Obama hints at ‘different approach’ to Muslim world

[Neo]

Obama hints at ‘different approach’ to Muslim world​

WASHINGTON, Nov 7: US President-elect Barack Obama indicated on Friday that his approach to the Muslim world will be different from that of the Bush administration, saying he would respond “appropriately” to a congratulatory letter from the Iranian leader.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent him a letter earlier this week, saying that he hoped the new US government “can distance itself from present statesmen’s wrong approaches”. This was seen in Washington as a clear reference to President Bush.

Mr Ahmadinejad wrote: “We also want US intervention to be limited to its borders, especially in the Middle East. It is highly expected to reverse the unfair attitude towards restoring the rights of the Palestinians, Iraqis and Afghans.”

Asked at his first news conference since his election if he would respond to the letter, Mr Obama said: “We are reviewing the letter” and will respond appropriately.

He said that issues like America’s relations with Iran were sensitive and he was not prepared to respond to questions on such issues in “a knee-jerk fashion”.

Mr Obama, however, reiterated his earlier stance that the US could not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.

When a reporter asked him if the intelligence briefing he had received on Thursday as president-elect, had forced him to change his views on any issue, he said he would “skip” that part of the question.

There were speculations in the US media that Mr Obama might have to change his election stance, particularly on his declaration of targeting alleged terrorist hideouts inside Pakistan, after getting information about the ground situation from his intelligence team.

Mr Obama also showed respect to his predecessor at the White House, George W. Bush, saying that he was going to meet him on Monday “with a spirit of bipartisanship”.

Mr Obama also refused to be forced into declaring the team he is setting up to run the next US administration and said that it could takes weeks, and not days as some media reports had speculated.

Although Mr Obama began his third day as president-elect with a host of bad news about the US economy, he did not seem nervous.

He showed that he was not going to be pushed into taking action and that he was going to announce a stimulus package to revive the economy when the time comes to do so.

Mr Obama also emphasised that till January Mr Bush was the president of the country and he would take all major decisions.

However, he noted that statistics released on Friday showed that America had lost 1.2 million jobs this year and there were 10 million jobless people in the country.

Mr Obama said that his plans for rescuing the US economy would cater to the middle class, focussing on creating jobs and providing tax breaks to them. He also promised to revive the ailing US auto industry.

 

[dr.umer]

There were speculations in the US media that Mr Obama might have to change his election stance, particularly on his declaration of targeting alleged terrorist hideouts inside Pakistan, after getting information about the ground situation from his intelligence team.

Clear picture about Obama's Pakistan policy will emerge when he will officially hold office after completion of transition process.

 

[dr.umer]

Hurdles of internal change​

November 08, 2008

Pakistan's relations with the new US administration of president-elect Barack Obama have been much debated in the days since America's first African-American leader was elected to the White house. For Pakistan, close ties with the next US administration bring both opportunities and challenges.

The biggest challenge for now is to overcome the discord over Washington's use of pilot-less drones, armed with Hellfire missiles, which have periodically rained their wrath along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

The US suspects, with more than some justification, that the border area has become a safe haven for militants belonging to Al Qaida and the Taliban. Even Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has been on record for saying that the next large 9/11 type attack on US soil, if there was to be one, would come from the border area.

It is clear that with Pakistan's own leaders expressing such apprehensions, US suspicions over the border area being a source of terrorist turmoil, would only intensify and gather further momentum. For Pakistan, the use of the drones has become a politically explosive issue, both in the areas where they target militant suspects as well as deeper inside the country's territory.

Trust

It is vital for the Pakistani government to convince the US to stop using the drones. This is essential to begin winning back the confidence of an increasingly sceptical Pakistani public, which has learnt to not only to despise Washington's policy in its war on terror but also increasingly distrust its own government.

Over time, the issue of the public's relationship with the rulers of Pakistan has become increasingly acute. If the Pakistani government could somehow win a measure of respectability for its success in convincing the US to back away on the use of drones, it is possible that the Pakistani public will praise that success.

