March 11, 2009

by Arsalan Iftikhar

Editor’s Note: Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of www.TheMuslimGuy.com and contributing editor for Islamica Magazine in Washington.

Arsalan Iftikhar | BIO
Founder, TheMuslimGuy.com

The word Pakistan literally means ‘land of the pure.’ Sadly, there has been nothing ‘pure’ about the continued downward political spiral of this nuclear-armed, third-world fledgling democracy of 172 million people over the last several years.

From the December 2007 political assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto in the garrison city of Rawalpindi to the September 2008 terrorist attacks at the Islamabad Marriott hotel (which killed over 54 people, including the Czech Ambassador to Pakistan); it comes as little surprise to any expert on the region that one of our major regional allies in the ‘war on terror’ is now teetering on the brink of political disaster.

Especially in light of the most recent tragedies like the March 2009 Lahore terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan national cricket team and the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks on the Taj and Oberoi hotels (which killed over 173 people in eight locations); Pakistan has once again infamously proven itself to continue being a focal point for our global realpolitik for the foreseeable future.

Wendy Chamberlin was the United States Ambassador to Pakistan on September 11, 2001. A career diplomat and former Ambassador to Laos, since that infamous day, Ambassador Chamberlin has had the personal ear of both former Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto and soft military dictator General Pervez Musharraf.

In an extensive sit-down interview, Ambassador Chamberlin offered her personal views on how American policy toward Pakistan can both improve stability for the people of Pakistan and protect the national security of the United States.

Read the entire CNN Anderson Cooper 360 column at: http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2009/03/11/an-ambassador%E2%80%99s-view-of-pakistan/

February 18, 2009

by Arsalan Iftikhar

Editor’s Note: Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of www.TheMuslimGuy.com and contributing editor for Islamica Magazine in Washington.

Arsalan Iftikhar | BIO
Founder, TheMuslimGuy.com

It is a tragically ironic scenario when a television station dedicated to helping bridge cross-cultural divides becomes the scene of a horrifying murder. But that’s what happened last week.

Aasiya Zubair Hassan, a 37-year-old mother of four was found brutally decapitated inside the television studios of Bridges TV in upstate New York. She had co-founded the cable channel with her husband after September 11th to overcome negative stereotypes associated with Muslims.

Over the years, Bridge TV has succeeded, and transformed itself into a cross-cultural network aimed at fostering, as its website says “a greater understanding among many cultures and diverse populations.” And most employees were non-Muslim.

But now Ms. Zubair’s husband, Muzzammil Hassan, a 44-year-old Pakistani-American businessman, has been charged with murdering his recently estranged wife.

Read the entire CNN Anderson Cooper 360 column at: http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2009/02/18/a-brutal-murder-and-what-it-tells-us/  

by Arsalan Iftikhar

Editor’s Note: Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of www.TheMuslimGuy.com and contributing editor for Islamica Magazine in Washington.

Arsalan Iftikhar | BIO
Founder, TheMuslimGuy.com

Echoing a key theme of his inauguration speech, President Barack Obama, during his first interview with an Arab news channel, told the Muslim world that he holds a world view based on the following principle:

“…You will be judged on what you’ve built, not what you’ve destroyed….”

After viewing the Al-Arabiya interview several times, some key quotes (fittingly) in bold:

On sending (former Senator) George Mitchell as Middle East Special Envoy: “Sending George Mitchell to the Middle East is fulfilling my campaign promise that we’re not going to wait until the end of my administration to deal with Palestinian and Israeli peace, we’re going to start now. It may take a long time to do, but we’re going to do it now…”

“…And so what I told him is start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating…”

Well, isn’t that a nice departure from the foreign policy disasters and garbled rhetoric of George W. Bush? Although there was little substantive ‘policy’ discussed in the Al-Arabiya interview, the ‘tone’ and message marked a stark departure from our previous president.

Read the entire CNN Anderson Cooper 360 column at: http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/27/mr-obama-goes-to-al-arabiya/

January 6, 2009

By Arsalan Iftikhar
Special to CNN

Editor's Note: Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of www.TheMuslimGuy.com and contributing editor for Islamica Magazine in Washington.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The recent carnage in Gaza has left little doubt that within the tortured dynamic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both the chicken and the egg have completely and utterly lost their minds.

Regardless of who's to blame for the origins of the conflict, shame on both Hamas and Israel for their recent violations of international law that have led to a humanitarian inferno in Gaza and southern Israel.

Hamas is to be blamed for its sophomoric provocation of its neighbor's military wrath by firing missiles into southern Israel. Israel also should be condemned for its disproportionately inhumane onslaught in Gaza, which has currently left 555 people dead and 2,750 injured, according to Palestinian medical sources cited by CNN. The United Nations estimates that at least 25 percent of Palestinians killed have been civilians.

Simply put, both sides have committed acts tantamount to "war crimes," and both continue to violate international law repeatedly in this nightmare.

Continue reading Arsalan’s CNN Column on Gaza at: http://us.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/01/06/iftikhar.gaza/index.html

By Arsalan Iftikhar
Special to CNN

Editor's Note: Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of www.TheMuslimGuy.com and contributing editor for Islamica Magazine in Washington.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Not since Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's famous footwear pounded into a table at an October 1960 United Nations session have we seen a shoe create such a global political firestorm.

Alas, we now have an Iraqi journalist entering into the annals of political history with his contribution to the ongoing historical saga entitled "Shoes Heard Around the World."

Some regional TV channels in the Mideast have aired the footage from the "shoe" press conference "more than a dozen times in several hours," according to The Associated Press. The infamous scene has now bounced around Internet networking sites like YouTube and Facebook, showing Iraqi journalist Muntadhar Al-Zaidi standing, hurling both his shoes at President George W. Bush and shouting in Arabic: "This is a farewell kiss, you dog....This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."

Mr. Al-Zaidi, 29, a journalist for private Iraqi television channel Al-Baghdadia, was swiftly overpowered by Iraqi security forces after he threw the shoes at Bush in a gesture described by Agence France Presse as "the supreme mark of disrespect in the Muslim world."

Continue reading Arsalan’s CNN.com on the Iraq Shoe Controversy at: http://us.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/16/iftikhar.shoe/index.html