Arab-Israeli Conflict

This blog is a pedagogical tool for Dr. Muqtedar Khan's Class [POSC 377-Fall 2006].

Tuesday, October 03, 2006


Read some of my latest stuff here:

Gibbon was right. Islam is present and thriving in Oxford

Iraq is there a Third Way

posted by Muqtedar Khan @ 9:05 PM  

13 Comments:

At 11:34 AM, Talia said...

I can relate very much to the article about the Iraqi War. When President Bush first said that we were going to Iraq to find "weapon's of mass destruction" I thought that it was the right thing to do. I thought that you had to support the war and what the President was doing to be "patriotic." As the war continued though, I, along with many other Americans like this article says, started to see the war not going anywhere good. President Bush HAS to say that Iraq isn't a failure. Iraq has been the main part of his presidential years and saying Iraq is a failure might to him mean that he is a failure. I also don't see either solution in the article as a good solution to the problem. If we left Iraq now it would be left in shambles. The Iraqi government and civilians would not know what to do. Staying there is not good either because the American prescence is making many Iraqi's hostile and increasing attacks against Americans, as well as other Iraqi's. I don't have a solution to the problem. It's complex and confusing, and obviously our government does not have a good solutiong either. What I do know though, is that we cannot stay in Iraq forever. Eventually the US has to leave and let Iraq govern itself, and be it's own country. When we will leave though...? I don't think anyone knows that answer. For now there are still more troops going, and dying, and more Iraqi's fighting and dying as well.

 
At 1:07 PM, John Letteney said...

I enjoyed the article on the Islam in Oxford, England. I spent a couple weeks over the summer in and around London, and I definitely found the life to be quite different from that which is described in the article.

Prof. Kahn describes Oxford as nearly perfect for Muslims. This is directly in contrast to what I saw and heard while in the UK. While I was over there I felt that there was a general lack of cohesion between Islam and the mainstream society. Though this is unfortunately apparent here in the US also there seemed to be a much bigger gap between the groups in England. I arrived shortly after the apprehension of suspects planning to blow up planes en-route from the UK to the US (needless to say my mother didn’t want me to go). I think the attitudes that I saw in the media and heard about on the streets in London were quite like the attitudes of white Americans toward Muslim-Americans shortly after 9/11. There was a flavor of distrust.

It makes me quite happy to know that there are places in England where “everybody is getting along,” this is just not the way that I saw relations while abroad.

 
At 8:28 PM, Dpatrise said...

I want to comment on both of the articles. First the article about Muslims in Oxford left me with a few questions. I wondered what made Oxford so different from other enlightened towns? Second, why do the Muslims who live in this town seem to be generally more happy and prosperous than other Muslim living elsewhere, even those living in other parts of Britian? I don't really know the answers but maybe the thinking people in this town have not let past events cloud their opinions. It is unfortunate that many more town like Oxfod do not exist because the prejudices many have today are prohibiting anyone from moving forward.

 
At 8:48 PM, Dpatrise said...

As for the second article, the Iraq War we are in today is no doubt due to lack of knowledge and preparedness on behalf of the Bush administration. In their rush to get Saddam out of power, they neglected to create a feasable exit strategy. They believed that within six months, we would be able to create a new Iraqi government, military, and police force that would be able to deal with all of the post-war problems. Years later and thousands of deaths later, we can say this plan did not work.
I am fearful that the President is very convinced that he has done and continues to do the right thing in Iraq. If what I think is true, we may not see an end, or the beginning to and end, until we there is a new administration in the white house, unless of course they believe him it too.

 
At 7:00 PM, alkotf said...

