همايش دهه چهارم؛ضرورت تعامل و تحول/
سيدحسن خميني:
ـ سياهنمايي همه چيز رانابود ميكند
ـ تاكيدامام(ره)به درنظر گرفتن عنصر زمانومکان دراجتهاد فراموش نشود
سرويس: سياسي
1387/10/27
01-16-2009
12:57:41
8710-15436: كد خبر
خبرگزاري دانشجويان ايران - تهران
سرويس: سياسي
يادگار امام راحل با اشاره به جنايات رژيم صهيونيستي در غزه گفت: وقايع غزه نشانگر اين ضرورت است كه نظام بينالملل محتاج تحول است.
به گزارش خبرگزاري دانشجويان ايران (ايسنا) حجتالاسلام والمسلمين سيدحسن خميني در افتتاحيه نشست دهه چهارم؛ ضرورت تعامل و تحول كه از سوي جمعيت توحيد و تعاون برگزار شد، افزود: نظم بيبنيان ظلممداري كه در دنيا حاكم است نميتواند، نتوانسته و نخواهد توانست گوشهاي از عدالت پيامبران عظيمالشأن را برقرار كند.
وي با گراميداشت ياد شهداي غزه، ملت فلسطين را پاره تن امت اسلامي خواند و تاكيد كرد: اخبار اين روزها را نميشود ديد و شنيد و خون گريه نكرد و بر اين دنياي ظلممدار تاسف نخورد. روزگار بسيار تلخي است. حاكمان جهان امروز، بهويژه حكام بزدل جهان عرب كه جز براي خودشان گام برنميدارند، نه بويي از شرافت بردهاند و نه از انسانيت.
وي حاضران در اين نشست را بزرگان ديروز و امروز و فرداي نظام و از ياران و مديران انقلاب اسلامي در سه دهه گذشته كه آميزه تجربه و دانش هستند دانست و گفت: شايد سخن گفتن من در جمع چنين بزرگاني از نگاه برگزاركنندگان جلسه، تمريني باشد براي اينكه در دهه چهارم، بزرگترها به حرف كوچكترها هم گوش كنند و تجربه ديگري باشد كه نوع ديگري هم بتوانيم صحبت كنيم، بيانديشيم و گوش دهيم.
وي با گراميداشت ياد و نام شهداي انقلاب اسلامي، دفاع مقدس و امام شهيدان، بررسي ماهيت و چيستي تحول را مقدمه ضروري طرح مساله دانست و گفت: اگر ندانيم به دنبال چه چيزي هستيم ضرورت آن غير قابل باور و تصور خواهد بود. بايد قبل از ضرورت تحول، جايگاه دو مفهوم واكاوي شود؛ اول بررسي وضع موجود و ديگري شناخت وضع مطلوب.
يادگار امام راحل با بيان اينكه " حركت از وضع موجود به وضع مطلوب به دو صورت انقلابي با شيب تند و يا اصلاحي با شيب كند صورت ميگيرد" خاطرنشان كرد: اين حركت به هر سرعتي صورت گيرد مهم نيست، مهم آن است كه اين دو موقعيت به درستي شناخته شود؛ همانطور كه چشم بستن به واقعيتها و نديدن عيوب بسيار غلط است. نگاه بيانصافانه و سياهنمايي همه چيز را به نابودي ميكشاند.
وي همچنين با بيان اينكه " وضع موجود كشورمان در كليه سطوح فرهنگي، سياسي، اجتماعي و اقتصادي از روزگار گذشته بهتر است" خاطرنشان كرد: وضع موجود چون ملموس است كمتر به آن پرداخته ميشود و بسياري از ما درك درستي از وضع موجود نداريم.
وي در ادامه به تشريح شرايط وضع مطلوب پرداخت و شرط طرح آن را برداشتن سه گام بزرگ دانست و گفت: گام نخست، تعريف وضع مطلوب از ديدگاه خودمان و تبيين مصداق آن است. در پاسخ به اين سوال، هر گروهي سعي ميكند جواب خود را به صورت كلي بيان كند و به واسطه آن بخش وسيعي از توده مردم را به طرف خود بكشاند.
