel has taken advantage of their infighting by creating conditions on the ground that make it impossible for an independent Palestinian state to be established. Israel is toying with Palestinians like scientists experiment with mice in a laboratory. It feeds them for a day and starves them for a month. It imprisons them in a big camp and draws a maze for their leaders to follow. They jump through hoops and loops to please the master and when they reach that point Israel had already devised a new game plan.
Peace processes, wars, elections, international conferences, UN resolutions and many ridiculous ploys have all come and gone while Israel’s aim remained constant. The Palestinians are tired of being defeated by Israel. Collectively, they are incapable of fighting Israel and so they should do what they did back in 1948 and surrender their cause to the Arab League.
Hamas promised internal reforms when it came to power back in March. It has not delivered anything to the Palestinian people except economic sanctions. It has created more reasons for internal strife by hiring 6,000 Hamas fighters and making them part of the security force. It promised to create an army that can defend its people and instead it created another faction in the fragmented security apparatus. It promised things it could not deliver. The only thing it keeps talking about is resistance, fighting the occupation, denying Israel’s existence and renouncing all forms of negotiations with the enemy. I am sure they will remain faithful to their principles for hundreds of years. That is the nature of Arabs. Their leaders have made enormous personal sacrifices but they just don’t have the know-how to fight or to confront their enemy.
Since their election in January, many Hamas leaders have been either imprisoned or assassinated by Israel. Hamas had good intentions but in the arena of politics and governance it proved to be utterly incompetent, just like the neo-conservatives of the Bush administration. They have a lot of religious fervor and faith-based ideologies but they can not manage a grocery store. Politics is a secular business of managing power and wealth in the most pragmatic way. It is built on coalitions and compromises between conflicting interests.
Hamas has proven that it can not manage internal conflict and so it can not possibly manage the greater conflict with Israel. The Palestinian people are in dire straits and they can not find any food to eat because of the severe sanctions. No one in the world can stand up to Israel and break the financial blockade. Palestinians have no choice but to sit down and talk with their enemy.
The Arab League declared this week that it was going to break the financial blockade against Hamas and Amer Mousa urged Arab banks to start dealing with Hamas. British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, urged the US to re-engage Israel in a peace process. Spain is championing an initiative to hold an international peace conference to bring the Arabs and the Israelis back to the negotiating table. Hamas said that it would attend a peace conference if organized by the Arab League. Israel said it would not attend such a conference.
A new Palestinian government will be formed in a matter of short weeks and Prime Minister, Ismail Haniya, agreed to relinquish his position. The power struggle between President Mahmoud Abbas and the prime minister has been decided in favor of Abbas. The Hamas government collapsed because it could not pay the salaries of its employees for the past eight months. Instead of delivering economic prosperity Hamas brought ruin to the Palestinian economy.
Hamas was not ready to govern. It should have stayed as an opposition party and kept its principles and agenda unexposed to such a superior enemy. Now, the idea of resistance has been ridiculed and Hamas will have nothing to offer to its people. Palestinians don’t want to create a Muslim state and they don’t want religious zealots ruling over them. They want peace, prosperity, an end to humiliation, an ability to go to other countries and visit with their relatives, and most importantly they are looking for a dignified livelihood to feed their families.
They are tired of being defeated, massacred, starved, humiliated and imprisoned by Israel. They don’t care what Hamas or any Palestinian government has to say to Israel to achieve this goal. The world has proven that it has no authority over the state of Israel and nobody can force it to do anything it does not want to do, except Hizbullah. In the past three months, the incompetence of Palestinian leaders has squandered much of the moral victory achieved by Hizbullah.
Palestinians have proven that they would rather fight with each other over ministries and seats of power instead of fighting with their enemy. They allow young men to fire primitive rockets into a small settlement inside Israel called Sederot. The destiny of the Arab-Israeli conflict now rests in the hands of a bunch of 19-year olds from Gaza. They call this “resistance”. Somebody has to stop these kids from firing these fireworks that they call “rockets”. If Palestinians do not have real weapons to fight with they should not be staging such symbolic acts that only bring harm to their own people.
