An open letter to Arab-Americans, for Ron Paul

Today, this piece was published on LewRockwell.com, a favorite site of mine and one of the foremost libertarian websites out there. Rockwell, a student of Austrian Economics, heads the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Alabama, named for one of the Austrian School's seminal thinkers. Rockwell compiles about 10 articles daily on the minimalist site - proudly identified as anti-state, anti-war, pro-market - plus a blog with some snappier content.

Since Rockwell served as Chief-of-Staff to Ron Paul during his early congressional career, he is one of the Texas Congressman's most prominent and well-read supporters - thus the various Open Letters he has published on Ron Paul's behalf, written by supporters like me.
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Open Letter to the Arab-American Community in Behalf of Ron Paul
by George Ajjan

Following upon the advice of Walter Block, and in the tradition of Laurence Vance and Thomas Woods, I offer the following Open Letter to the Arab-American Community in Behalf of Ron Paul.

While the previous Open Letters on LRC were addressed to a particular religious denomination, I offer this one on the basis of ethnicity. Arab-Americans need to hear Ron Paul's message, because serious concerns about the fate of US foreign policy and civil liberties captivate the minds of Arab-American Muslims, as well as Arab-American Christians, who actually comprise more than half of the community. My Open Letter will therefore be inclusive in nature and address all denominations.

It is interesting to note that those who advocate this unifying approach have been disparaged by the wedge-driving, divide-and-conquer neocons as "dhimmis" or "Islamo-Christians" – or whatever today's new vocabulary is on the Word-a-Day calendar of the American Enterprise Institute (a.k.a. the Supreme Soviet of Neoconservatism) – for not accepting their erroneous worldview, in which Semitic people (and by Semitic, I mean Semitic) are mindless sectarian robots genetically programmed to kill each other and incapable of peaceful co-existence. (continued...)

I suppose this letter will also cause some consternation for the likes of my fellow Melkite Catholic, Deacon Robert Spencer, who recently wrote two unflattering articles about the Arab American Institute (AAI) Leadership conference, at which Ron Paul was the only Republican candidate to speak – he dazzled the crowd last month in Dearborn, Michigan, as I will discuss below. I am pleased to report that Spencer did not directly attack Ron Paul in his criticisms of the event, one of which was published on the ever-beloved FrontPageMag.

Now, we most certainly recognize the danger posed to all of us by the fear-mongering approach to governing practiced by the current ruling elite in DC, which is why we support our courageous "Champion of the Constitution," Congressman Ron Paul. But I personally make particular note of the predicament faced by Muslims in America. Why? Well, my last name, Ajjan, is Arabic – my ancestors came to the United States from Syria nearly a century ago. The name means "mixer," as in someone who prepares dough or cement, and it bears no religious significance. Thus, one can find Ajjan families with sons called George and Elias (common Christian first names in the Middle East) as well as genealogies full of Muslim names like Mohamed or Ali.

In that vein: suppose, if we do not succeed in getting Ron Paul elected, that some shady bureaucrats in Washington decide to advance their own political objectives by casting a very wide net for "Islamofascists" on American soil, i.e. every Muslim, for starters. Will they bother to distinguish one Ajjan from another? Should I trust the Federal Government to omit me from their list of terror suspects to round up? After all, someone who has taken vacation in Syria (a country, which unlike Saudi Arabia, is classified as a "state sponsor of terrorism"), and who writes for a website proudly identified as "anti-state," must be a threat! Dare I argue with the Blackwater-esque thugs they likely will send door-to-door to impound me and others with the "wrong" last names? (Note to self: prepare an "Open Letter to Arab-Americans on Behalf of the 2nd Amendment" to educate the community on provisions afforded by the US Constitution for dealing with such circumstances.)

No, we will all suffer together. But aside from that unpleasant line of thought, I am pleased to write this Open Letter, because one of the most appealing and refreshing elements of Ron Paul's campaign is his insistence on the power of his message to unite Americans of all races, colors, creeds, socio-economic backgrounds, occupations, etc. Dr. Paul campaigns in a non-discriminatory manner almost to a fault. As cited by Thomas Woods in his Open Letter to the Catholic Community, Ron Paul began his speech at the AAI conference by bluntly stating that he would not be pandering, and that he would address Arab-Americans just as he would any other assembly of voters he might encounter on the campaign trail. That is indeed worthy of admiration, but as Walter Block correctly states:

"There are a lot of people who view the election not from [the] general perspective of the public good, but rather on the basis of their own more narrow interests. Forget whether or not this is a good thing; it is part of reality that we supporters of Ron need to take into account."

Accordingly, I recently received an email from a die-hard Ron Paul supporter that I met at the AAI conference. She had noticed the "Home Schoolers for Ron Paul" link on http://www.ronpaul2008.com/ and suggested that we petition the Ron Paul campaign to add a link on their homepage entitled "Arab-Americans for Ron Paul." I argued that this approach, if originating from the campaign itself, would too closely resemble the divide-and-conquer tactics used by all the other candidates. Regardless of one's ethnic origin, one could always be a "gun owner for Ron Paul" – that is an inclusive demographic. But for Ron Paul to solicit supporters based upon definitively exclusive subsets of the population would contradict his philosophy. That is why Walter Block is spot-on when he advocates that we as Ron Paul supporters must independently reach out with more specific agendas.