However, to win favour with the US, Pakistan needs to begin turning the corner against the sizeable and ever-growing community of militants parked in the border region. For the past five to six years, Pakistan's troops have fought an increasingly bloody battle against militants, causing casualties both in terms of human lives and loss of valuable resources. While the US has provided generous financial and military aid to bolster the Pakistani effort, Washington have little capability to actually oversee a turning of the corner.

For Pakistan, winning this battle requires a determined push in terms of not just a series of military successes. More vitally, Pakistan needs to work towards drawing together a broad based public consensus to support the government's effort. Here lies the biggest challenges of all.

The government, which swept to power following parliamentary elections in February this year, has overseen a country which is in fast increasing disarray. Pakistan's political outlook has weakened over time while its economy has become a much bigger challenge than before. Lately, the newly-elected government has been negotiating a badly needed loan programme from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to stave off an upcoming balance of payments crisis. But the IMF negotiations have unleashed widespread worries over more difficult economic times ahead for Pakistan as the country is forced through a series of belt tightening measures.

Writing on the wall

The writing on the wall in the period following an IMF loan is essentially that of a country forced in to greater hardships. How does the Pakistani government plan to deal with the challenges faced by a people who will inevitably be forced to sacrifice so that Pakistan as a country can face the challenge of difficult times ahead? To that obvious question, there are no easy answers.

Going by past record, whenever a crunch has come, Pakistan's ruling elite have often passed the burden on to its people without forcing new liabilities upon the relatively well to do. If the future this time around is different and Pakistan accepts belt tightening with the bulk of the responsibility falling upon those with the greatest resources, it is possible that the country may well go through an unprecedented economic renaissance.

The outcome of such a change will essentially bring together a stronger and more determined Pakistan which is ready to face the challenge of the future. Ultimately, a more solid country is the best assurance for a more durable relationship with a new US administration rather a weak, divided and directionless Pakistan.

 

[Neo]

Indeed, lets just wait till he takes the office.
Biden is considered a friend, Imho we have an ally in White House.

 

[BATMAN]

Obama on Iran

 

[BATMAN]

Last American president (JFK) who stood defiant to war mongerers in his administration was assasinated.
I'm affraid of the forth comming conspiracies which may be designed to shake his peace ideas!
I wish him good luck for his positive approach.

 

[dr.umer]

Obama to develop new South Asia strategy​

10 Nov 2008

WASHINGTON: One of the first priorities of the Obama administration will be to reassess US strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, his aides say.

In the two countries, US President-elect Barack Obama has inherited a conflict that could be as unsettling for his administration as the Iraq war was for the outgoing Bush administration.

During his 21-month long election campaign, Mr Obama persistently presented the Afghan issue as 'the real issue' for the United States because 'this is where the perpetrators of the Sept, 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were hiding, not in Iraq.'

He promised to set America’s priorities right and announced that some of the troops withdrawn from Iraq will be redeployed in Afghanistan to fight the insurgents.

But in recent interviews to various US media outlets, his aides emphasised that Mr Obama was not focused on fighting insurgency alone. According to them, he plans a greater involvement with the region and has already engaged several South Asian experts as advisers.

Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official and adviser to three US presidents on South Asia and the Middle East, is Mr Obama’s new adviser on Pakistan.

His aides say that Mr Obama is impressed with Mr Riedel’s views and it was on his advice that Mr Obama spoke of the need to resolve the Kashmir dispute in an interview to a US television network last weekend.

According to these aides, one of Mr Riedel’s prevailing themes is the necessity of resolving the Kashmir dispute for fighting terrorism.

But in doing so, Mr Riedel does not emphasise the need to restoring the right of self-determination to the people of Kashmir. Instead, he advocates finding a solution that satisfies India and ends Pakistan's excuse for lingering the dispute.

A major part of Mr Riedel’s theory for ending conflicts in South Asia deals with persuading Pakistan to accept India’s influence in the region and stop its efforts to counter India by promoting its own interests in places like Afghanistan.

