Category Archives: Obama Administration

Pew Survey on Muslim Views of Obama

Obama Administration, Terrorism Issue

[Webshaykh’s note: On July 23 the Pew Global Attitudes Project issued a report on its survey conducted May 18 to June 16 in 24 countries, including the Palestinian territories. The full report is available as a pdf download and there is a slide presentation available as well. Here is part of the online summary of the report.]

The image of the United States has improved markedly in most parts of the world, reflecting global confidence in Barack Obama. In many countries opinions of the United States are now about as positive as they were at the beginning of the decade before George W. Bush took office. Improvements in the U.S. image have been most pronounced in Western Europe, where favorable ratings for both the nation and the American people have soared. But opinions of America have also become more positive in key countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia, as well. Continue reading Pew Survey on Muslim Views of Obama →

Welcome to Ungodly America

Apocalypse Watch, Election 2008


Just before the election last November there was an attempt by the extreme religious right to literally do a Jeremiah on candidate Barack Obama. One of the more bemusing commentaries, still prominently posted on the web on an apocalyptic website, is by a Protestant prophet whose visions from God have all come true, as he believes. Thus, either God’s message got garbled in the prophet Steve’s ears or we are living under the most ungodly president ever, in which case the rapture is only a nanosecond away (which may be the real reason Sarah Palin resigned). Take your pick and enjoy (probably not the right word here) the read:

A Prophetic Warning from Pastor Steve Foss

Date: Saturday, October 25, 2008, 12:49 PM

I am writing to you today an urgent message concerning the coming American election. God has released me to share with you a powerful prophecy He gave me eight years ago. I have shared this prophecy in a number of public meetings, but I have never published it for all our friends and partners.

In January of 2000 God gave me an incredible insight into what was about to happen in the coming elections in America over the next decade. I am not using this e-mail to tell you, who are citizens of America, who to vote for. However, you need to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying. Never in my 22 years of ministry have I seen such a spirit of delusion released upon our country. Continue reading Welcome to Ungodly America →

Obama’s Trifecta … So Far, So Good

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Egypt, Indonesia, Obama Administration

by Donald K. Emmerson, Stanford University

[A trivially different version of this essay appeared in AsiaTimes Online on 6 June 2009, reposted on the East Asia Forum on June 11]

US President Barack Hussein Obama’s speech on 4 June 2009 in Cairo, the second of three planned trips to Muslim-majority countries, was outstanding.

First, it opened daylight between the US and Israel. Israeli settlements on the West Bank are impediments to a two-state solution and a stable peace with Palestine. Obama did not split hairs. He did not distinguish between increments to existing settler populations by birth versus immigration with or without adding a room to an existing house. The United States, he said, does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. Period.

The American Israel Political Affairs Committee, which advertises itself as America’s pro-Israel lobby, cannot have been pleased to hear that sentence. But without some semblance of independence from Israel, the US cannot be a credible broker between the two sides. It is not necessary to treat the actions of Israeli and Palestinian protagonists as morally equivalent in order to understand that they share responsibility for decades of deadlock. New settlements and the expansion of existing ones merely feed Palestinian suspicions that Israel intends permanently to occupy the West Bank. Nor did Obama’s criticism of Israeli settlements prevent him from also stating: Palestinians must abandon violence. Period. Continue reading Obama’s Trifecta … So Far, So Good →

On God and Obama: When Wright is Wrong

Bible and Holy Land, Ethics, Islam and Christianity, Journalism and Media, Judaism, Obama Administration, Terrorism Issue

A new book with the promising but pathetically journalistic title The Evolution of God has just appeared with media fanfare. The fanfare I have seen thus far is an op ed piece and a Time Magazine article by the author, Robert Wright. In both the author’s lack of knowledge brands the work fiction from the start. Let’s start with the Time Magazine article, which is entitled “Decoding God’s Changing Moods.” As a veteran journalist, Wright knows that Bible codes sell well, even though there is nothing to decode in his supposed code. Continue reading On God and Obama: When Wright is Wrong →

Rocking The Vote Not Easy For Iranian-Americans

Iran, Obama Administration


A supporter of the leading reformist Iranian presidential candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, holds his poster during a campaign in Tehran, Iran. Photo by Vahid Salemi, AP.