But the non-pandering approach favored by Ron Paul does not at all suggest that he lacks acute awareness of Arab-Americans' and Muslims' specific concerns. That is why he told the AAI assembly:

"The freedom message brings all of us together, whatever our religion is, or whatever our beliefs are, and wherever we came from, because freedom is not judgmental. It allows people to make their own choices as long as they don't use force to impose their will on us. So this brings people together, and this is what has been happening in this campaign. People from all walks of life are coming together."

and defined his campaign as one that is:

"...merely standing up for our Constitution, and we stand for our Constitution as it protects ALL Americans."

He closed by describing what he called "the essence of what America is all about":

"We don't have rights because we belong to a group. We don't have rights because we're women, or belong to an ethnic group, or a religious group. We have rights because we are individuals and we should be treated as individuals and we should never get special benefits. But we should NEVER have punishments because we belong to a particular group either."

A cynical individual might not be impressed with mere words. But Ron Paul's voting record more than backs up his egalitarian principles, as he was one of only 3 Republicans to vote "no" on the USA PATRIOT Act. Many of its opponents are well acquainted with Sections 213, 215, 216, and 505, but perhaps not with Section 102, which is supposedly designed to protect the civil rights of Muslims and Arab-Americans specifically. But as Gary North has warned LRC readers, "When you see a high-falutin' title like this, you can be certain of one thing: Its promoters intend the opposite." In any case, Ron Paul voted against the Patriot Act because, in his words:

"The Act contains over 500 pages of detailed legalese, the full text of which was neither read nor made available to Congress in a reasonable time before it was voted on – which by itself should have convinced members to vote against it. Many of the surveillance powers authorized in the Act are not clearly defined and have not yet been tested. When they are tested, court challenges are sure to follow. It is precisely because we cannot predict how the PATRIOT Act will be interpreted and used in future decades that we should question it today."

(Incidentally, what many people may not realize is that this law's title is an Orwellian acronym for Uniting and Strengthening American by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. I wonder if perhaps its backers would also approve of legislation aimed at Maintaining Obsessive Hatred Against Muslim Extremist Detainees, in which case they'd be voting for the MOHAMED Act.)

And don't forget Ron Paul's absolute rejection of a national ID card, or any other kind of government spying on its own citizens. Those who shudder to think that one day their US passports will have an embedded green crescent, or that their emails will be tagged with the letter "M," owe it to themselves and their posterity to vote for Ron Paul.

In addition to his devotion to civil liberties, the dramatic foreign policy changes brought about a Ron Paul Presidency would also be welcomed by the Arab-American community. Naturally, the US invasion and occupation of Iraq – not to mention the possibility of war with 70 million Iranians – has left a very bad taste in the mouth of Arab-Americans and American Muslims. Ron Paul, of course, opposed this ill-fated military boondoggle since before its inception, and makes it clear that he would also strongly oppose a war with Iran. Again, he told the AAI audience:

"For us to be so fearful and so intimidated from a country, whether it's Iraq or Iran, that they might attack us? How are they going to attack us, even if they had a nuclear weapon? How or why would they attack us? This whole thought that all of a sudden Iran is the Hitler of the day and that we have orient ourselves and do everything in attacking this country – that is not for me to defend that country or their leadership, there's a lot of bad people over there, but my concern is making sure that we don't have bad POLICY in this country, that's our responsibility."

Likening his platform to that of then-Governor George W. Bush when it comes to a non-interventionist foreign policy should also attract Arab-Americans, as Bush did very well among that demographic in the 2000 presidential election. Additionally, the explicit blame Ron Paul places on the neoconservatives will win him many fans – as members of the community are well aware of the role that small cadre played in setting this whole Iraq debacle in motion.

"Just think, our current President, in the year 2000, ran on a program of no nation building, a humble foreign policy, diplomacy and talking to people. And yet what has happened? Exactly the opposite. And now we're engaged because of the advice of the neoconservatives who have hijacked our foreign policy – that we as Americans are expected that we are so good and so wonderful and so perfect that we have the responsibility of forcing our way on other people, even if it takes killing them to make them live like we do. I think that's an INSANE foreign policy."

Ron Paul cuts right through the flowery rhetoric about spreading freedom and democracy, and his words on that topic ring true to many in the Arab-American community, who know from their own personal experience that a Jeffersonian democracy does not spring up overnight anywhere in the world just because we wish it to be so. Unlike the neoconservatives, who claim to care deeply for peoples in Arab and Muslim lands, but insult them by advocating one-size-fits-all regime change, Ron Paul acknowledges that he is not at all an expert on foreign cultures and political attitudes. When I told him about my own trip to Baghdad in the aftermath of the US invasion, and my observation of the adverse impact that a military occupation had on the Iraqis' collective dignity, he humbly inquired, "Isn't that really important to people over there?" When I validated his supposition, he added, "well, just think how we'd feel if China invaded us..." A Ron Paul foreign policy would be based upon common sense, and focused on the only thing we possess sufficient and trustworthy knowledge to determine: what is good for the American people themselves.