سيدحسن خميني تبيين مولفههاي وضع مطلوب را گام دوم تحول دانست و اظهار كرد: بايد اجزاي وضع مطلوب بازکاوي و معرفي شوند. اگر به دنبال عدالت هستيم بايد مقصود خود را از آن بيان و تبيين کنيم. اسلام و عدالت چيزي است که هم امام و هم اقران امام در مورد آن سخن ميگفتند.
وي با بيان اينکه " در انقلاب اسلامي ايران به رهبري امام خميني(ره) هر دو وجه بيان کلي مفاهيم و تبيين مولفههاي آن در کوتاهترين زمان ممکن ارائه شد" اظهار كرد: اين از افتخارات امام و انقلاب اسلامي است که با وجود بيشترين طرفدار به واژههاي کلي تن در نداد و امام قبل از انقلاب مقصود خود را ازحکومت اسلامي در کتاب ولايت فقيه تبيين کرد و بعد از انقلاب نيز مولفههاي حکومت را بلافاصله در قانون اساسي به راي مردم گذاشت.
وي با بيان اينکه " مولفههاي وضع مطلوب بايد شکافته شود، حتي اگر موجب انشقاق شود" گفت: اگر اين مولفه به صورت دقيق واکاوي نشود، بعدا موجب اختلاف، جدايي و مشکلات بيشتر خواهد شد.
يادگار امام راحل گام سوم را پيدا کردن راه رسيدن از وضع موجود به وضع مطلوب دانست و خاطرنشان كرد: راه بيرون رفتن از انسدادهاي موجود، راه بقا و ماندگاري نظام وحفظ خط امام و انقلاب، اجتهاد در مباني انقلاب و انديشههاي بنيانگذار نظام است.
وي به ظهور سه نحله فکري در صدر اسلام بعد از رحلت پيامبر اکرم(ص) اشاره کرد و گفت: اتکاي صرف به حديث از سوي اهل حديث، اتکا به عقل و کنار گذاشتن متون مقدس و اجتهاد در متون، سه روشي بود که براي فهم اسلام ارائه شد که البته اجتهاد در متون راهي بود که ائمه اطهار(ع) پيش روي ما گشودند.
وي در ادامه با اشاره به تاکيد امام خميني(ره) بر اجتهاد در متون مقدس گفت: بايد در مواجهه با سوالات جديد به دنبال پاسخهاي جديد مبتني بر اصول باشيم. روشنفکري به معناي حرف نو زدن نيست، روشنفکري به معناي پاسخ دادن به سوالهاي جديد است.
سيدحسن خميني با بيان اينکه " ما در انقلاب اسلامي با يک متن مقدس روبهرو هستيم" اظهار كرد: جامعه ما در دورههاي مختلف وفاداري خود را به متون مقدس امام نشان داده است. راه آينده ما در اين متون نهفته است. اجتهاد در اين متون برداشتن گام سوم تحول و راه رسيدن به وضع مطلوب است.
وي اظهار كرد: امام پس از 11 سال حکومت، براي اولين بار در تاريخ از تاثير زمان و مکان در اجتهاد سخن گفت و تاکيد ايشان به در نظر گرفتن عنصر زمان و مکان در اجتهاد و حکومت نبايد به فراموشي سپرده شود.
انتهاي پيام
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Ayatollah Khomeini versus Jews, An Analysis
The Ayatollah Khomeini, not only recognized the mobilizing power of anti-Semitism in the struggle against the shah, he made use of it himself, as far back as the 1960s.
“I know that you do not want Iran to lie under the boots of the Jews,”
he cried out to his supporters on April 13, 1963. That same year, he called
the shah a Jew in disguise and accused him of taking orders from Israel.
This drew a huge response from the public. Khomeini had found his theme. Khomeini’s biographer Amir Taheri writes: “The Ayatollah was by now convinced that the central political theme of contemporary life was an elaborate and highly complex conspiracy by the Jews—’who controlled everything’—to ‘emasculate Islam’ and dominate the world thanks to the natural wealth of the Muslim nations.”