Rocking The Vote Not Easy For Iranian-Americans

by Melody Moezzi, NPR, June 11, 2009

On the eve of the Iranian presidential elections, people are pouring into the streets of Tehran in support of the reformist opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. Mousavi is the leading candidate opposing incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and this election promises to be a close one. Should Mousavi win, it would be the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic that an incumbent failed to win a second term. But people are comparing this election to a revolution, and the enthusiasm around Mousavi has extended far beyond Iran’s borders. Even Iranian-Americans are trying to get in on the action. That is, we’re trying to vote. Continue reading Rocking The Vote Not Easy For Iranian-Americans →

Advice for the former Vice President

Iraq War, Journalism and Media, Obama Administration

The Old Faithful of Nonsense

By Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post, Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Can’t we send Dick Cheney back to Wyoming? Shouldn’t we chip in and buy him a home where the buffalo roam and there’s always room for one more crazy old coot down at the general store?

For the final act of his too-long public career, Cheney seems to have decided to become an Old Faithful of self-serving nonsense. His latest in a series of eruptions came Sunday on “Face the Nation,” when he continued to press his revisionist case for torture — and, for good measure, counseled his beloved Republican Party to marginalize itself even further from public opinion and common sense. Continue reading Advice for the former Vice President →

10 Conceptual Sins

Iran, Iraq, Iraq War, Islam in America, Journalism and Media, Obama Administration, Terrorism Issue

“10 Conceptual Sins” in Analyzing Middle East Politics

by Eric Davis, from The New Middle East, January 28, 2009. For an Arabic translation of this post, click here.

Sin # 1: “Presentism.” Unfortunately, many of those who analyze Middle East politics, whether journalists, policy analysts, or academics, do not take history seriously. That is, they fail to situate Middle East politics in a historical context. If they did, they would gain many more insights into the political dynamics of the region.

Analysts would have realized why, for example, Iraqis showed little enthusiasm when American troops toppled Saddam Husayn’s regime in April 2003. This response did not indicate that Iraqis were ungrateful as the vast majority were relieved to see the end of Saddam’s regime. Rather, many Iraqis, who did have a historical consciousness, knew that the US had supported Saddam Husayn during the Iran Iraq War. Iraqis also remembered that, when President George Bush senior called upon them to rise up against Saddam Husayn in 1990, many took him at his word. However, not only did the US not intervene to help the rebels during the February-March 1991 uprising (Intifada), it gave permission for Iraqi helicopter gun ships to enter the fray which turned out to be critical in suppressing it. Continue reading 10 Conceptual Sins →

Iraq Study Day at Hofstra

Conferences and Talks, Development, Iraq, Iraq War, Obama Administration

The Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies (MECA) Program at Hofstra University is hosting a day-long “Iraq Study Day” on Monday, April 27, 2009. The purpose of the program is to bring several distinguished scholars to campus to speak to the Hofstra community and general public about the making of modern Iraq and the ongoing occupation by American military forces. Although information on the current crisis is widely available in the media, students, faculty and the general public need to understand the historical context for the making of modern Iraq in the 20th century.

A general forum for the public will be held on the theme “Iraq: How the Past Shapes the Future” on Monday, April 27, 3-4:30 p.m., in the Monroe Lecture Center Theater, California Avenue, South Campus of Hofstra University. Directions to Hofstra are available here.

The participants in the panel are:

• Nida al-Ahmad, Political Science, New School for Social Research: “State Power in Ba’thist Iraq”
• Dr. Magnus Bernhardsson, History, Williams College (author of “Reclaiming a Plundered Past: Archaeology and Nation Building in Modern Iraq,” 2006)
• Dr. Eric Davis, Political Science, Rutgers University (author of “Memories of State: Politics, History and Collective Identity in Modern Iraq,” 2005)
• Dr. Reeva Simon, History, Yeshiva University (author of “The Creation of Iraq, 1914-1921,” 2004
• Dr. Bassam Yousif, Economics, Indiana State University (author of “The Paradox of Development under Dictatorship: Iraq 1950-2003,” 2006)

Continue reading Iraq Study Day at Hofstra →