Those interested in Ron Paul should also closely consider the hands-off approach to Israel that he advocates. At first glance, those against US military aid to Israel, which includes most in the Arab-American community, would be delighted. But Ron Paul's policy is also a double-edged sword, as Walter Block explained in his Open Letter to the Jewish Community:

"There are numerous cases where the U.S. has obviously handcuffed the Israelis, not to the benefit of the latter..."

Does this mean that one should equate Ron Paul's non-interventionist policy with turning loose a pit bull? I offer a resounding NO. A dramatic change in the client-state relationship between the US and Israel would radically alter internal Israeli politics and foreign policy. Knowing that special interests would no longer dictate their country's destiny, the silent majority of Israelis wishing to terminate the conflict definitively on the basis of land-for-peace would be emboldened. Contrarily, the bellicose elements of Israeli society, without the US Armed Forces at their beck and call, would be cast to the political margins. No wonder a Meetup group for Ron Paul has sprung up in Israel itself!

Is this to suggest that America would isolate itself from the Middle East? Not at all. Ron Paul told the AAI crowd:

"We do not have to be isolationists. That's a false charge when they say, 'oh, isolationism – we want to withdraw'. And I don't want to, as a matter of fact I don't like protectionism, I like trade, I like low tariffs – tariffs are taxes. We want to trade with the world and talk with the world."

During a question-answer section, he was further pressed by those who fear that America would be totally diplomatically withdrawn, sparked by Ron Paul's criticism of the UN, an institution that many Arab-Americans view favorably. Dr. Paul wisely explained that his concerns were not based upon a desire to ignore the views of others, but rather a belief that America need not abdicate its sovereignty to the UN in order to engage diplomatically.

"Does that mean that we want to be isolationists and not talk to people? No, it's actually the opposite. It's just that we don't want to force our way on people. In Washington, too often we only have only 2 choices: we either bomb people and tell them they'll do as we tell them, or we have to subsidize them and give them all the foreign aid they want. I would say that there's a third option, and that is to talk to people, trade with people, be friends with people – try to influence the world through a voluntary means, set good examples."

So let it never be said that Ron Paul is ambivalent about peace in the Middle East. He made it clear when addressing our group that he would be happy to invite other nations, such as Israel and her Arab neighbors, to use the United States as neutral territory where they could talk through their differences, with the caveat that the United States not mandate and subsidize the outcome. That would be a foreign policy in which we could all take pride. Ron Paul's views fascinated a staffer of the Egyptian embassy who observed the conference, even after I reminded him that "no more foreign aid" cuts both ways – Egypt, too, would lose its annual 10-figure stipend.

In closing, I am reminded of a famous and beloved Arabic slogan:

الدين لله والوطن للجميع - al-din lilah, wa al-watan liljamia
"Religion is for God, the nation is for all"

The idea expressed therein is certainly not unique to Arabic culture, but the underlying concept has inspired many leaders and statesmen throughout the centuries. That includes a group of revolutionary late-18th-century former Englishmen, who expressed it as such: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

I was reminded of the connection two years ago, at the Arab American Institute's annual banquet, called the Kahlil Gibran Spirit of Humanity Awards, at which Mustapha Akkad received a posthumous honor. Akkad, who perished alongside his daughter in a terrorist bombing in 2005, was a Syrian-American film director who created the Halloween horror movies, in addition to The Message, an acclaimed film about the prophet Mohamed. When Akkad's son Malek accepted the award on behalf of his late father, he told the audience that his father had felt more free to practice Islam in the United States than he had ever felt anywhere in the Muslim world.

Anyone who believes that America must stand for the free practice of religion, be he Muslim, Christian, Jewish, etc., knows that the 1st Amendment and the Bill of Rights must be defended vigorously and unequivocally. Only one candidate for President has spent his entire career as a citizen-statesman doing exactly that: Dr. Ron Paul.

George Ajjan is a Republican activist and the creator of REDchoice, a 2008 Presidential GOP Primary poll based on conjoint analysis. He blogs at The Aleppine Elephant.

o --- This article first appeared on LewRockwell.com on November 26, 2007.
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Ron Paul at the Arab American Institute

At long last I am writing up the details of the Arab American Institute's National Leadership Conference which took place in Dearborn, Michigan between October 26 and 28th.

While it would have been nice to have seen more interest on the part of Republican candidates, the fact that Ron Paul was the sole GOP contender to address the conference didn't bother me at all, since he is my candidate! And for sure he left Dearborn with a lot more supporters than when he entered.

Before his talk to the whole assembly, there was a small fundraiser during which a small group of us got to have a rather intimate chat with Dr. Paul. His candor and consistency are so refreshing and frankly, awesome. Naturally, he was speaking to a very friendly audience, as most Arab-Americans (at least the vast majority of us, who don't carry hateful emotional baggage) were staunchly against the invasion of Iraq and are more acutely aware than anyone just how ill-thought the neocons' plans were/are.

However, there was some concern about his position on the UN and his approach to diplomacy. My GOP colleague from New Jersey, Hesham Mahmoud, probed this issue and Dr. Paul's answer was far from isolationist, but rather driven by a desire to protect American sovereignty and not send us to war to enforce UN resolutions. I followed up on this question by specifically asking what role a Ron Paul administration would take in peace talks between Israel and Syria, for example. An isolationist would say, "we don't care what they do," but that was not Dr. Paul's response; rather, he said that we could use our diplomatic facilities to invite people and host peace talks, so long as they did not result in the US subsidizing the participants and effectively buying a peace treaty. Makes good sense.