Iraq: There Is A Third Way
“It is time for the President to be more honest, to acknowledge his mistakes and seek fresh ideas to resolve the crisis." lets face it George w. Bush will NEVER come forward and be honest w/ anything he has done !! he was never honest when he deceived and is STILL deceiving his own nation about whats really going on in Iraq, he never admitted that he was wrong in his first claim for going to war in Iraq (i.e. WMD), but he shifted his claim and insisted that there’s a link between 9/11 and Iraq!! And the Iraqis needed to be freed from Saddam ..
we’ve clearly acknowledged from the other article “The Logic of Suicide Terrorism” that the invasion has caused more corruption !,and that “suicide terrorism has been escalating rapidly with 20 attacks in 2003, 48 in 2004, and over 50 in just the first five months of 2005. Every year that the United States has stationed 150,000 combat troops in Iraq, suicide terrorism has doubled.”
So your idea of ‘ "Muslimizing" the occupation of Iraq, by demanding key Arab and Muslim allies to provide the necessary additional troops.’ Is a clever and a wise thing to do and maybe even get a representative from each of the sects (i.e. Sunni’s and shia’s) to partake in the problem and be a key function and an idol to the rest of the people … I don’t see why that wont work and I really don’t see why the hatred has all of the sudden erupted like that between the sunni’s and shia’s .. these two sects have been living peacefully together for decades not just in Iraq but in ALL of the Middle East as well w/ no violence!! What happened now ? could it be the invasion being the cause again ? the hatred has never come till the point of killing each other………

 
At 9:00 PM, Kyle DeRouen said...

Though I, like John Letteney am at least a little skeptical of the utopian description of Oxford in respect to Muslims, I think it must at least be refreshing to be in and around a town where Muslims are no longer immediately subject to radical prejudice. However, I think that Oxford’s acceptance and understanding is very rare for a few significant reasons. First of all, despite the statistic that there are nearly 7,000 Muslims in Oxford they still represent less than 5% of the total population. It’s not as if a perfect harmony has been struck between a territories near 50/50 in diversity, Muslims are a vast minority.

Also, as professor Khan noted in his article, Oxford is a city replete with historically famous colleges. As a result, much of Oxford is representative of a highly educated and informed society. I think it can be said that the more people are fairly educated and presented with raw unbiased material, the less receptive they become to racial prejudice. It seems to me that the problem with anti-Arab prejudice resides in the average person. For those who are not aware of how rare it is that an Arab would take part in violent attack rely on the basic use of profiling as their basis for judgment. I’m not saying that it’s an absolute cause or that by any means that its right but it tends to be a mere reaction of uneducated or uninformed humans to respond to an attack by an Arab man or group of Arab men with a certain hysteria concerning everyone that looks similar. Following the 9/11 attacks, any man or woman that looked remotely Middle Eastern was immediately subject to both an internal and external condemnation that they were in fact terrorists. Right? Certainly not, but unfortunately for many people their ignorance has led to invalidated disposition of suspicion and hatred.

I do agree however that if Oxford is indeed the type of place that Prof. Khan has described it as that it certainly is a wonderful example of how both Muslims and people in general should be treated. It’s too bad that not only more Muslims but that more people in general are not able to study at any of the esteemed universities of Oxford, or live within its city limits. If more people were given the opportunity to understand respective differences and become educated on certain topics we’d certainly all live in a much better world.

 
At 3:15 PM, J. Kagan said...

The last line of Dr. Khan’s article about Iraq sums up what most Americans feel.

“The failure of the Bush administration to acknowledge that it has committed gross errors in its vision as well as in its strategy and execution of the Iraq invasion, is forcing the American public to choose between a losing strategy and defeat. It is time for the President to be more honest, to acknowledge his mistakes and seek fresh ideas to resolve the crisis.”

But we have to be realistic here. President Bush won’t acknowledge his mistakes. Its ridiculous to ask him to do that, since everyone has asked him to do it already and nothing has come out of it, other then more lies, and more stories about Iraq and the WMD’s and their terrorist connections. So how do we go about seeking fresh ideas? Who do we ask? Obviously, Dr. Khan is a great resource. But who else? Our allies, that all didn’t support us in the war anyway. What about Muslim countries that are our allies. What would their suggestions be. It is plainly obvious to me that we can’t just leave, as a commentor on the original article stated. And we can’t stay, because we our presence is increasing the overall terrorism. Can we replace our troops as recommended in the article. But who do we replace it with. What military force would the US permit to take over operations in Iraq? All these questions must be answered promptly, because the more time we take here, the more extremist views are being produced, and the US is the cause of those.