When in June 1963 thousands of Khomeini-influenced theology students set off to Tehran for a demonstration and were brutally stopped by the shah’s security forces, Khomeini channeled all their anger toward the Jewish nation:
“Israel does not want the Koran to survive in this country. . . . It is destroying us. It is destroying you and the nation. It wants to take possession of the economy. It wants to demolish our trade and agriculture. It wants to grab the wealth of the country.”
After the Six Day War of 1967, the anti-Semitic agitation, which drew no distinction between Jews and Israelis, intensified. ”[i]t was [the Jews] who first established anti-Islamic propaganda and engaged in various stratagems, and as you can see, this activity continues down to the present,” Khomeini wrote in 1970 in his principal work, Islamic Government.
”[T]he Jews . . . wish to establish Jewish domination throughout the world. Since they are a cunning and resourceful group of people, I fear that . . . they may one day achieve their goal.”
Then in September 1977, he declared,
“The Jews have grasped the world with both hands and are devouring it with an insatiable appetite, they are devouring America and have now turned their attention to Iran and still they are not satisfied.”
Two years later, Khomeini was the unchallenged leader of the Iranian revolution.
Khomeini’s anti-Semitic attacks found favor with the opponents of the shah, both leftists and Islamists.
His anti-Semitism ran along the same lines as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the turn-of-the-century hoax beloved of the Nazis that purports to expose a Jewish conspiracy to rule the world.
The Protocols was published in Persian in the summer of 1978 and was widely disseminated as a weapon against the shah, Israel, and the Jews. In 1984, the newspaper Imam, published by the Iranian embassy in London, printed excerpts from The Protocols. In 1985, Iranian state authorities did a mass printing of a new edition. Somewhat later, the periodical Eslami serialized The Protocols under the title
“The Smell of Blood: Jewish Conspiracies.”
“I know that you do not want Iran to lie under the boots of the Jews,”
he cried out to his supporters on April 13, 1963. That same year, he called
the shah a Jew in disguise and accused him of taking orders from Israel.
This drew a huge response from the public. Khomeini had found his theme. Khomeini’s biographer Amir Taheri writes: “The Ayatollah was by now convinced that the central political theme of contemporary life was an elaborate and highly complex conspiracy by the Jews—’who controlled everything’—to ‘emasculate Islam’ and dominate the world thanks to the natural wealth of the Muslim nations.”
When in June 1963 thousands of Khomeini-influenced theology students set off to Tehran for a demonstration and were brutally stopped by the shah’s security forces, Khomeini channeled all their anger toward the Jewish nation:
“Israel does not want the Koran to survive in this country. . . . It is destroying us. It is destroying you and the nation. It wants to take possession of the economy. It wants to demolish our trade and agriculture. It wants to grab the wealth of the country.”
After the Six Day War of 1967, the anti-Semitic agitation, which drew no distinction between Jews and Israelis, intensified. ”[i]t was [the Jews] who first established anti-Islamic propaganda and engaged in various stratagems, and as you can see, this activity continues down to the present,” Khomeini wrote in 1970 in his principal work, Islamic Government.
”[T]he Jews . . . wish to establish Jewish domination throughout the world. Since they are a cunning and resourceful group of people, I fear that . . . they may one day achieve their goal.”
Then in September 1977, he declared,
“The Jews have grasped the world with both hands and are devouring it with an insatiable appetite, they are devouring America and have now turned their attention to Iran and still they are not satisfied.”
Two years later, Khomeini was the unchallenged leader of the Iranian revolution.
Khomeini’s anti-Semitic attacks found favor with the opponents of the shah, both leftists and Islamists.
His anti-Semitism ran along the same lines as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the turn-of-the-century hoax beloved of the Nazis that purports to expose a Jewish conspiracy to rule the world.
The Protocols was published in Persian in the summer of 1978 and was widely disseminated as a weapon against the shah, Israel, and the Jews. In 1984, the newspaper Imam, published by the Iranian embassy in London, printed excerpts from The Protocols. In 1985, Iranian state authorities did a mass printing of a new edition. Somewhat later, the periodical Eslami serialized The Protocols under the title
“The Smell of Blood: Jewish Conspiracies.”