Then he began speaking about the declining dollar, and I said to him:

"Congressman, I started up an export business in which I send American cars to West Africa, and people question why I'm supporting you given your monetary policy, when a weak dollar is helping my business, because I'm effectively buying in dollars and selling in Euros. So tell me why I'm not crazy for supporting you."

He seemed intrigued by the question, and admitted that in certain sectors a permanently weak dollar would have benefits - he cited tourism as an example. But in the auto sector, he explained rather didactically, how ultimately the price of raw materials like steel would increase and how inflation would squeeze an exporter's margins.

I was tasked with escorting Dr. Paul and his staff to their "ready room", where they ate lunch and prepped for his speech to the larger crowd. When we arrived, the AAI photographer took a few pictures of Ron Paul and I (as shown above) and then to my delight he began asking more questions about my export start-up and how I became involved in such an enterprise.

I explained how I made a trip to Baghdad in September of 2003 prior to launching my candidacy for US Congress and met some French journalists who filmed me and then decided to make a full-scale documentary about me, which was then shown on French satellite channel ARTE, seen by viewers in Senegal who contacted me through my website, and the rest is history.

We talked at length about what I had observed in Iraq, plus my view of African economies (he was quite interested in the tariff structure) and I mentioned how the Chinese were doing a far better job following the advice of our Founding Fathers than we were, as they keep their hands out of internal politics and instead sell, sell, sell to everybody. "Isn't that better than doing it militarily?" asked Dr. Paul rhetorically.

It was a lovely chat, and I then left them to their lunch, promising that Murray Sabrin and I would do our utmost to deliver victory to Ron Paul in New Jersey on February 5.

Now for Ron Paul's speech - below is the video plus some key excerpts:

Somebody asked me whether I had a special speech for your group, and I said, no, it's the same speech I give everywhere. And I'm delighted that so many of you have been interested in the campaign because it's merely standing up for our Constitution and we stand for our Constitution as it protects ALL Americans.

Above all else, how are we going to reverse this trend, under this psychology that we have built up, this fear that we have built up among the American people that everything has to be done because there may be a terrorist around every corner and therefore we are, as Americans, supposed to sacrifice our civil liberties and I don't believe we should EVER have to sacrifice our civil liberties for protection!

For us to be so fearful and so intimidating from a country, whether it's Iraq or Iran, that they might attack us? How are they going to attack us, even if they had a nuclear weapon. How or why would they attack us? This whole thought that all of a sudden Iran is the Hitler of the day and that we have orient ourselves and do everything in attacking this country. That is not for me to defend that country or their leadership, there's a lot of bad people over there, but my concern is making sure that we don't have bad POLICY in this country, that's our responsibility.

Just think, our current President, in the year 2000, ran on a program of no nation building, a humble foreign policy, diplomacy and talking to people. And yet what has happened? Exactly the opposite. And now we're engaged because of the advice of the neoconservatives who have hijacked our foreign policy - that we as Americans are expected that we are so good and so wonderful and so perfect that we have the responsibility of forcing our way on other people, even if it takes killing them to make them live like we do. I think that's an INSANE foreign policy.

Does that mean that we want to be isolationists and not talk to people? No, it's actually the opposite. It's just that we don't want to force our way on people. In Washington, too often we only have only 2 choices: we either bomb people and tell them they'll do as we tell them, or we have to subsidize them and give them all the foreign aid they want. I would say that there's a third option, and that is to talk to people, trade with people, be friends with people - try to influence the world through involuntary means, set good examples.

Sanctions don't work. Yesterday I was interviewed and I was quoted as saying and I believe it: sanctions are an act of war. When you place sanctions on a country...I mean, did the sanctions really help Americans or help the Iraqis after 10 years of sanctions on the Iraqi citizens, where children would die because of the denial of food and drugs? No! That's no way to do it. We should be trading with people...this is a much better approach than saying that we can intimidate people. But we do not have to be isolationists. That's a false charge when they say, "oh, isolationism - we want to withdraw". And I don't want to, as a matter of fact I don't like protectionism, I like trade, I like low tariffs - tariffs are taxes. We want to trade with the world and talk with the world.

If Kennedy could talk to Kruschev at the height of the Cold War...that to me sends the message that even with all the misconstruing of what Ahmadinejad has charged, that maybe we can talk to people. I mean, why can't we talk? I think people that can't talk are too weak. They do it from a sense of weakness.

We have a tremendous opportunity right now because it is up to us to decide what kind of government that we want, and to me it's very simple: we want the government that we were given. It wasn't a perfect government, it's not perfect now, but basically it was a very, very good constitution. We've ignored it - the Congress has ignored it, the Executive Branch has ignored it, the Judicial Branch has ignored, but the basic fundamentals are still there. All we have to do is get men of high character enough to go to Washington, whether it's in the Presidency or in the Congress...to actually believe their oath of office, to believe in the rule of law.