 
At 8:45 PM, Cara LoFaro said...

I agree whole-heartedly with Dr. Kahn’s arguments in his article on the Iraq war. As Kahn suggested, ‘Muslimizing’ the occupation in Iraq could prove to be the most effective and logical “third way” to bringing peace and stability to the region.

By bringing Muslim forces in Iraq, the Iraqis will perhaps not feel as strongly the imposition of western (US) values and dominance. Rather than seeing the western world coming down on them, the people in Iraq can see, through the presence of Muslim troops, an international effort to help bring stability to the region. The only true way for any sort of semblance to come to Iraq is through the seeking of outside support, particularly through Muslim nations.

Not only will this Muslimization of the troops help solve the conflict in Iraq, perhaps it will also be the beginning of an effort to foster peace between the Western and the Muslim world. Muslims will see that the US needs and values their support in the Iraq war, and hopefully then the hostility will ease. Thus, this third way seems to benefit all parties, and seems to be the most logical route towards peace.

The only issue it seems is: have we done so much damage to Muslim-US relations that Muslim nations will be entirely unwilling to supply troops, even though it benefits them a great deal? I’m not quite sure but I do think that an effort to mend ties and build a lasting peace and understanding between the Western world and the Arab world must start somewhere. And Muslim troops in Iraq could be that start.

But then again, who are we kidding? Bush does not seem to have anything of this sort in the cards for the future. My brother, who joined the army after graduating from UD in 2005, is heading to Iraq in January, and he said the administration has plans for troops to be there at least through 2008. Not very reassuring to hear.

 
At 5:36 PM, Chris Eberle said...

I would like to see Muslim nations like the ones Dr. Kahn mentioned, Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan, contribute troops to help provide security for Iraq and especially in Baghdad. However I feel like an Iraqi civil war may be inevitable. If the last three years has taught us anything it doesn’t matter how many soldiers the Bush Administration puts in Iraq the killing does not stop. I feel like the United States has become more of the problem and that the solution may be to get Muslim nations more involved in peacekeeping efforts. Before Iraq can ever have Democracy it needs security first. On another matter Congressmen John Murtha’s plan of immediate withdrawal will never happen not because Republicans control Congress but because no one in Congress has courage to act on it. If anything President Bush has proven himself most incapable of handling Iraq and I see it as a problem that will be left for the next President of the United States to solve, which in the meantime means two more years of violence and insurgency.

 
At 6:04 PM, Peter-Park said...

I have the opinion that most people can see truth and know what's right, but few are willing to act or sacriface anything of themselves for it. Unless there's some form of incentive.

I'm not an expert on the field, but I wonder why would the other Muslim nations like Egypt or Pakistan want to bring their troops into Iraq? What would keep the soldiers from becoming corrupt or bribed to help the rebels fight the US? I'm not sure if the US even has the rebuilding of Iraq and Bagadad as a real priority. We definitely have a lot of troops in the area, but they don't seem to be patrolling or keeping law and order.

Would we have to offer more cash and exchange food or military equipment for the Muslim nations to enter with troops? Wouldn't that be counter-productive to Bush's industrial friends who produce our arms?

I agree there should be more multi-lateral action and more diverse troops to give more justification to the Iraq occupation, but I don't think it's within the desires of Congress or Bush.

---

Having never visited Oxford or England, the other article was very enlightening. I didn't expect there to be a noticable Muslim population, but then again I'm ignorant of the area. I do hope Oxford may serve as a hub for West-Muslim relations, one knows it'll never happen in the US anytime soon.

 
At 2:53 PM, Tim Tonkin said...

