My 2007 NJGOP wrap-up

PolitckerNJ's regional cousin, Inside Bergen, has published my thoughts on the NJ Republican Party's performance in 2007. This site, run by anonymous persons (or one creative schizophrenic, I'm still not sure...) has cut its teeth on Bergen County politics and is clearly enjoying the thrills of anonymous politco-bashing. The writing is often funny and entertaining, definitely worth a regular read.
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The RIGHT message for New Jersey GOP
by George Ajjan

No doubt, the Republican Party in New Jersey had some notable successes in the recent election. To further the achievements it realized in 2007, the GOP must move forward understanding the importance of message and image: message, because Republicans must clearly explain to voters why they deserve the chance to set the state's agenda; and image, because the GOP will only win in New Jersey as a party proven to unite, not divide.

As far as message goes, 2007 presented a golden opportunity, albeit somewhat awkwardly seized by the GOP agenda set forth in Trenton. It was a mixed bag - pledges to cut $1 billion in spending were admirable, but mired in a cumbersome 9-point plan. And notably absent was a vow to repeal the sales tax increase enacted just a year ago, which should have been a no-brainer. But on the plus side, one component paved the way for future success and established a means of uniting the various factions of the Republican Party: Initiative and Referendum – using ballot questions to let the people of New Jersey decide directly on key issues.

Given the option this year, the public convincingly rejected funding for stem-cell research and another property tax "rebate" scheme – in no small part due to the effort mounted by Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, who boiled the 10-point NJGOP plan down to one sentence: Stop higher taxes – vote NO on all ballot questions. However occasionally brash his approach may have been in the past, the ballot question romp validates Lonegan's claim that NJ residents are conservatives at heart and will respond enthusiastically to a bold small-government agenda. Thus, it should not be difficult in the future for the NJGOP to unite behind returning to a 6% sales tax, for starters. The party could use future ballot question initiatives to let the voters themselves block funding for more big government programs, in spite of Democrat bosses.

That will require strong leadership in Trenton, and an incoming class of younger, sharper Republican State Senators shows promise. But if the GOP is to win over voters with a convincing fiscal agenda, our campaigns must also promote inclusion. Unfortunately, some in the party still rely on divisive tactics, including those that hint at racial or ethnic prejudice. 2007 saw two such examples, in both the primary and general elections.

Most prominently, District 40 State Senator-elect Kevin O'Toole's Republican Primary election opponents deliberately sought to make his Korean heritage a campaign issue. Simultaneously, they attempted to discourage voting for O'Toole's running mate Scott Rumana through cowardly anonymous phone calls claiming that Rumana was Muslim, which aside from being irrelevant outside of 15th century Spain, is untrue – Rumana's paternal grandparents emigrated from Turkey as Christians of the Assyrian and Armenian rites, and his mother's family is of Irish extraction. Appropriately, O'Toole referred to his team's victory as a "defeat for the politics of hate."

Fear mongering surfaced in the general election as well, as District 39 State Senator Gerald Cardinale tried to connect his Democrat opponent to terrorism because his law partner headed the New Jersey chapter of a civil rights group, the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). Cardinale sought to convince voters that the ADC was not mainstream and promoted a violent agenda, rather ironically buttressing his claim with the opinion of a radical Jewish group that has been implicated in murdering a leader of the ADC, and attempting to blow up the office of an Arab-American Congressman – not exactly an objective source.

To be fair, Cardinale points out that his campaign never attacked Arab-Americans at large, only the ADC. He also made it publicly known that he has Arab friends, which will be useful to know should he ever face Archie Bunker in a primary.

Nevertheless, Cardinale won the election with ease, because he has consistently advocated for Bergen County taxpayers and advanced a conservative agenda that suits his constituents. His last-minute foray into ethnic imagery was superfluous and irrelevant. NJ residents are not asked their opinion on Israeli settlements in the West Bank before Trenton bureaucrats fleece them; rather, Garden State inhabitants of all backgrounds suffer together in a state paralyzed by out-of-control spending and incessant taxation.