By persuading India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir dispute, Mr Riedel also hopes to refocus the Pakistani military on fighting militants within its border, a point Mr Obama also stressed in his interview to CNN last week.

But this over-emphasis on the military option is already worrying experts on the Afghan conflict.

Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist who is now an adviser to the Commander US Central Command Gen. David Petraeus, told a US media out that instead of over-emphasizing the military option, the Obama administration should develop 'a regional approach' to ending the conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

'That means bringing in the neighboring countries: Iran, India, and the five Central Asian states, and then resolving some of these regional problems - like the disputes between India and Pakistan, between Iran and the Americans, between Afghanistan and Pakistan.'

Washington-based South Asia analyst Marvin Weinbaum, who advised Mr Obama on Afghanistan and Pakistan during the campaign, told Dawn he was confident that Mr Obama will not follow the policies of the Bush administration.

The Obama administration, said Mr Weinbaum, will increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan but he will also negotiate and seek compromise where possible.

'There is a consensus, even in the American military, that there is no, strictly speaking, military solution. It is one which may involve the military in order to be in a position to negotiate without having to concede surrender to your enemy,' Mr Weinbaum said.

Mr Weinbaum noted that in his latest interview on this issue, Mr Obama also urged the Afghan government to improve governance, provide security and jobs to its people and to expand its reign beyond Kabul.

Mr Weinbaum also noted that while Mr Obama did not oppose the idea of trying the Iraqi model of arming local tribesmen to fight insurgents in Afghanistan, he stressed that the situation in Afghanistan was different from Iraq.

Christine Fair, a senior political analyst at the RAND Corporation, said she had strong doubts about copying the Iraqi model in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In an interview to a US media outlet, Ms Fair said that even in Iraq, this policy was already having 'unintended consequences.'

'I am an opponent of this because it never works. In fact, in the case of Afghanistan, we are where we are today because we choose to outsource securing Afghanistan to [people who are] basically warlords. There is no reason to believe that it will be successful, except in a very short-term definition of success.'

 

[muse]

I would advise Pakistanis to think clearly, US policy is institutionally developed and executed, it's focus is not necessarily short term, and not by a single person.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Only in America

By Irfan Husain
November 08, 2008

AS much of the world celebrated Barack Obama’s victory on Nov 4, I received a summary of a khutba, or address, at a mosque in Baltimore by Kaukab Siddique. As this missive was carried on a website that claims to be America’s biggest Islamic site, I assume many people read it.

I am including a few excerpts here to give readers a flavour of the kind of thinking that informs many educated Muslims living in America:

“Look at the people who are PLANNING, ORGANISING, IMPLEMENTING and FUNDING the campaign of the new ‘saviour’. All of them, at the national level, are Zionist Jews.

“He [Obama] came from a racially oppressed minority but are there any black leaders in KEY positions in his campaign? None! Not one!

“He is preparing for a bigger war than Bush and is openly talking of crushing the Islamic resistance in Afghanistan and is boasting of going into Pakistan and ‘getting’ Osama bin Laden. This is a recipe for disaster. If Bush, with a much larger army and a very aggressive policy could not ‘get’ Osama, what makes this man think he can do it.

“Muslims, including those who are planning to come here and become Americans, should realise that if they do not have an Islamic programme, they will be shattered by what the forces of evil are doing to America.

“There is much good in America but there is also evil. When we came here, we could not have known that homosexuality will be legitimised and adultery and fornication will be glorified. The price we have to pay for coming here is that we lose our children to a way of life which defies all decency and morality, be it Muslim or Christian. Zionism is strangling the soul of this nation.…

“Making overtures to the campaigns of the Democrats and the Republicans is spiritual suicide. When the mass culture is controlled from coast to coast by forces hostile to Islam and all decency, the conservative forms of religiosity cannot save us, our families or our children.…

“We cannot survive as Muslims by becoming part of the system which is strangling the soul of this nation. We must organise, mobilise and act OUTSIDE the power structure. Stay away from the oppressors who rule here and reach out to the people.…”

Advising Muslims to remain outside the society they have chosen to migrate to is a recipe for marginalisation and seclusion. Indeed, what Mr Siddique is saying to his congregation is the message many other Muslim leaders in the West are conveying to those foolish enough to follow them.