Friday, January 16, 2009
Iraqi guards said to throw party for shoe-thrower
By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer Kim Gamel, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jan 16, 5:19 pm ET
In this Dec. 14, 2008 file photo, Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi throws a AP – In this Dec. 14, 2008 file photo, Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi throws a shoe at President George …
BAGHDAD – The Iraqi journalist jailed since throwing his shoes at President George W. Bush got a visit from his brother Friday and a birthday party from his guards as he turned 30.
Muntadhar al-Zeidi, who has gained cult status for his bizarre protest, is in good shape but has been denied access to his lawyer, relatives said after his brother Maitham visited him for two hours in his detention cell in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.
Al-Zeidi has been in custody since the Dec. 14 outburst at Bush's joint news conference with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Thousands demonstrated for al-Zeidi's release and hailed his gesture.
But concern was raised about his welfare after allegations that he had been severely beaten and tortured in detention.
The case's investigating judge has said the journalist was struck about the face and eyes, apparently by security agents who wrestled him to the floor after he hurled his shoes, forcing Bush to duck for cover.
Maitham al-Zeidi was not available to comment on the visit, but another brother, Dhargham, told The Associated Press that he was told the wounds had healed.
"Muntadhar was in a good shape ... and his morale was high. Yesterday was his birthday and some patriotic officers there organized a party for him and brought birthday cake," Dhargham al-Zeidi said.
The case became a focus for Iraqis and others in the Muslim world who resent the U.S. invasion and occupation. But it also embarrassed al-Maliki, who was standing next to Bush at the time. Neither leader was injured.
Al-Zeidi had been due to face a trial in December on a charge of assaulting a foreign leader, which his defense team said carried a maximum sentence of 15 years. But an appellate court is considering a motion to reduce the charges to simply insulting Bush.
Defense lawyer Dhia al-Saadi said it was a matter of freedom of expression.
"Al-Zeidi's act was symbolic and in no way was it a murder attempt," he said, adding that he had been allowed to meet his client only once.
"I submitted many petitions to the judge of the case and I expect to meet Muntadhar next week," he said.
Al-Zeidi's act of defiance transformed the obscure reporter from an employee of a minor TV station into a national hero to many Iraqis fed up with the nearly six-year U.S. presence here.
But his brother said information about the international wave of support had been kept from the journalist.
"Some officers told him that half of the Iraqis were against him. But he was very happy when he heard that all the Iraqis support him. He even cried when he heard that there were demonstrations on his behalf even in the United States," Dhargham al-Zeidi said.
The brother who met with Muntadhar al-Zeidi was taken by bus to the detention center, and two army officers supervised the meeting.
The journalist is currently being held alone in a comfortable room with a bed and a TV set, his brother said. "He is being visited frequently by doctors. The food is very good," the brother added.
Al-Zeidi stood by his attack on Bush. He stressed that he meant no offense to the Iraqi prime minister but didn't want to miss his chance to send Bush a message, the brother said.
"He said he could not wait until al-Maliki left the room to throw his shoes because then Bush would also leave and that historic opportunity would be lost," he said.
Muntadhar al-Zeidi actually feared he would be killed by guards after throwing his shoes and read his last prayers before going to the news conference, his brother said.
"So for him it does not matter for how long he would be imprisoned," his brother said, "because the important thing is that he restored the honor of the Iraqi people."
___
Associated Press writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.
In this Dec. 14, 2008 file photo, Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi throws a AP – In this Dec. 14, 2008 file photo, Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi throws a shoe at President George …
BAGHDAD – The Iraqi journalist jailed since throwing his shoes at President George W. Bush got a visit from his brother Friday and a birthday party from his guards as he turned 30.
Muntadhar al-Zeidi, who has gained cult status for his bizarre protest, is in good shape but has been denied access to his lawyer, relatives said after his brother Maitham visited him for two hours in his detention cell in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.
Al-Zeidi has been in custody since the Dec. 14 outburst at Bush's joint news conference with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Thousands demonstrated for al-Zeidi's release and hailed his gesture.
But concern was raised about his welfare after allegations that he had been severely beaten and tortured in detention.