Cardinale has a strong record of opposing that trend, and should focus on making that his legacy. Similarly, uniting citizens in opposition to unaffordable big government should be the image projected by the Republican Party. Hair-brained schemes that seek to divide citizens along ethnic lines should be ripped out of the GOP playbook for good. That's O'Toole’s view:

"Republicans succeed when we bring all people together with our message. There should never be a place in our party for divisive tactics concerning Asian-Americans, Arab-Americans, or any other group."

O'Toole's sentiments should have a familiar ring – in his farewell address, Ronald Reagan remarked that he wanted to be remembered for appealing to people's best hopes, not their worst fears. And so must the Republican Party of New Jersey.

The author, a Republican activist, blogs at http://www.georgeajjan.com

o --- This article first appeared on Inside Bergen December 21, 2007.
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number 9…number 9…number 9…

Those willing to entertain a little "tough love" for a certain Texas Congressman, and accept a little feedback on how to improve his campaign, will enjoy this piece published today on the pre-eminent libertarian website, LewRockwell.com.

Rockwell heads the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Alabama, named for one of the Austrian School's seminal thinkers, and served as Chief-of-Staff to Ron Paul during his early congressional career.
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Ron Paul's Revolution Problem
by George Ajjan

"number 9…number 9…number 9…"
- from The Beatles, a.k.a. "The White Album"

Ron Paul has generated more political excitement than all of his competitors in the 2008 Republican Primary race combined. His fundraising success has been nothing short of breathtaking, and if he spends the millions he has raked in thus far wisely, he could emerge from the early January contests as a proven frontrunner, poised for massive victories on "Super Duper Tuesday", February 5 – a day on which 19 states hold their primaries and some 42% of Republican National Convention delegates are up for grabs.

It sounds lovely. And it should all be plausible. But Ron Paul has a Revolution problem – one that he must rectify, so that all the time, energy and money that has gone into promoting his message can achieve victory.

What do I mean by "Revolution problem"? Well, to explain it, we need to consult a concept that has been a hot topic of discussion at LRC over the past month – the "Long Tail", a marketing framework popularized by internet business models like Amazon or iTunes, which suggests that many diverse and infinitesimal contributors to revenue can have a definitive impact when aggregated. Inspired by one of his Korean students, Joshua Snyder first introduced the concept with respect to Ron Paul's candidacy:

"Ron Paul is the one candidate able to unite the diverse elements in the Long Tail. His supporters range from strippers to evangelicals; from gun-totters to peaceniks…[his] laissez-faire ideals will unite those in the Long Tail who simply want the federal government out of their lives. This is the key to Ron Paul's diverse range of supporters, and why they don't mind spending time together under the good doctor's big tent."

Gary North then followed-up, explaining the mechanics of how the Long Tail benefits Ron Paul:

"Previously, the cost of delivering information to people who have ignored politics has been high: printed pieces of paper in the mail. Now, because of the price competition of the Internet, the cost of getting your message to readers is close to free, once you have a data base of e-mail addresses…People are mobilizing behind Ron Paul because the cost of connecting with others of a similar persuasion has fallen as never before in history."

We can visualize this analysis in real life, in all of the Ron Paul bumper stickers (has anyone yet seen a bumper sticker for any of his competitors?), the signage, and most of all, the massive rallies that continue to attract hundreds and even thousands of citizens. Some are die-hard Republicans like me, some are Independents, some are Libertarians, some are Democrats, some (as Ron Paul likes to joke) are Anarchists, and most importantly – many are previously disaffected, politically disengaged, and perhaps not even registered to vote.

Given this concept of the Long Tail and its role in the 2008 race, let's have a more detailed look at what the dynamics might be, using the adapted Long Tail graph below as a reference.
On the x (horizontal) axis, we measure the distance from the political mainstream. The further left you go, the closer you are to the mainstream, and the further right you go, the more politically "quirky" you become.

On the y (vertical) axis, we have the number of available votes in the GOP primary.

We have to trace the gray line to match up the number of votes available for the various positions, and how far from the mainstream they may be. For example, at the origin (where the 2 axes intersect in the lower left corner), we are at the political mainstream, and thus there is the largest number of votes available (the gray curve is at its highest point).

As we trace the gray curve, however, we see that as we move away from the mainstream, the number of votes available decreases.