Over the years, many English friends have asked me why Muslims choose to live in England if they hate its civilisation and values so much. I have been unable to offer any convincing reply as I don’t understand this phenomenon myself. But surely, even people like Mr Kaukab Siddique should be able to see the significance and transformative power of the recent American election.

As Barack Obama’s stunning victory has proved, America remains a vibrant democracy that renews itself and evolves. Unlike so many Muslim societies, it is not stagnant and unresponsive to changing circumstances. These are the societies millions have fled to make a better life for their children. Mr Siddique’s khutba would have been more convincing had he been able to offer an example of a Muslim state that gives its citizens greater opportunities, security and peace of mind than the United States.

A couple of days ago, I got roped into a televised discussion on the American election. Two of my four panellists kept saying that Obama’s win would change nothing for Pakistan. But surely the American election was not about us. Pakistan only figured as an issue because it is a focal point of Islamic terrorism. Obviously, any American president will be guided by national interests.

As Obama has already said, he would authorise strikes within our borders if bin Laden was located, and our forces were unable or unwilling to take him out. Beyond that, he has supported a renewed American engagement to help India and Pakistan solve the Kashmir problem. In addition, he has promised to make more funds available for economic and social development, changing the focus from Bush’s almost exclusive military aid. These are all changes in emphasis that should be welcomed, instead of being the subject of anti-American whingeing and carping that have come to characterise our chattering classes.

Obama’s victory speaks volumes for the distance American society has travelled in a single generation. While much of the world has been appalled by the arrogance and bullying displayed by the Bush administration these last eight years, most foreigners who have spent time in the United States are aware that this is not the true face of America. This is a country that has welcomed millions of immigrants over the years, and in the process of assimilation has become transformed.

The reality is that the Obama story could not have happened anywhere else in the world. Where else would a relatively unknown politician from a minority community be elected to the highest office in the land? Certainly not in any European democracy. And while Obama’s victory might have finally closed the chapter of slavery and discrimination in America, the struggle for equal rights has not ended. Nevertheless, this momentous occasion does mean that all Americans, irrespective of their colour or creed, can now dream of following Obama’s path.

Many fundamentalists oppose elections on the grounds that it is somehow ‘un-Islamic’ and urge other Muslims to boycott the democratic process. The convoluted logic they base this argument on is beyond me, but the reality is that they are aware that they would be rejected by voters if they did try to fight an election. So rather than waging a losing battle, they try to discredit the whole process. And they justify their murder of civilians by saying that their victims are not really innocent as they voted for the government against which these fanatics are waging their jihad.

This is the mindset we have to contend with, but hopefully Obama will bring a more nuanced approach to bear when he is facing these people. While Bush recruited more foot soldiers for his enemies through his crude and ignorant tactics, we can hope that Obama will heal some of the wounds his predecessor has inflicted on the world, and on America’s image abroad.

irfan.husain@gmail.com

 

[muse]

Obama, Israel and Islam
Brain Cloughley


The Middle East and probably the entire Muslim world might understandably welcome the next administration in Washington, if only because the Secretary of State will no longer be the egregious Condoleezza Rice. It was she who “In an exclusive interview with Israel’s daily Yediot Aharonot...said that ‘the security of Israel is the key to security of the world’.” Rice added that she feels “a deep bond to Israel...I first visited Israel in 2000. I already then felt that I am returning home despite the fact that this was a place I never visited. I have a deep affinity with Israel.”