We have created chaos over there. There are 2 million refugees that have had to leave Iraq, 2 million that are wandering around in Iraq, half the Christians have had to leave. And you think back, you know that Saddam Hussein was a murderous, bad, evil guy, but boy, if you compare everything that's happened since we invaded versus what was the status quo prior to this, you've got to wonder: how could anybody justify this approach to try to improve the world?

I've gotten more convinced than ever as I've traveled around the country that when you talk about freedom... - and maybe this is one of the reasons the other candidates haven't come - the freedom message brings all of us together, whatever our religion is, or whatever our beliefs are, and wherever we came from, because freedom is not judgmental. It allows people to make their own choices as long as they don't use force to impose their will on us. So this brings people together, and this is what has been happening in this campaign. People from all walks of life are coming together.

We don't have rights because we belong to a group. We don't have rights because we're women, or belong to an ethnic group, or a religious group. We have rights because we are individuals and we should be treated as individuals and we should never get special benefits. But we should NEVER have punishments because we belong to a particular group either. This to me is the essence of what America is all about.

A couple of points:

One person called me and said he was pleased with Ron Paul's speech, but felt it was disappointing because it didn't relate specifically to the Arab-American community. I understand that criticism, but merely put it in the context of the remarks made above, about getting back to the true intent of the US Constitution, which will render moot any and all talk about special rights, as well as discrimination.

Another friend whom I met in Dearborn emailed me about pitching the campaign on an "Arab-Americans for Ron Paul" link on the campaign's website, like the one for home-schoolers. I replied:

"The only trouble with that is that it doesn't match Ron Paul's approach - he doesn't 'divide and conquer' like all the other candidates. Whether you're Arab-American or not, you could still be a home-schooler for Ron Paul, or a gun owner for Ron Paul. But if you're not Arab-American, you can't be an Arab-American for Ron Paul."

I also wanted to comment on Dr. Paul's "sanctions are an act of war" remark and relate it to his mentioning of the plight of Iraq's Christians. Of course, it was St. "Doubting" Thomas who spread the message of Jesus eastward, to Mesopotamia and as far as India, and nowadays a number of rites are practiced in Iraq, but the country is mostly identified by the Assyrian/Chaldean one. Anyway, Dr. Paul's remarks reminded me of the commencement of bombing in spring of 2003. I was living in London at the time and decided, as a show of solidarity, to seek out the Chaldean mass one Sunday instead of the my usual attendance at the Melkite liturgy over which Oxford Professor and bi-ritual priest Shafiq Abouzayd presides. (Forgive me for boasting, at this juncture, that I have attended services in all 7 rites!)

Apparently I was not the only one with such a thought of solidarity in mind, as the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Westminster also sent an envoy to the Chaldeans that day. But I will never forget what the Chaldean priest, Fr. Andreus, mentioned in his homily:

"The Gospel of Matthew asks us, 'Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?' Well, for 12 years the Iraqi people have been asking for bread. And now, after all this time, we have been given stones; that is, the bombs that are falling on Iraq."

So thank you, Dr. Paul, for voting NO and having the courage to speak out against this disastrous war since before its inception.

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Grow some gonads, dude

Shame on me for taking nearly a month to write this up, but the John Randolph Club held its annual meeting in Washington, DC on September 21 and 22, sponsored by the Rockford Institute of Chronicles Magazine fame (the publication of true and traditional American conservatism for which I have had the honor of writing 3 times thus far).

I will cover the event in reverse order, since the highlight was the Iraq War debate during the final banquet that was worth the price of admission for the whole weekend by itself. I spent a bit of time compressing the 80 minute mp3 file of the debate into a 10 minute segment which can be viewed below, with headshots of the speakers. Next time, we simply must have video!

Arguing for immediate withdrawal were "anarcho-communalist" Kirkpatrick Sale (who is trying to get Vermont to secede from the US), immigration activist Peter Brimelow of VDARE fame, and Justin Raimondo of antiwar.com fame.

Arguing for something else (it's unclear what since there wasn't consensus, as you'll discover later) were Chronicles contributing editor R. Cort Kirkwood, Foreign Affairs editor Srdja Trifkovic (whom I had the pleasure to engage in conversation at length during dinner), and author William Hawkins.

Here are the transcriptions of the excerpted parts. (continued...)

Sale: "[the military's establishment]'s affect domestically has been to create an imperial rule, an imperial presidency, protected by military might, informed by secret agencies, coddling to by Congress, and permitted by the Judiciary that is destroying the basic instruments of our Democracy, an institution that the military does not care much for. Just as surely as the Roman Empire destroyed the Roman Republic – that is the primary reasons why the war in Iraq must be ended – that it would be a blow to the empire from which it might not recover, thus starting the process of withdrawing power from the Pentagon and starting the re-righting of the Ship of State that is now badly lopsided."

Kirkwood: "I'm going to argue against this on a moral level. I think there is a moral case to be made for staying. We made a mistake when we went into Iraq. I concede the point that…there was an illegal and unnecessary war that we never should have gone into. That's obvious, everyone understands this…We attacked a sovereign country that posed no threat to us…We've broken a lot of things in Iraq, and we have an obligation to fix those things, because we did it. It doesn't matter whether our leaders were wrong, it matters that they are held to account for what they did, and that they repair they damage that they've done before they leave the country in chaos, and that cannot be accomplished if we leave the country tomorrow.

