Whether or not the Islamic doctrine preaches violence, extremists are calling the shots.
Now that's very different from what you said earlier and gives me sufficient enough reason to carry this discussion further. I agree that currently, the proponents of extremism in the Islamic world (not the Islamic religion) have the upper hand than the proponents of non-violence. The tussle between these two factions are historical and have existed since 1100's.
t will be interesting to see how Obama (or Clinton) or McCain will be tested, as Bush was on 9/11. I expect that to happen.
So far, Bush has isolated the extremists, confined them to the caves in Pakistan and significantly choked off their money supply. That is a good first step. A necessary element that he has ignored is winning the hearts and minds of the Arab youths so as to blunt the appeal of the extremists within the Arab world. This can begin to happen with the US moving back to a position of neutrality in the Arab-Israeli conflict. US cannot be weighted very heavily towards Israel. Now, no US Presidential candidate will openly say that. So I do not expect Obama or McCain to say that during the campaign.
Secondly, the US should increase its share of rebuilding the Arab world particularly those countries which do not have oil such as in Palestine, Jordan, Syria etc. But before oil rich Arab countries like SA, UAE, Bahrain join US in this effort, US troops need to vacate Arab lands such as in Iraq.
So in essence, I expect to hear from the candidates, how they intend to win the hearts and minds in the Arab world. And a good start is what Obama said: which is to begin a dialog with the elected reps of the Arab world: Iran, Palestine etc, US needs to explain to the world why they continue to have relations with Arab monarchies at the expense of democratically elected leaders such as in Iran and Palestine.
Obama's personal experience with growing up in an international community, will stand him in good stead as President. |