In response to Professor Khan's article on Iraq:

The war in Iraq has been everything except for what the Bush Administration believed (or at least told us they believed) it would be. Instead of an easy military victory followed by widespread acceptance as liberators by the Iraqi people, our occupation has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and a conflict that does not appear to be resolved anytime soon. That said, I completely agree with Professor Khan’s assertion that “withdrawing from Iraq will not solve the problem” and that to do so would “embolden the radical forces in the region, who will interpret US retreat as a US defeat. It will inspire them to do more and will attract more recruits, garner more support and perhaps launch more ambitious projects in the region and elsewhere.” However, the Bush Administration must admit that their current strategy has only produced failure. Stabilizing Iraq will take an effort that extends beyond the capabilities on the United States. The success or failure the country will depend on truly multinational effort. But I am not sure that soldiers from Muslim countries would have a pacifying effect against the insurgency in Iraq. And, I am afraid that a Muslim country’s assistance in Iraq would create a backlash within that country. For example, even though Egypt receives nearly 2 billion dollars a year from the US, the country is a hotbed for radicalism, and Mubarak’s regime is perhaps the most despised in the Middle East by the jihadists. Egyptian soldiers patrolling the streets of Baghdad would be added to the list of grievances Egyptian radicals have towards their government. Additionally, much like the problems that America has been having with the Iraqi security forces, I am concerned that Muslim soldiers from other countries will bring religious or ethnic allegiances with them.

Muslim countries that can make the most difference without inflaming their own populations are Iraq’s neighbors. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Turkey, Jordan, and Syria have a vested interest in making sure the instability in Iraq does not spread; these countries can do a lot more in patrolling their borders for jihadists, and importantly, maintain that they are acting in their best interests and independent of US influence. While the United States does need the help of Muslim countries, I believe that Iraq’s neighbors can have a more positive influence against the insurgency than an army of foreign Muslim soldiers patrolling Iraq.

 
At 6:53 AM, Jason Tarasco said...

This post has been removed by the author.

 
At 6:57 AM, Jason Tarasco said...

It is difficult for me to have any type of meaningful reaction to Dr. Khan’s article about Oxford University in Great Britain other that it was rather informative and enlightening in so much as I did not know about the current state of Muslims in the town. Hopefully other centers of higher education such as the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies have as much as promise in promoting greater understanding in regards to Muslims in the West and the West and in Muslim lands. This being my third class with Professor Khan, I can see he has tried hard to bring that concept of mutual understanding through education here to the University of Delaware.

The second article, “Iraq: There is a Third Way” discussed some very important concepts. The main premise of the article is that there has to be another way to bring peace and stability to Iraq besides the Republic strategy of “stay the course” and the Democratic strategy of “cut and run”. While Dr. Khan provided a solution towards the end of the article, the majority of the piece was dedicated to proving three things – the present state of affairs in Iraq is a disaster of humanitarian proportions, “staying the course” will only lead to more bloodshed and “cutting and running” will result in a major destabilization and further radicalization of the Middle East. Unfortunately, this type of problem tends to arise in a democratic system like the one we have here in American where citizens can realistically only choose between two candidates for office because the government is dominated by two parties. It is usually difficult to find any real differences between Republicans and Democrats. However, in situations such as the highly polarized environment seen in the U.S. today, the opposite problem occurs like the one over Iraq. Extreme partisanship takes hold until there is little or no meaningful dialogue. One side proposes a solution and the other side takes the very opposite position. This has proven extremely ineffective in the case of Iraq as the situation continues to deteriorate by the day. Upon my writing this there was 53 official U.S. military deaths in Iraq, putting October on pace to become one of the deadliest months of the entire war for American forces in Iraq.

Dr. Khan’s solution that Muslim nations such as Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia and Jordan send thousands of troops to help stabilize Baghdad (since they are major receivers of U.S. financial and military aid) is an excellent idea on paper, but is not likely to win the approval of those nations or even the current U.S. administration. I would imagine the last thing that these nations want is to be involved in the terrible situation in Iraq, which would almost certainly result in the deaths of some of their troops despite their being Muslims. The most unrealistic part of Dr. Khan’s plan of course, is that it requires the Bush administration to admit a mistake. The midterm elections are taking place in just a few weeks. Neither party will propose any plan of substance on Iraq (or any issue for that matter) before Tuesday, November 7th for fear of potentially losing votes. However, I do suspect that regardless of the outcome of those elections (whether Republicans lose control of none, one or both houses) there will be significantly more dialogue on the what Professor Khan has so aptly termed the "third way".

 

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