We can use this graph to understand what it will take to win the Republican Primary by calculating the area under the curve (the colored regions). In green are all the voters who exist at or close to the mainstream. These are individuals who love watching Fox News, agree with Rush Limbaugh's talking points, and adore the soothing sound of Mike Huckabee's "elevator music conservatism". Their attention is focused on "regular Republican" issues like life, family, guns, borders, security, taxes.

Naturally, these are the voters to whom Ron Paul's peers pander at every opportunity. Romney, Giuliani, Thompson, McCain, and Huckabee risk injury racing to the microphone to boast about who loves God more, who will be tougher on the "Islamofascists", who cast more meaningless procedural votes that supposedly "cut taxes", etc. And they do this because the winner will be the one who captures the most green on the graph above.

Then there is the yellow region. The voters contained herein may get their news from LRC, not CNN. They may understand monetary policy. They may question their leaders and display a healthy degree of skepticism. They may reject jingoism. And a million other diverse statements might characterize these voters, or might not. The reason they are shown in yellow, however, is because probably under normal circumstances, they would not be voting at all in the Republican primary. In any other year, the graph would cut off abruptly at the end of the green region, and the candidates would have to duke it out for the largest share of the green area.

So, it naturally follows that when the MSM reports their latest polls, they are only picking tiny drops from the vast green sea shown on the above graph. The flaws in that approach and the misleading nature of political polling have been well explicated on LRC; but more importantly, polling "likely Republican voters" entirely ignores the yellow region – the Long Tail.

Quite simply, the Long Tail shown in the graph above belongs to Ron Paul. (notice the shape differs slightly from the standard Long Tail diagram, because the total area under the curve is finite, capped at the number of people who we could reasonably expect to vote in the 2008 Republican Primary)

So place the yellow region over the green one. It's considerably smaller, but still respectable. But the fight doesn't end there. It's not a 2-man race: yellow vs. green. Far from it. The green area will be cut up 6 ways, and depending upon how those 6 divisions look, the addition of the yellow area could be decisive.

This is the power of the Long Tail and its contribution to Ron Paul's presidential aspirations. Notice, the word is contribution, not characterization. This is where misapplication of the Long Tail concept can lead to trouble. An entertainment industry blogger named Ryan Holiday jumped on this point, taking issue with Joshua Snyder's initial relating of the Long Tail to Ron Paul's campaign.

"On Amazon, the one person in every town that likes Finnish Death Metal can be aggregated into a sustainable consumer subset. Borders, however, can't afford to stock product for a single fan. This naturally guides them towards products that appeal to blocs of people much in the same way that Durverger guides us to just Democrats and Republicans and leaves no room for Libertarians…

What works on the internet does not work in US political elections. That is what Ron Paul supporters don't understand…let's be honest, he might be running in the
Republican primary, but he's doing it as a Libertarian, as a third party."

Bretigne Shaffer took Mr. Holiday to task, and for good reason, although I must say I do very much like his analogy between buying music and casting votes. However, I think he has confused the nature of Ron Paul's campaign. First of all, (as if it needs to be stated again) Ron Paul IS a Republican, he has been elected 10 times as a Republican, and he will be on the ballot in 50 primaries/caucuses as a Republican, competing against all the other Republicans with whom he has participated in the Republican debates.

Secondly, Holiday misapplies his own analogy. Ron Paul already IS on the shelf in Borders. His product is well-stocked. In fact, when you walk into the store, there are 8 CDs on display, and Ron Paul's is one of them. Granted, 3 or 4 of those CDs are specially promoted by the store's managers to attract buyers, and the store clerks rave about them – but Ron Paul is there nonetheless.

Meaning: he is in the Republican debates, he is constantly interviewed on news networks, he is profiled by every major print media outlet, and he has even appeared on "The Tonight Show" and "The View" – it doesn't get any closer to the far left portion of the green area of the graph than that.

In addition to those mainstream gigs, though, Ron Paul has a huge presence in less traditional forms – like the massive internet dissemination of his message, the hundreds of YouTube clips of his speeches, congressional sparring with Ben Bernanke, etc.