Israel retaliates by killing 25 Palestinians for each rocket that lands in Sederot. The Palestinian government has no control over the numerous pockets of “resistance” groups that sprang up in the past five years. Palestinian society is fragmenting just like the Iraqi society. Poor Palestinians are attacking the rich and stealing from them. The middle class has almost disappeared. Any rich Palestinian who wants power is hiring a bunch of kids with guns and he patrols his neighborhood and declares himself as a Chieftain.
The Palestinian people as a collective have proven that they can no longer be the spearhead of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is time for them to reverse what Arafat had done in the seventies when he made all Arab states recognize the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinians. The PLO, the Palestinian Authority, and this generation of Palestinian leaders have all failed. They have delivered defeat upon defeat to their people. The ideologies of defeatism, self-enrichment, self service instead of public service, fake idealism instead of realism, and feebleness have all become ingrained in their approach.
They should nullify their corrupt Palestinian Authority, cancel the Oslo Agreement, hand their guns to Israel, and wave the white flag of surrender. Most of their rich leaders will end up in Paris and London where their families live in great big palaces. Hand the Palestinian cause to the Arab League and Iran. Let President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Sayed Hassan Nasrallah speak on behalf of the Palestinian cause.
By Neal AbuNab
Domestic policy and local issues have always played the primary role of bringing political parties to power. But no Palestinian organization has ever promised internal reform and won except Hamas. The struggle of Palestinians remains as a conflict with an external enemy in the first degree. Israel has made its policy of survival dependent on the methodical annihilation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. The Palestinians can talk all they want amongst themselves, conduct mock elections as if they are a free people, and have a so-called democracy but all that does not change the aim of their enemy.
All this internal fighting between Fatah, Hamas and the zillions of other factions has only served to strengthen the ruthless hand of their enemy. Since the death of Arafat, two years ago, the Palestinians have been engaged in an internal power struggle to replace him or to divide all that power that was concentrated in one person. Israel has taken advantage of their infighting by creating conditions on the ground that make it impossible for an independent Palestinian state to be established. Israel is toying with Palestinians like scientists experiment with mice in a laboratory. It feeds them for a day and starves them for a month. It imprisons them in a big camp and draws a maze for their leaders to follow. They jump through hoops and loops to please the master and when they reach that point Israel had already devised a new game plan.
Peace processes, wars, elections, international conferences, UN resolutions and many ridiculous ploys have all come and gone while Israel’s aim remained constant. The Palestinians are tired of being defeated by Israel. Collectively, they are incapable of fighting Israel and so they should do what they did back in 1948 and surrender their cause to the Arab League.
Hamas promised internal reforms when it came to power back in March. It has not delivered anything to the Palestinian people except economic sanctions. It has created more reasons for internal strife by hiring 6,000 Hamas fighters and making them part of the security force. It promised to create an army that can defend its people and instead it created another faction in the fragmented security apparatus. It promised things it could not deliver. The only thing it keeps talking about is resistance, fighting the occupation, denying Israel’s existence and renouncing all forms of negotiations with the enemy. I am sure they will remain faithful to their principles for hundreds of years. That is the nature of Arabs. Their leaders have made enormous personal sacrifices but they just don’t have the know-how to fight or to confront their enemy.
Since their election in January, many Hamas leaders have been either imprisoned or assassinated by Israel. Hamas had good intentions but in the arena of politics and governance it proved to be utterly incompetent, just like the neo-conservatives of the Bush administration. They have a lot of religious fervor and faith-based ideologies but they can not manage a grocery store. Politics is a secular business of managing power and wealth in the most pragmatic way. It is built on coalitions and compromises between conflicting interests.
Hamas has proven that it can not manage internal conflict and so it can not possibly manage the greater conflict with Israel. The Palestinian people are in dire straits and they can not find any food to eat because of the severe sanctions. No one in the world can stand up to Israel and break the financial blockade. Palestinians have no choice but to sit down and talk with their enemy.