There's a consequence for our country. If we depart [Iraq] and we leave it a mess, if this country is inhabitable because of what we have done there, where are these people going to go? They're going to come here. And I don't think anybody wants thousands and thousands of Iraqis coming into this country to change it any more than it's already been changed by the immigration that we have been given no choice over…I am living this every day in Harrisonburg, Virginia – we have Iraqis and Kurds and Russians – I wasn't asked if I wanted these people in my community – the Mennonites just put them there!"

Raimondo: "Every minute we stay in Iraq, the threat of war with Iran increases. Look, it's too late to be against the war in Iraq. It is NOT too late to be against the war with Iran. Wars do not respect national boundaries, and neither do the neocons. If we stay in Iraq, by the end of this year we will be at war with Iran.

'We have to stop al-Qaeda' – Well, I have a good way to stop al-Qaeda. Let's get the heck out of Iraq and let the Shia take care of al-Qaeda – they'll do it in very short order. It won't be pretty, but hey, they'll do a lot better job then we're doing right there, right now.

And let's look at the so-called 'moral case', oh the mass slaughter of the Sunnis. Suddenly, these alleged 'dead-enders', the villains of yesteryear, have to be saved by the brave Americans. Well, you know what, we were always at war with East Asia, and now we're at war with Eurasia. I'm getting sick of this, it's making me dizzy. I'm tired of saving the world. Let the Sunnis save themselves…How many Shia did they kill? How many Shia did they repress?…As they sow, so shall they reap. And that is called Justice.

Are we going to colonize Iraq? And are we going to go into Iran? – and Syria, which they're getting ready to do, you may have seen the mysterious Israeli bombing of some alleged nuclear facility. And of course, probably, 2 years after that war is over, we'll hear, 'Oh, it was only a toy factory.' These people have no credibility."

Then there was an electric tit-for-tat that was among the highlights of the weekend:

Srjda Trifkovic (in rebuttal): "'It's not going to be pretty' is the neocon euphemism for genocide."

Raimondo: "Well, I ain't committing that genocide, so I don't feel very guilty about it."

Srjda Trifkovic: "But you don't mind al-Sistani's boys running into Anbar and sorting things out their own way."

Raimondo: "Just like I don't mind Darfur...If millions of people went into the streets of this Imperial City and said 'you know what? We are going to storm the White House, and you are going to get our troops OUT!'"

Srjda Trifkovic: "You know Justin, you belong to a generation that remembers 1968 more vividly than I, so the notion of letting emotions and gonads guide your political action is less intrinsically urgent in my mental mindset, so I would say NO, I will not run to the Mall and demonstrate."

Raimondo: "Well unless you grow some gonads, dude, we are going to have perpetual war, forever!"

Brimelow: "What does it really matter to the Americans if the Iranians rule Iraq? If the Iranians rule Afghanistan? If they eat each other, what does it matter to the Americans, because we're over here, they're over there. Unless we let them come over here, and by the way, Cort we can stop that immediately, there is no reason to have Iraqi immigrants and refugees over here. They can't get at us.

[The British] have massive experience…They had situations like in India, and India is a really interesting case because the relationship between Britain and India was much more profound and far deeper and intimate than anything the Americans have in Iraq, they were there 200 years when they left. They withdrew their troops to the barracks and they just sat there while the Hindus and the Muslims massacred each other. And it was a black day for the British Empire and for Britain's morale, but guess what? We got over it. They lost between a million and 5 million people when the subcontinent was partitioned, but everybody's forgotten about it. And if America leaves Iraq tomorrow, we'll forget about it in 4 or 5 years.

Foreign policy is not a question of emotion, and not a question of morality, it is a question of national interest. So the only question you have to ask yourself in a situation such as Iraq is 'what is the national interest?' and 'what national interest do the Americans have in holding what is essentially a colonial possession?' There is no doubt about – this is the Algerian War rewrote.

Were the Iraqis crossing the border in vast numbers illegally? Was the Iraqi President trying to influence American politics? Were Iraqi immigrants in the US trying to take over the Southwest and kick Americans around and make them speak Arabic? None of this was true of course – we invaded the wrong country!

William Hawkins then gave his pitch, which was rather akin to neoconservative arguments and all about protecting oil. He seemed to view Iran as a direct threat.

When the time for Q&A came around, I asked (and I'm pleased to say the audience applauded):

"Iran does not have missiles capable of reaching the United States, so how are they a threat to the United States? And even if they had a stockpile of nuclear weapons, they idea that they're going to 'hook up' with terrorists is simply then an issue of border security, whether it's airports or…why are we borrowing money from China so that American soldiers are building schools in Iraq rather than inspecting containers coming into the United States and policing our borders from people coming in to do us harm?"

Hawkins replied, with a less-than-confident look on his face:

"America's interests don't extend just to our own borders…the Middle East has a lot of our oil. And it's not just America's problem, every major country is involved in the Middle East or Central Asia – Russia, China, India, France, Germany – they've all had oil color their policies and approach to this region."

That's true, and that's why Japan paid for Gulf War I. Who is paying for this boondoggle? My kids and grandkids, that's who! For all the reasons that Ron Paul enumerated in the most recent debate in Michigan.