We knew exactly where she stood on the subject of Israel, that vicious oppressor of Arabs in Palestine. She was at home there, and, of equal importance, was a major supporter of an organisation called the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

In 2006 a US intelligence analyst, Lawrence Franklin (a former US Air Force colonel and military attaché in Israel), was found guilty of passing secret information to an Israeli diplomat and to two AIPAC officials, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman. He is serving 12 years in prison, but charges against Rosen and Weissman, most curiously, remain unresolved. It had been proved that Israel was spying on the US, but this was ignored, and the close friendship remained undisturbed.

AIPAC is a rich and influential group that declares “America must continue to stand by Israel’s side politically, diplomatically and economically...AIPAC trains and educates pro-Israel students across America and develops their leadership skills so that they become effective citizen lobbyists today, and pro-Israel leaders tomorrow.”

Naturally, Rice was welcome at meetings of this Zionist agency, at one of which she announced that “Israel has no greater friend and no stronger supporter than the United States of America...”

But even with the exit of Rice, it is unlikely there will be diminution of the White House support for the Jewish state. And there might be even more, given the indicators so far.

In President-elect Barack Obama’s speech to AIPAC in June, he declared that he “first became familiar with the story of Israel when I was eleven years old. I learned of the long journey and steady determination of the Jewish people to preserve their identity through faith, family and culture...I have long understood Israel’s quest for peace and need for security. But never more so than during my travels there two years ago. Flying in an Israeli Defence Force helicopter, I saw a narrow and beautiful strip of land nestled against the Mediterranean. On the ground, I met a family who saw their house destroyed by a Katyusha rocket. I spoke to Israeli troops who faced daily threats as they maintained security near the blue line.”

But Mr Obama wasn’t shown Israel’s victims when he rode in his Israeli military helicopter. He didn’t see the refugee camps. He saw nothing of the Palestinians who suffer “daily threats to their security” and are subject to savage contempt on the part of the Israeli troops he so admires. He did not witness the daily humiliation and harassment of Palestinians by these troops, who treat them as Untermenschen. His “narrow and beautiful strip of land nestled against the Mediterranean” was never Jewish land: it was Arab land until it was seized by the Zionists.

The future president of the United States announced to AIPAC that he will “implement a Memorandum of Understanding that provides $30 billion in assistance to Israel over the next decade — investments to [sic] Israel’s security that will not be tied to any other nation.” He then said a few words (in the interests of trying to appear even-handed) about Israel “taking appropriate steps...to ease the freedom of movement for Palestinians, improve economic conditions in the West Bank, and to refrain from building new settlements.”

Nothing, it will be noted, was said about the hundreds of kibbutzim already built and “settled” (such a nice word) illegally by hundreds of thousands of Jews who have driven Palestinians from their homes.

Arabs can rot in squalid ghettoes for all Mr Obama cares, with their groves of olive and orange trees hacked down by Israeli soldiers, their houses bulldozed to rubble, and their grazing lands seized to accommodate the swimming pools of Jewish immigrants.

Immediately after Mr Obama’s speech to AIPAC “he was endorsed by Rahm Emanuel, a leading [Congressman]...who belongs to an Orthodox Jewish congregation in Chicago. [Mr Emanuel] then accompanied Obama to a meeting with AIPAC’s executive board.” It is of enormous significance to Israel and its colonially oppressed Palestinians that Mr Obama’s first appointment to his entourage was that of Mr Emanuel as his chief of staff.

Mr Emanuel’s father, Benjamin, was a member of the Irgun gang of terrorists in the late 1940s and went to the US from Israel in the 1950s. In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv last week he said that “obviously” his son “will influence the President to be pro-Israel...Why shouldn’t he do it? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to clean the floor of the White House.”

This sneering comment sums up the contempt with which Israelis and so many Israeli-Americans view the Arabs — and much of the Muslim community throughout the world.

The power wielded by Israeli-Americans is immense, and much of it is exercised through AIPAC whose close association with the new president’s chief of staff does not bode well for future White House policy regarding the Middle East. We may welcome Mr Obama as president, but it is far from certain if he will be a friend to the Palestinians, or to Islamic countries in general.