The Arab League declared this week that it was going to break the financial blockade against Hamas and Amer Mousa urged Arab banks to start dealing with Hamas. British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, urged the US to re-engage Israel in a peace process. Spain is championing an initiative to hold an international peace conference to bring the Arabs and the Israelis back to the negotiating table. Hamas said that it would attend a peace conference if organized by the Arab League. Israel said it would not attend such a conference.
A new Palestinian government will be formed in a matter of short weeks and Prime Minister, Ismail Haniya, agreed to relinquish his position. The power struggle between President Mahmoud Abbas and the prime minister has been decided in favor of Abbas. The Hamas government collapsed because it could not pay the salaries of its employees for the past eight months. Instead of delivering economic prosperity Hamas brought ruin to the Palestinian economy.
Hamas was not ready to govern. It should have stayed as an opposition party and kept its principles and agenda unexposed to such a superior enemy. Now, the idea of resistance has been ridiculed and Hamas will have nothing to offer to its people. Palestinians don’t want to create a Muslim state and they don’t want religious zealots ruling over them. They want peace, prosperity, an end to humiliation, an ability to go to other countries and visit with their relatives, and most importantly they are looking for a dignified livelihood to feed their families.
They are tired of being defeated, massacred, starved, humiliated and imprisoned by Israel. They don’t care what Hamas or any Palestinian government has to say to Israel to achieve this goal. The world has proven that it has no authority over the state of Israel and nobody can force it to do anything it does not want to do, except Hizbullah. In the past three months, the incompetence of Palestinian leaders has squandered much of the moral victory achieved by Hizbullah.
Palestinians have proven that they would rather fight with each other over ministries and seats of power instead of fighting with their enemy. They allow young men to fire primitive rockets into a small settlement inside Israel called Sederot. The destiny of the Arab-Israeli conflict now rests in the hands of a bunch of 19-year olds from Gaza. They call this “resistance”. Somebody has to stop these kids from firing these fireworks that they call “rockets”. If Palestinians do not have real weapons to fight with they should not be staging such symbolic acts that only bring harm to their own people.
Israel retaliates by killing 25 Palestinians for each rocket that lands in Sederot. The Palestinian government has no control over the numerous pockets of “resistance” groups that sprang up in the past five years. Palestinian society is fragmenting just like the Iraqi society. Poor Palestinians are attacking the rich and stealing from them. The middle class has almost disappeared. Any rich Palestinian who wants power is hiring a bunch of kids with guns and he patrols his neighborhood and declares himself as a Chieftain.
The Palestinian people as a collective have proven that they can no longer be the spearhead of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is time for them to reverse what Arafat had done in the seventies when he made all Arab states recognize the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinians. The PLO, the Palestinian Authority, and this generation of Palestinian leaders have all failed. They have delivered defeat upon defeat to their people. The ideologies of defeatism, self-enrichment, self service instead of public service, fake idealism instead of realism, and feebleness have all become ingrained in their approach.
They should nullify their corrupt Palestinian Authority, cancel the Oslo Agreement, hand their guns to Israel, and wave the white flag of surrender. Most of their rich leaders will end up in Paris and London where their families live in great big palaces. Hand the Palestinian cause to the Arab League and Iran. Let President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Sayed Hassan Nasrallah speak on behalf of the Palestinian cause.
Friday, November 10, 2006
The Democratic Agenda for Arabs
By Neal AbuNab
Democrats will have a lot to be thankful for when they carve up their Thanksgiving Turkey this year, but it was not a liberal revolution that carried them back to power. This election was a referendum on Bush’s presidency. The people have spoken and their dissatisfaction with the neo-conservative leadership created a political tsunami that swept the Republicans out of power. Most people voted against the Republicans because of their deep dissatisfaction with the way things are going in Iraq, the botched-up war on terror against Bin Laden, the economy and corruption in politics. In their entire campaign, the Democrats have not offered one specific plan to address these grievances. They rode the wave of dissatisfaction and kept criticizing while deliberately shying away from offering specific plans or concrete measures.