Well, this whole thing didn't end there. Hawkins was unhappy and decided to go to FrontPage Magazine to call his fellow debaters traitorous. You can read his entire bizarre rant if you'd so like. Scott Richert, Executive Editor of Chronicles started a thread about this which attracted more than 100 comments. And my fellow paleoconservative Farm Team infielder and enviably prolific blogger Daniel Larison also dissects Hawkins' arguments. You can also hear from Raimondo himself who gets in a few classic zingers.

Now, a couple of quick notes on some of the rest of the program. Taki Theodoracopulos, the co-founder of The American Conservative and more recently the excellent Taki's Top Drawer site, began with a Friday night address that touched on the familiar themes of bashing the neocons foreign policy delusions. In the course of his address, which was about "The Dishonesty of Public Discourse", he referred to Senator Robert Taft as "the last honest man", and also mentioned Hitler's claim to the Sudetenland.

On Saturday morning, the first panel featured Trifkovic and Leon Hadar of the CATO Institute, an Israeli foreign policy analyst who is excellent. John Hackney as a moderator did a great job of shutting down the rant of an angry Copt from Canada named Dmitri (the previous evening he tried to convince me that Arabic was not my ancestors' true language, blah, blah, blah - insert historically irrelevant argument here). Hadar advocated Israel and even Lebanon and Syria joining the European Union, while Trifkovic only wants Turkey to join so that the EU will crumble to pieces. Hadar took issue with Trifkovic praise of secular Turks, but condemnation of "post-modern post-national" secular Israelis, while Trifkovic rebutted that it was simply a matter of pragmatism.

The next panel was about immigration, and it featured Peter Brimelow and David Hartman, who is chairman of the board of directors of The Rockford Institute, chairman of the Lonestar Foundation, and an authority on pro-business taxation. I listened to the arguments, and Hartman clearly knows his stuff when it comes to tax policy - he had some gripes with the fair tax. Now, I agree with critics of the hyper-glib Republican elite who love to remind us that "illegal immigrants will do the jobs Americans don't want", and there is no doubt that if factories were forced to hire legal workers, they would find plenty of Americans do to the work. Brimelow made an interesting observation though - that some companies, scared about the legal pressure, are actually investing in more automation so that they can decrease the need for illegal manpower.

What I am not clear on, and even subsequent to a chat with Hartman after his presentation, is whether the "jobs Americans don't want" applies to manual labor of minimal skill. For example, a roofer or landscaper who hires almost exclusively illegal immigrants to do the manual work for dirt cheap - let's say he charges $1,000 for a given engagement. If the illegal immigrant pool was no longer available, what would happen? Will Americans do the work for $5/hour? Or will the wages have to be increased to $10/hour? In that case, what happens? Does the owner continue to price the job at $1,000 and just make less money for himself? Or do prices go up to match the increased wages?

The other highlight was the talk by Thomas Fleming, Executive Editor of Chronicles and a true scholar whose knowledge of everything from Classics, to European History, to Church History, to American History and much more in between is formidable. He presented the argument he made in Chronicles June issue, about the origin of the term "separation of Church and State". "Were there any orthodox Christians among the Founders?" he asked.

Although, I did find some irony in Fleming's call to "restore Constantinople", when I read this bit about Congressman John Randolph, for whom the conference was named:

"Very early in life I imbibed an absurd prejudice in favor of Mahomedanism and its votaries. The crescent had a tailsmanic effect on my imagination, and I rejoiced in all its triumphs over the cross (which I despised) as I mourned over its defeats; and Mahomet II himself did not more exult than I did, when the crescent was planted on the dome of St. Sophia, and the cathedral of the Constantines was converted into a Turkish mosque."

Now, some have taken the ridiculous position that Randolph, and not Keith Ellison, was the first Muslim Congressman. Wrong. Randolph was a Christian who questioned his beliefs in his younger years (note he says he had an "absurd prejudice" early in life) - but his personal "Road to Damascus" does add a little ironic spice to the paleoconservative palette.

All in all, an outstanding event - I thank Christopher Check for his hard work and Thomas Fleming, Scott Richert, and many more for making me feel so welcome. I look forward to next year!

continue reading "Grow some gonads, dude..."

The Iranian public is very happy about...

As a follow-up to the last commentary of our S.I.S. (Savvy Iranian Source), which discussed the victory of Akbar Rafsanjani to head the Assembly of Experts, I posed the following questions:

1. What indications has Supreme Leader Khamanei shown that he is interested in war with Israel?
2. Since I suspect the answer to #1 is naught, what is the level of dissatisfaction with the Iranian public about the lack of bellicose actions?
3. What are the chances for the AOE to challenge the Supreme Leader's authority on foreign policy if there is some kind of dramatic development, like an American targeted attack? Could Rafsanjani be drawn by circumstances into a less pragmatic and more confrontational posture resembling that of Ahmadinejad?