So there is both green and yellow within Ron Paul's grasp. His "Greatest Hits" album is readily available on the shelf in the local record store (the mainstream portion), while his rare cuts, studio outtakes, and live jams can be purchased online (the Long Tail portion).

This seems an ideal situation in which to market, or in this case, campaign. So where's the problem? The problem is that, for a solid conservative Republican like Ron Paul, the Long Tail should be gravy, not beef. Despite having an impeccable record on all of the core Republican issues on which his competitors pander, he is polling only in the high single digits – an insufficient amount of green to win.

He needs to make better use of his product placement and get more casual buyers to pick up "Ron Paul's Greatest Hits" off the rack. The CD needs some slicker packaging. It needs some 5-star reviews smacked on the cover. And the listening station needs to feature some catchy choruses and snappy melodies, not spacey jams.

Granted, it was his focusing on less mainstream elements that captured the Long Tail for Ron Paul, and won over the hearts and imagination of many people that have become his core supporters – the "Ron Paul R evol UTION". It is thanks to them that he has been able to raise an incredible amount of money, and make himself a real contender. But now he must tailor his message toward the green area. That doesn't mean for a moment that he ought to compromise his principles or abandon his message. He just needs right now to play to the mainstream audience. No one in the race is more pro-life, pro-gun, pro-small government, and pro-borders than Ron Paul. Those are the hit singles. Once people hear those, they'll acquire a taste for the other outstanding content. I know I did.

So what is Ron Paul's Revolution problem? Well, it's a bit of a double-entendre that refers to the recording of The Beatles (better known as "The White Album") in 1968. John Lennon's classic track "Revolution" was the source of some debate, as originally Lennon wanted to include an avant garde segment tacked on to the melodic rock-n-roll tune, an idea resisted by Beatles' producer George Martin. Thankfully, it ended up as a separate and not-quite-mainstream track called "Revolution 9".

The point is: Ron Paul CAN win the Republican nomination for President. The Long Tail of voters, which loves his willingness to talk about issues no other candidates will, can push him over the top. First and foremost, though, is the limited government ditty he's been singing since 1976, for which all Americans can, should, and WILL love him.

For now, Ron Paul should stick to the hits. We'll happily wait for the inaugural ball to hear him play "Revolution 9".

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 December 14, 2007.

continue reading "number 9…number 9…number 9…..."

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.
continue reading "An open letter to Arab-Americans, for Ron Paul..."

al-Qaeda's preferred beverage outlet

The following review of Rudy Giuliani's foreign policy outline was published on The Intellectual Conservative, a webzine featuring excellent commentary on domestic and international issues, with a slant toward paleoconservative and libertarian ideas.
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One day during the summer of 2002, during a 3-month internship in the UAE between the 2 years of my MBA studies at the London Business School, I was strolling through Dubai City Centre (one of the city's many air-conditioned mega-malls) when I saw a teenager, apparently of local origin judging by the way his garments were configured, walking around the mall wearing a t-shirt bearing the likeness of Osama bin Laden.

One might imagine, given the young man's taste in sportswear, that such an individual bore great resentment toward the United States and "the West" in general. Yet, he unceremoniously sipped from a medium-size beverage cup bearing the logo of McDonald's.

This incident came immediately to mind after reading Norman Podhoretz's...rather, Rudy Giuliani's foreign policy outline submitted to Foreign Affairs magazine. (See also the outlines of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, as well as John Edwards.) For those unfamiliar with Rudy Giuliani, he is the greatest hero in American history, and if he emerges with the Republican nomination, he is expected to win the 2008 Presidential election in my home state of New Jersey with 103.5% of the vote.

Giuliani's article was rife with contradictions, predicated upon a faulty framework for evaluating terrorism. Quite simply, he and all the other neocon Kool Aid drinkers have not understood that the struggle for order and stability, or the "international system" as Giuliani calls it, is a choice between states and statelessness. The neocons haven't yet grasped this – they may claim otherwise, but they still cling to their Cold War framework of good states vs. bad states.