The Democratic plan was engineered by Congressman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) and Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY). The duo pierced through the presumed shield of Republican invincibility fashioned by Karl Rove; the architect of three consecutive successful elections for Bush and the neo-conservatives. They devised a sensible plan to regain the favor of the Reagan Democrats. They recruited former Republicans like James Webb in Virginia and ran him against a formidable foe like Senator George Allen. They figured that the country had begun its swing back to the center but it had not passed that point yet. They ran people who had a strong reputation of being socially conservative like Claire McCaskill in Missouri to recapture the heart of America. They succeeded in striking a fine line which triggered a political tsunami of epic proportions. This election will go down in history as a pivotal turning point which shaped the rest of America’s destiny.
The new whiz kids of politics turned a midterm election into a national campaign and drove a stake through the heart of neo-conservatism. Bush realized the incoming danger a couple of months ago when he created the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Commission. He was hedging his bet in case the Republicans lost control of the Congress. Most of the die-hard neo-conservatives, like Paul Wolfowitz, were shuffled out of the glare of the public eye at the beginning of Bush’s second term. But Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, refused to tone down his “in-your-face” rhetoric. He was the throbbing passionate heart of the neo-conservative leadership while Vice President Dick Cheney remained as the dispassionate brain calculating what was best for America.
The neo-conservatives live and die by the idea of clear cut victory or defeat. This election was a clear cut defeat. This humiliating and shameful defeat was most evident in the way Rumsfeld was immediately fired the next day. We can now confidently declare the death of the neo-conservative doctrine. They will be remembered as a secretive gang of reckless leaders who insisted on the righteousness of their incompetence and attempted to make America a dictatorship. The message out of this election to the rest of the world from America is one of hope and possible renewal of goodwill. The world will breathe a momentary sigh of relief and watch America’s next move cautiously.
But the Liberal wing of the Democratic Party can not really claim victory in this election. The real winners in this election were the regular conservatives who deserted the Republican Party and voted for conservative Democrats. In Michigan, voters rejected Affirmative Action and the Republican Senate candidate, Michael Bouchard, who could not shake Bush off his back. Varying degrees of this sentiment prevailed all over the nation. The new leader of the House, Nancy Pelosi, was very much aware of this fact when she offered reconciliation and cooperation with the Bush administration.
The Democrats won because of the conservative movement which is still very much alive, and the Republicans lost because they fought with their own neo-conservative dictators. The leadership of the Democratic Party sees its mandate as getting things done in the next two years while paving the way for the White House in 2008. The conservatives of the Reagan legacy led by James Baker have gotten the real mandate in this election to recapture the Republican leadership. Newly appointed Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, is a Baker protégé whose creed is pragmatic politics and diplomacy.
This friction between the Baker camp and the Cheney camp surfaced as soon as Bush declared his clear intentions of invading Iraq. But Bush had been pushed by the Saudi Royals and the pro-Israel lobby to attack Iraq and dethrone Saddam Hussein. The Saudi Monarchy invested all of its assets in the Bush camp and he needed their help to beat the Democrats. Subsequently, they were rewarded immensely by skyrocketing oil prices that quadrupled their revenues. The Democrats have a grudge and a bone to pick with the Saudi Royals.
The Democratic leadership is now evading the question of Iraq and pointing to the highly anticipated Baker-Hamilton report, due out next month, as the first benchmark. They are reluctant to inherit the mess of Iraq in much the same way that Bush has now become eager to bequeath it to them. The answer lies in working out a compromise that allows the Democrats to take credit for anything that may succeed in Iraq, while at the same time assuring Bush that he won’t be facing a trial similar to Saddam Hussein’s. This difficult task was thrown in the lap of the Dean of diplomacy; James Baker.
Baker will face hard-nosed negotiations with the new brains of American politics; Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer. They are both Jewish and ardent supporters of Israel. Emanuel’s parents came from Israel and he volunteered in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). He has strong Zionist convictions regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. Senator Joseph Lieberman waged a campaign against the will of the Democratic Party and prevailed. By a twist of fate he was handed the power to give Democrats the absolute majority in the Senate. He will be the most powerful power broker in the Senate for the next two years. He is Jewish, extremely pro-Israel and pro-war in Iraq. Jewish intellect and leadership will now dominate the moral argument within the Democratic Party.