Brian Cloughley’s book about the Pakistan army, War, Coups and Terror, has just been published by Pen & Sword Books (UK) and is distributed in Pakistan by Saeed Book Bank

 

[dr.umer]

Barack Obama links Israel peace plan to 1967 borders deal​

16 Nov 2008

Barack Obama is to pursue an ambitious peace plan in the Middle East involving the recognition of Israel by the Arab world in exchange for its withdrawal to pre-1967 borders, according to sources close to America’s president-elect.

Obama intends to throw his support behind a 2002 Saudi peace initiative endorsed by the Arab League and backed by Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister and leader of the ruling Kadima party.

The proposal gives Israel an effective veto on the return of Arab refugees expelled in 1948 while requiring it to restore the Golan Heights to Syria and allow the Palestinians to establish a state capital in east Jerusalem.

On a visit to the Middle East last July, the president-elect said privately it would be “crazy” for Israel to refuse a deal that could “give them peace with the Muslim world”, according to a senior Obama adviser.

The Arab peace plan received a boost last week when President Shimon Peres, a Nobel peace laureate and leading Israeli dove, commended the initiative at a Saudi-sponsored United Nations conference in New York.

Peres was loudly applauded for telling King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who was behind the original initiative: “I wish that your voice will become the prevailing voice of the whole region, of all people.”

A bipartisan group of senior foreign policy advisers urged Obama to give the Arab plan top priority immediately after his election victory. They included Lee Hamilton, the former co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Democrat former national security adviser. Brzezinski will give an address tomorrow at Chatham House, the international relations think tank, in London.

Brent Scowcroft, a Republican former national security adviser, joined in the appeal. He said last week that the Middle East was the most troublesome area in the world and that an early start to the Palestinian peace process was “a way to psychologically change the mood of the region”.

Advisers believe the diplomatic climate favours a deal as Arab League countries are under pressure from radical Islamic movements and a potentially nuclear Iran. Polls show that Palestinians and Israelis are in a mood to compromise.

The advisers have told Obama he should lose no time in pursuing the policy in the first six to 12 months in office while he enjoys maximum goodwill.

Obama is also looking to break a diplomatic deadlock over Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons technology. A possible way forward, suggested last spring by Dennis Ross, a senior Obama adviser and former Middle East envoy, would be to persuade Russia to join in tough economic sanctions against Iran by offering to modify the US plan for a “missile shield” in eastern Europe.

President Dmitry Medvedev signalled that Russia could cancel a tit-for-tat deployment of missiles close to the Polish border if America gave up its proposed missile defences in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Ross argued in a paper on How to Talk to Iran that “if the Iranian threat goes away, so does the principal need to deploy these [antimissile] forces. [Vladimir] Putin [the Russian prime minister] has made this such a symbolic issue that this trade-off could be portrayed as a great victory for him”.

Ross and Daniel Kurtzer, a former American ambassador to Israel, accompanied Obama on a visit to Israel last July. They also travelled to Ramallah, where Obama questioned Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, about the prospects for the Arab plan.

According to a Washington source Obama told Abbas: “The Israelis would be crazy not to accept this initiative. It would give them peace with the Muslim world from Indonesia to Morocco.”

Kurtzer submitted a paper to Obama on the question before this month’s presidential elections. He argued that trying to reach bilateral peace agreements between Israel and individual countries in the Middle East, was a recipe for failure as the record of Bill Clinton and George W Bush showed. In contrast, the broader Arab plan “had a lot of appeal”. A leading Democratic expert on the Middle East said: “There’s not a lot of meat on the bones yet, but it offers recognition of Israel across the Arab world.”

Livni, the leader of Kadima, which favours the plan, is the front-runner in Israeli elections due in February. Her rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of Likud, is adamantly against withdrawing to borders that predate the Six Day war in 1967.

Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, last week expressed his support for Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank Golan and east Jerusalem.