Before expounding upon that, consider the passage of Giuliani's piece that sparked the memory of my Dubai experience, among the most ridiculous of his propositions:

"Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates are pointing the way by tarting to interpret Islam in ways that respect the distinctiveness of their local cultures but are consistent with the global marketplace. Some of these states have coeducational schools, allow women to serve in government, and count shopping malls that sell Western and Arab goods side by side. Their leaders recognize that modernization is their ticket to the global marketplace. And the global marketplace can build bridges between the West and the Islamic world in a way that promotes mutual respect and mutual benefit."

For a man who boasts that he has visited 35 countries since leaving the mayoralty of New York, he doesn't seem to have learned a whole lot, expect perhaps that sycophants can make a person feel smarter than what he is.

Giuliani's statement is so misinformed, it's hard to choose where to begin debunking it. First of all, the countries that he mentioned are not really in the business of "interpreting Islam," other than to recognize very general components of Islamic culture, such as respecting Friday as a day of communal prayer and structuring national schedules accordingly (like Israel does for Saturday and the US does for Sunday). Giuliani seems to think that the austerity and government-enforced Islamic social guidelines mandated by the Saudi regime or the Taliban are the norm, while in fact they are the exception. What percentage of Islamic countries do not have co-educational schools, allow women to serve in government, or sell "Western and Arab goods side by side?" (How patronizing...) A very small minority. Even Iraq under the Baath Party and Saddam Hussein always had women in prominent roles. And the government of Syria brews its own beer.

The main trait that Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE have in common is that they are all allied with the US politically/militarily/economically. Accordingly, Jordan's "King" Abdallah earns accolades as a "reformer," I suppose because Coach handbags are sold duty-free at the border crossing between Jordan and Iraq. What, pray tell, was the margin of victory the last time he was elected "king?"

Of course, all of these misconceptions are related to the neoconservatives' obsession with "democracy," which they have turned into the cheapest word in the English language, roughly defined as:

"absolute compliance with and slavish obedience to whatever our regional agenda happens to be for the next 15 minutes."

Further arrogance in Giuliani's view manifests in his suggestion that modernization can only come from a strong relationship with the United States. I don't know what Giuliani saw in those 35 countries he visited, but in the 28 I have passed through I have seen that plenty of nations are getting along just fine with modernization and globalization without much American influence at all. Take Africa for instance, where Chinese products and industries dominate the market, and American goods have only gained a foothold in specific sectors (comme les 4×4 de luxe).

As for the Middle East, Giuliani has it wrong there too. Modernization and globalization do not at all go hand-in-hand with approval of the political/military plans of the United States. I suppose it never occurred to Giuliani that a young Muslim's ability to enjoy a shake from McDonald's subtracts nothing from his admiration and hero-worship of an evil man whose claim to infamy is his commitment to the taking of innocent American lives, as my Dubai experience illustrated. Quite the contrary, when Giuliani says:

"Companies such as Pepsi, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and Levi's helped win the Cold War by entering the Soviet market. Cultural events, such as Van Cliburn's concerts in the Soviet Union...also hastened change..."

...he displays no understanding of the crisis of America's image in the minds of young Arabs and Muslims, and relies upon outdated clichés to support his view. The fact that stars like Enrique Iglesias perform to rave reviews in Damascus or that Facebook is full of groups like "Bring the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Syria" does little to change America's damaged regional image in the minds of Arab and Muslim youth.

That is on the individual level. On the state level, America's regional foes, Syria and Iran, have pressed on with globalization and seen massive inflows of capital from the Gulf states in real estate, technology, tourism, and manufacturing sectors, despite being sanctioned by the US. Additionally, Iran has inked a multi-year $100 Billion oil deal with China. Of course, modernization would progress more rapidly with American influence, and this is a worthy goal of the United States' trade policy, but globalization (as its name suggests) is not wholly controlled by America.

Iran is a good example to use because Giuliani’s animosity towards it suggests that it is outside the "international system" he wishes to strengthen as one of the three pillars of his foreign policy. But the framework of that very policy actually places Iran inside the system. For starters, Giuliani defines our enemies as those who:

"follow a violent ideology: radical Islamic fascism, which uses the mask of religion to further totalitarian goals and aims to destroy the existing international system. These enemies wear no uniform. They have no traditional military assets. They rule no states but can hide and operate in virtually any of them and are supported by some."