Domestically, they will push an agenda to roll back some of the extreme measures of the Military Commissions Act and restore some of the lost civil liberties. In the Middle East, they support the idea of occupation but they see the Bush administration as losing the war in Iraq. Their opposition to the war does not stem from a conviction that it was either illegal or immoral. They oppose Bush’s strategy which has not brought victory.
Their strategy will most likely follow the Israeli model of unilateral disengagement. American troops will redeploy out of population centers and get out of the Sunni-Shi’a cross fire. Their focus will be on minimizing troop casualties thereby getting the Iraq story off the American TV screen. They will tighten their grip on the countryside and all points of egress and ingress. They will not cut the defense budget. On the contrary, they will acquiesce to more defense spending to build more bases in the Middle East.
The gates of hell have opened up in Iraq and it will be easy to sell the idea that we need to get out of the way of Muslims slaughtering each other. In fact, we may even encourage them to do that while we stand watching from a safe distance and making sure that no side ever wins. We did that for eight years when Iraq waged a war against Iran from 1980-88. We can do that again for another decade.
The neo-Democrats will put Saudi Arabia in the cross hairs while opening a direct dialogue with Iran and Syria. There will be serious attempts to neutralize Iran’s threat to Israel using the carrot approach. They will use the fact that Bin Laden is still on the loose to re-define the war on terror and wage their campaign for the White House.
In short, we have two years of policy re-alignment that lies ahead. There will be massive gridlock, partisan fighting, and investigations. The wave that carried Democrats to power demands accountability from the Bush administration. Too many lives were destroyed in the past five years and some neo-conservatives will surely pay a heavy price for this defeat.
By Neal AbuNab
Democrats will have a lot to be thankful for when they carve up their Thanksgiving Turkey this year, but it was not a liberal revolution that carried them back to power. This election was a referendum on Bush’s presidency. The people have spoken and their dissatisfaction with the neo-conservative leadership created a political tsunami that swept the Republicans out of power. Most people voted against the Republicans because of their deep dissatisfaction with the way things are going in Iraq, the botched-up war on terror against Bin Laden, the economy and corruption in politics. In their entire campaign, the Democrats have not offered one specific plan to address these grievances. They rode the wave of dissatisfaction and kept criticizing while deliberately shying away from offering specific plans or concrete measures.
The Democratic plan was engineered by Congressman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) and Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY). The duo pierced through the presumed shield of Republican invincibility fashioned by Karl Rove; the architect of three consecutive successful elections for Bush and the neo-conservatives. They devised a sensible plan to regain the favor of the Reagan Democrats. They recruited former Republicans like James Webb in Virginia and ran him against a formidable foe like Senator George Allen. They figured that the country had begun its swing back to the center but it had not passed that point yet. They ran people who had a strong reputation of being socially conservative like Claire McCaskill in Missouri to recapture the heart of America. They succeeded in striking a fine line which triggered a political tsunami of epic proportions. This election will go down in history as a pivotal turning point which shaped the rest of America’s destiny.
The new whiz kids of politics turned a midterm election into a national campaign and drove a stake through the heart of neo-conservatism. Bush realized the incoming danger a couple of months ago when he created the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Commission. He was hedging his bet in case the Republicans lost control of the Congress. Most of the die-hard neo-conservatives, like Paul Wolfowitz, were shuffled out of the glare of the public eye at the beginning of Bush’s second term. But Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, refused to tone down his “in-your-face” rhetoric. He was the throbbing passionate heart of the neo-conservative leadership while Vice President Dick Cheney remained as the dispassionate brain calculating what was best for America.
The neo-conservatives live and die by the idea of clear cut victory or defeat. This election was a clear cut defeat. This humiliating and shameful defeat was most evident in the way Rumsfeld was immediately fired the next day. We can now confidently declare the death of the neo-conservative doctrine. They will be remembered as a secretive gang of reckless leaders who insisted on the righteousness of their incompetence and attempted to make America a dictatorship. The message out of this election to the rest of the world from America is one of hope and possible renewal of goodwill. The world will breathe a momentary sigh of relief and watch America’s next move cautiously.