Here are his main takeaways:

• There has been no indication whatsoever that Supreme Leader Khamenei wants to go to war with Israel
• When Khamenei saw that Ahmadinejad (through his remarks about Israel) had "delivered the streets" of the developing countries through his actions, he allowed him more leeway to continue
• Today, with the economy not performing according to his promises, Iran's nuclear program dragged before the UN Security Council and a plethora of domestic criticism against him on various fronts, Ahmadinejad's manoeuvrability is severely limited
• Iran does not want an open war with Israel, partly since it knows the limitation of its capabilities, but also since this does not really serve any purpose for Iran
• The Iranian public is very happy about the lack of bellicose action - they don't want another war
• a great many of Iranian decision-makers, who even fill the boards of many state companies, sit in ministries, etc. are veterans of a war that only ended 19 years ago - these individuals know the real impact a conflict has on a country's economy and they've also seen first-hand the horrors of war
• If there is a direct American attack on Iranian soil, then all bets will be off and pragmatism, etc. will no longer be a major component of Iranian policy
• (In the event of a US strike on Iran,) there are likely to be targeted attacks carried out by proxy groups, both against Israel and against US allies in Europe, in addition to US cities themselves - a sizable portion of Iranians living abroad, who have a lot of money and are internationally mobile, would not have qualms in assisting this "defensive" effort

The full S.I.S. response:

(background) The President in Iran does not have the authority to declare war nor does he control the regular Army or the Revolutionary Guards. There may be individuals or groups in both that support him but that does not mean that he commands a major allegiance which would allow him to use the military for his own purposes. Also, the Supreme Leader has used reshuffles in the IRGC and the Army to ensure that people do not remain long enough to establish power bases or to establish alliances with other political actors.

One interesting thing that most people don't know is that the President in Iran doesn't even control the police forces, since the national chief of police is appointed by the Supreme Leader and the law enforcement forces broadly answer to him. This was one of the things that [former President Mohamed] Khatami was trying to change, i.e. to get the police to be accountable to the Interior Ministry rather than to the General Staff of the Armed Forces.

To Question 1:
There has been no indication whatsoever that Supreme Leader Khamenei wants to go to war with Israel. In fact, just a few days after Ahmadinejad first made his remarks about Israel in 2005, Khamenei gathered the main actors of the regime and made a very public speech in which he stated that:

1. Iran's policy vis-à-vis Israel has not changed (i.e. Iran continues to oppose the "oppression of the Palestinian people" and support their demands for their own rights)
2. Iran would "never carry out aggressive acts against any country". Unsurprisingly, the Supreme Leader's comments, which carry much more weight in policy matters in Iran, where not widely reported by the international media.

At the same time, however, Ahmadinejad's remarks do serve some purposes for the system (and for Khamenei himself). The Arab/Muslim street appears to have very much rallied behind these statements and his remarks have thus resulted in considerable pressure against other regimes in the region. Just as an anecdote, in trips to both Libya and Egypt, when speaking to people and telling them that I was from Iran, I was greeted with great enthusiasm and there was always supportive remarks about Ahmadinejad's bravery and his willingness to stand up to the West. On more than one occasion, people told me that "if every leader in the Middle East was like him, we would have no problems" and how they respected the fact that he's a simple man who is not corrupt.

Needless to say, these are simplistic reactions by average Joes (or average Hassans, when talking about the Middle East), but they nonetheless highlight that Iran has through its recent actions managed to get the support of a large portion of the world's "down-trodden" to support its cause. Ahmadinejad's remarks about Israel, which he later adjusted to more of a moral issue regarding occupation, rights, etc., as well as his comments about the Holocaust all served to change the paradigms of the debate. This was not necessarily in Iran's favour when dealing with Western powers or Western audiences, but these were not the main target-groups of Ahmadinejad. When Khamenei saw that Ahmadinejad had "delivered the streets" of the developing countries through his actions, he allowed him more leeway to continue.

In addition, when Ahmadinejad was making these comments (you may have noticed that their frequency has gone down significantly), he was riding high on a hugely important election victory and was in a period where Iran's more aggressive foreign policy (which, again, he does not control but can influence through his actions and bargaining in the consensus process) in fact seemed to be paying dividends. Today, with the economy not performing according to his promises, Iran's nuclear program dragged before the UN Security Council and a plethora of domestic criticism against him on various fronts, his manoeuvrability is severely limited.

On a general level, Iran does not want an open war with Israel, partly since it knows the limitation of its capabilities, but also since this does not really serve any purpose for Iran. The Iran-Israel struggle is a wider strategic one and not one concerned with territory or things of that nature. Also, both sides need the prospect of an external "existential threat" for their respective identity formations and going to an open war would not be valuable to either. I am firmly of the opinion that the Israelis don't want a war either and that the media (as well as a lot of analysts) are blowing this threat out of proportion. Israeli decision-makers are neither stupid nor ignorant of political/military realities. However, they will use the threat of a "nuclear holocaust" to serve their specific needs and purposes and to push for an internationalisation of what is in essence a manufactured crisis.

The proxy wars being fought through the various Palestinian groups and Hezbollah is a much better option for Tehran, since the battleground remains far from Iran and the costs remain very low (the financial support given to these groups is minuscule compared to what a war would cost).

To Question 2:

I would say that the Iranian public is very happy about the lack of bellicose action. They don't want another war.

One of the interesting things that are often missed in the analysis of Iranian behaviour is that a great many of Iranian decision-makers, who even fill the boards of many state companies, sit in ministries, etc. are veterans of a war that only ended 19 years ago. These individuals know the real impact a conflict has on a country's economy and they've also seen first-hand the horrors