The case's investigating judge has said the journalist was struck about the face and eyes, apparently by security agents who wrestled him to the floor after he hurled his shoes, forcing Bush to duck for cover.
Maitham al-Zeidi was not available to comment on the visit, but another brother, Dhargham, told The Associated Press that he was told the wounds had healed.
"Muntadhar was in a good shape ... and his morale was high. Yesterday was his birthday and some patriotic officers there organized a party for him and brought birthday cake," Dhargham al-Zeidi said.
The case became a focus for Iraqis and others in the Muslim world who resent the U.S. invasion and occupation. But it also embarrassed al-Maliki, who was standing next to Bush at the time. Neither leader was injured.
Al-Zeidi had been due to face a trial in December on a charge of assaulting a foreign leader, which his defense team said carried a maximum sentence of 15 years. But an appellate court is considering a motion to reduce the charges to simply insulting Bush.
Defense lawyer Dhia al-Saadi said it was a matter of freedom of expression.
"Al-Zeidi's act was symbolic and in no way was it a murder attempt," he said, adding that he had been allowed to meet his client only once.
"I submitted many petitions to the judge of the case and I expect to meet Muntadhar next week," he said.
Al-Zeidi's act of defiance transformed the obscure reporter from an employee of a minor TV station into a national hero to many Iraqis fed up with the nearly six-year U.S. presence here.
But his brother said information about the international wave of support had been kept from the journalist.
"Some officers told him that half of the Iraqis were against him. But he was very happy when he heard that all the Iraqis support him. He even cried when he heard that there were demonstrations on his behalf even in the United States," Dhargham al-Zeidi said.
The brother who met with Muntadhar al-Zeidi was taken by bus to the detention center, and two army officers supervised the meeting.
The journalist is currently being held alone in a comfortable room with a bed and a TV set, his brother said. "He is being visited frequently by doctors. The food is very good," the brother added.
Al-Zeidi stood by his attack on Bush. He stressed that he meant no offense to the Iraqi prime minister but didn't want to miss his chance to send Bush a message, the brother said.
"He said he could not wait until al-Maliki left the room to throw his shoes because then Bush would also leave and that historic opportunity would be lost," he said.
Muntadhar al-Zeidi actually feared he would be killed by guards after throwing his shoes and read his last prayers before going to the news conference, his brother said.
"So for him it does not matter for how long he would be imprisoned," his brother said, "because the important thing is that he restored the honor of the Iraqi people."
___
Associated Press writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.
Israel’s Operations are a Message for Iran
Hermidas Bavand Tells Rooz: - 2009.01.14
hermidasbavand.jpg
Dr Hermidas Bavand is a known Iranian scholar of international affairs. He spoke with Rooz about issues related to the current Gaza conflict and the regional policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Here are the details of this exchange.
Rooz (R): What in your opinion are the goals of Israel in their current operations in Gaza?
Hermidas Bavand (HB): The operation that Israel is following has political, military and security goals. One of their goals is a warning to the new American administration so that it does not take a position different from previous administrations regarding protecting Israel’s interests. The second issue relates to domestic Israeli politics. This is because when Barrack was the Prime Minister, his opponent Netanyahu asserted that the former was failing in providing the security of the Israeli people. In other words, the other goal that is being pursued is to neutralize the Likud party. The third goal is to seriously weaken Hamas in favor of Abbas ..
R: Are any of Israeli’s goals related to Iran?
HB: In addition to these three goals, Tel Aviv is also preparing for a possible attack on Iran in the sense that Israel wants to cripple Iran’s tools in the region for that possibility.
R: From Israel’s perspective, what are Iran’s instruments of power in the region?
HB: From Israel’s perspective, Iran possesses tools of influence at Israel’s borders one of which is Lebanese Hezbollah and the other Hamas and Islamic Jihad. In view of Israel’s belief that these groups are not Iranian tools, but that Iran simply uses them while their policies are determined through their own domestic and neighborly considerations, Arabs and Israelis view this Iranian influence from two different perspectives and are concerned about it. Israel’s experience during the 33-day war in Lebanon has made it seriously anxious and so it views Hezbollah as a threat. The issue of Hamas is not different from this concern. As I said Israel does not view Hamas to be an Iranian tool but since it has succeeded in winning the elections it tried to deal with it in a wishy washy way and cripple it at the opportune time. And of course it obtained that opportunity through an implicit understanding with some Arab countries.