But the Liberal wing of the Democratic Party can not really claim victory in this election. The real winners in this election were the regular conservatives who deserted the Republican Party and voted for conservative Democrats. In Michigan, voters rejected Affirmative Action and the Republican Senate candidate, Michael Bouchard, who could not shake Bush off his back. Varying degrees of this sentiment prevailed all over the nation. The new leader of the House, Nancy Pelosi, was very much aware of this fact when she offered reconciliation and cooperation with the Bush administration.
The Democrats won because of the conservative movement which is still very much alive, and the Republicans lost because they fought with their own neo-conservative dictators. The leadership of the Democratic Party sees its mandate as getting things done in the next two years while paving the way for the White House in 2008. The conservatives of the Reagan legacy led by James Baker have gotten the real mandate in this election to recapture the Republican leadership. Newly appointed Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, is a Baker protégé whose creed is pragmatic politics and diplomacy.
This friction between the Baker camp and the Cheney camp surfaced as soon as Bush declared his clear intentions of invading Iraq. But Bush had been pushed by the Saudi Royals and the pro-Israel lobby to attack Iraq and dethrone Saddam Hussein. The Saudi Monarchy invested all of its assets in the Bush camp and he needed their help to beat the Democrats. Subsequently, they were rewarded immensely by skyrocketing oil prices that quadrupled their revenues. The Democrats have a grudge and a bone to pick with the Saudi Royals.
The Democratic leadership is now evading the question of Iraq and pointing to the highly anticipated Baker-Hamilton report, due out next month, as the first benchmark. They are reluctant to inherit the mess of Iraq in much the same way that Bush has now become eager to bequeath it to them. The answer lies in working out a compromise that allows the Democrats to take credit for anything that may succeed in Iraq, while at the same time assuring Bush that he won’t be facing a trial similar to Saddam Hussein’s. This difficult task was thrown in the lap of the Dean of diplomacy; James Baker.
Baker will face hard-nosed negotiations with the new brains of American politics; Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer. They are both Jewish and ardent supporters of Israel. Emanuel’s parents came from Israel and he volunteered in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). He has strong Zionist convictions regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. Senator Joseph Lieberman waged a campaign against the will of the Democratic Party and prevailed. By a twist of fate he was handed the power to give Democrats the absolute majority in the Senate. He will be the most powerful power broker in the Senate for the next two years. He is Jewish, extremely pro-Israel and pro-war in Iraq. Jewish intellect and leadership will now dominate the moral argument within the Democratic Party.
Domestically, they will push an agenda to roll back some of the extreme measures of the Military Commissions Act and restore some of the lost civil liberties. In the Middle East, they support the idea of occupation but they see the Bush administration as losing the war in Iraq. Their opposition to the war does not stem from a conviction that it was either illegal or immoral. They oppose Bush’s strategy which has not brought victory.
Their strategy will most likely follow the Israeli model of unilateral disengagement. American troops will redeploy out of population centers and get out of the Sunni-Shi’a cross fire. Their focus will be on minimizing troop casualties thereby getting the Iraq story off the American TV screen. They will tighten their grip on the countryside and all points of egress and ingress. They will not cut the defense budget. On the contrary, they will acquiesce to more defense spending to build more bases in the Middle East.
The gates of hell have opened up in Iraq and it will be easy to sell the idea that we need to get out of the way of Muslims slaughtering each other. In fact, we may even encourage them to do that while we stand watching from a safe distance and making sure that no side ever wins. We did that for eight years when Iraq waged a war against Iran from 1980-88. We can do that again for another decade.
The neo-Democrats will put Saudi Arabia in the cross hairs while opening a direct dialogue with Iran and Syria. There will be serious attempts to neutralize Iran’s threat to Israel using the carrot approach. They will use the fact that Bin Laden is still on the loose to re-define the war on terror and wage their campaign for the White House.
In short, we have two years of policy re-alignment that lies ahead. There will be massive gridlock, partisan fighting, and investigations. The wave that carried Democrats to power demands accountability from the Bush administration. Too many lives were destroyed in the past five years and some neo-conservatives will surely pay a heavy price for this defeat.
Neal AbuNab
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