He continues:

"Our old assumptions about conflict between nation-states fell away. Civilization itself, and the international system, had come under attack by a ruthless and radical Islamist enemy...[the challenge] will be to strengthen the international system that the terrorists seek to destroy."

This seems to suggest that the international system consists of stable states, which terrorists wish to undermine, and that radical Islamists are the enemy. It's a sensible and logical argument, except that it contradicts Giuliani's actual agenda in what he calls the "Terrorists' War on Us" (formerly known as the "War on Terror").

Of Iran, Giuliani says:

"The Islamic Republic has been determined to attack the international system throughout its entire existence: it took U.S. diplomats hostage in 1979 and seized British sailors in 2007 and during the decades in between supported terrorism and murder."

Does he deny that Iran is a state? How could Iran have closed a major oil deal with China if it was not part of the international system? What about regular arrivals and departures of commercial flights run by Alitalia, Air France, and BMED (British Airways/BMI)? In fact, following the capture of British sailors earlier this year, the former prisoners flew home aboard one of these flights, which are usually dominated by civilian businessmen and tourists.

According to Giuliani, the case against Iran consists of 2 incidents separated by 28 years and broad references to "terrorism and murder" in between. True, Iranian leaders have made troubling, anti-American statements repeatedly and the United States has every reason to be concerned about Iranian access to nuclear technology. But bellicose statements do not alone remove a nation from the "international system;" rather, uncooperative nations must be dealt with through the tools of that system, be they diplomatic, political, economic, or yes, military in cases where America's sovereignty is directly threatened.

Nearly every other nation, including staunch American allies, retains diplomatic relations with Iran. And America too should consider re-evaluating the diplomatic freeze that has lasted nearly 3 decades. In addition to a mere consular presence that could facilitate people-to-people cultural exchanges, a full-blown embassy would enable espionage and the gathering of more reliable information than we tend to obtain from unsavory exiles, as Ted Galen Carpenter has argued.

Giuliani relies on more regional clichés when he states:

"The theocrats ruling Iran need to understand that we can wield the stick as well as the carrot, by undermining popular support for their regime, damaging the Iranian economy, weakening Iran's military, and, should all else fail, destroying its nuclear infrastructure."

It is unclear how he proposes to undermine popular support for the Iranian regime, and what he means by the "regime." Does he refer to the clerics and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, Assembly of Experts leader Hashemi Rafsanjani, or President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? What about the elected parliament? Iranian politics are far more complex than Giuliani seems to grasp, and for all of its flaws (such as the clerics' ability to reject insufficiently "Islamic" candidates for the parliament), it is a Republic and it is a state. Accordingly, Giuliani is quite correct when he says:

"There is no realistic alternative to the sovereign state system. Transnational terrorists and other rogue actors have difficulty operating where the state system is strong, and they flourish where it is weak. This is the reason they try to exploit its weaknesses."

This is exactly why we must learn to negotiate with states like Iran, however wide and long-standing the gaps, to cooperate to defeat terrorist organizations; for example, the intelligence sharing on al-Qaeda that developed between the US and Iran immediately following 9/11. Their intelligence services are far more accomplished and regionally connected than ours, which is why we must seek out ways to enlist their help in crushing disruptive terrorist organizations that can harm energy supplies and disrupt regional or even global economies.

Giuliani speaks of the "international state system" as "the primary defense of civilization," and says that:

"America can no longer rely on Cold War doctrines such as 'mutual assured destruction' in the face of threats from hostile, unstable regimes."

While no one would deny that Iran has expressed hostile intentions in the past, to suggest that states not allied with the United States are not part of civilization eclipses the current US President at even his most arrogant. As for "mutual assured destruction," one would hope, after seeing the Presidents of Iran and Israel shake hands and engage in pleasantries at the funeral of Pope John Paul II, that perhaps cooler heads will prevail over the anti-Israel rhetoric that tends to flow from Mr. Ahmadinejad's tongue.

But Giuliani rejects such "diplomatic accommodation with hostile states" as one of the vices of the "realist" foreign policy school of thought, which "avoids attempts to reform the international