R: What is the message of this situation to Iran?
HB: Overall, the message is to cripple Iran’s instruments of leverage so that they are not useable in a potential future scenario. The second is a warning that it will respond very harshly regarding its interests and security and should the situation require - perhaps even independent of the US - it would undertake military action. Of course Israel’s desire is that the US pursues its goals. But as Israeli authorities have said, they will not sit and wait for America’s approval and would independently engage Iran.
hermidasbavand.jpg
Dr Hermidas Bavand is a known Iranian scholar of international affairs. He spoke with Rooz about issues related to the current Gaza conflict and the regional policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Here are the details of this exchange.
Rooz (R): What in your opinion are the goals of Israel in their current operations in Gaza?
Hermidas Bavand (HB): The operation that Israel is following has political, military and security goals. One of their goals is a warning to the new American administration so that it does not take a position different from previous administrations regarding protecting Israel’s interests. The second issue relates to domestic Israeli politics. This is because when Barrack was the Prime Minister, his opponent Netanyahu asserted that the former was failing in providing the security of the Israeli people. In other words, the other goal that is being pursued is to neutralize the Likud party. The third goal is to seriously weaken Hamas in favor of Abbas ..
R: Are any of Israeli’s goals related to Iran?
HB: In addition to these three goals, Tel Aviv is also preparing for a possible attack on Iran in the sense that Israel wants to cripple Iran’s tools in the region for that possibility.
R: From Israel’s perspective, what are Iran’s instruments of power in the region?
HB: From Israel’s perspective, Iran possesses tools of influence at Israel’s borders one of which is Lebanese Hezbollah and the other Hamas and Islamic Jihad. In view of Israel’s belief that these groups are not Iranian tools, but that Iran simply uses them while their policies are determined through their own domestic and neighborly considerations, Arabs and Israelis view this Iranian influence from two different perspectives and are concerned about it. Israel’s experience during the 33-day war in Lebanon has made it seriously anxious and so it views Hezbollah as a threat. The issue of Hamas is not different from this concern. As I said Israel does not view Hamas to be an Iranian tool but since it has succeeded in winning the elections it tried to deal with it in a wishy washy way and cripple it at the opportune time. And of course it obtained that opportunity through an implicit understanding with some Arab countries.
R: What is the message of this situation to Iran?
HB: Overall, the message is to cripple Iran’s instruments of leverage so that they are not useable in a potential future scenario. The second is a warning that it will respond very harshly regarding its interests and security and should the situation require - perhaps even independent of the US - it would undertake military action. Of course Israel’s desire is that the US pursues its goals. But as Israeli authorities have said, they will not sit and wait for America’s approval and would independently engage Iran.
IRAN’S HAMAS STRATEGY
9 January 2009
Radical Shiites back radical Sunnis with the aim of destabilizing the Middle East
IRAN STATE SPONSORED PRESS TV HAILS EXPULSION
iran-010908-2.jpg
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
attends an anti-Israeli demonstration in Tehran,
Dec. 12, 2008.
A poster at rear shows the late spiritual leader
and founder of the Hamas movement,
Sheik Ahmed Yassin.
BY REUEL MARC GERECHT
Anyone who knows anything about the Middle East knows that Sunni and Shiite radicals don’t work together — er, except when they do. Proof that the conventional wisdom is badly wrong is on offer in Gaza, where the manifest destiny of the Islamic Republic of Iran is now unfolding. Tehran has been aiding Hamas for years with the aim of radicalizing politics across the entire Arab Middle East. Now Israel’s response to thousands of Hamas rocket provocations appears to be doing just that.
Born in the 1980s from the ruins of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s corrupt and decaying secular nationalism, Hamas is a grass-roots, Sunni Islamist movement that has made Shiite Iran a front-line player in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Before Hamas, the mullahs had financed the Palestine Islamic Jihad, whose holy warriors became renowned suicide bombers. But Islamic Jihad has always been a fringe group within Palestinian society. As national elections revealed in 2006, Hamas is mainstream.
valentine-beau-ties.jpg
Although often little appreciated in the West, revolutionary Iran’s ecumenical quest has remained a constant in its approach to Sunni Muslims. The anti-Shiite rhetoric of many Sunni fundamentalist groups has rarely been reciprocated by Iran’s ruling elite. Since the death in 1989 of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the charismatic, quintessentially Shiite leader of the Islamic revolution, Iran’s ruling mullahs have tried assiduously to downplay the sectarian content in their militant message.
Khomeini’s successor, Ali Khamenei, has consistently married his virulent anti-American rhetoric (Khomeini’s “Great Satan” has become Khamenei’s “Satan Incarnate”) with a global appeal to faithful Muslims to join the battle against the U.S. and its allies. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the most politically adept of the revolution’s founding clerics, loved to sponsor militant Sunni-Shiite gatherings when he was speaker of parliament and later as president (1989-1997). He and Mr. Khamenei, who have worked hand-in-hand on national-security issues and have unquestionably authorized every major terrorist operation since the death of Khomeini in 1989, have always been the ultimate pragmatists, even reaching out to Arab Sunni radicals with a strong anti-Shiite bent.
The most radical branch of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad Organization and its most famous member, Ayman al-Zawahiri, became favored Arab poster boys for the clerical regime in the 1980s and 1990s even though Islamic Jihad, like other extremist takfiri Sunni groups, damns Shiites with almost the same gusto as it damns Western infidels. The laissez-passers that Iran gave members of al Qaeda before Sept. 11, 2001 (see the 9/11 Commission Report), the training offered to al Qaeda in the 1990s by the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah (again, see the report), and the “detention” of senior members of al Qaeda fleeing Afghanistan after the American invasion are best seen against the backdrop of clerical Iran’s three-decade long outreach to radical Sunnis who loathe Americans more than they hate Shiites.
In 2003, Iran launched two Arabic satellite TV channels both under the guidance of the former Revolutionary Guards commander Ali Larijani, a well-dressed, well-trimmed puritan with a Ph.D. in philosophy who crushed a brief period of intellectual openness in Iran’s media in the early 1990s. A favorite of Mr. Khamenei, Mr. Larijani pushed TV content extolling Hamas, anti-Israeli suicide bombers, anti-Semitism and an all-Muslim insurgency in Iraq. Iran’s remarkably subdued rhetoric against Arabs who gave loud support to insurgents and holy warriors slaughtering Iraqi Shiites between 2004 and 2007 is inextricably tied to Tehran’s determination to keep Muslim eyes focused on the most important issue — the battle against America and Israel. Iran’s full-bore backing of Hezbollah in the July 2006 war with the Jewish State, a conflict that Tehran and its Syrian ally precipitated by their aggressive military support of Hezbollah, drew Sunni eyes further away from Iraq’s internecine strife.
The 2006 Lebanon war, which lasted 34 days and saw Hezbollah’s Iranian-trained forces embarrass the Israeli army, made Tehran’s favorite Arab son, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, one of the most admired men in the Sunni Arab world. This was a remarkable achievement given that Hezbollah had helped Iran train some of the Iraqi Shiite militants who were wreaking a horrific vengeance against Baghdad’s Sunni Arabs in 2006 — a bloodbath that was constantly on Arab satellite television.
Prominent Sunni rulers — Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Jordan’s King Abdullah — have railed against a “Shiite arc” of power forming in the Near East, only to see few echoes develop outside of the region’s officially controlled media. Although the Sunni Arab rulers have sometimes shown considerable anxiety about the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon, Sunni fundamentalist organizations affiliated with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the mother ship for Sunni Islamists, have been much more restrained in expressing their trepidation.
With strong ties to its fundamentalist brethren along the Nile, Hamas has given Iran (really for the first time, and so far at little cost) an important ally within the fundamentalist circles of the Muslim Brotherhood. One of the Islamic revolution’s great disappointments was that it failed to produce more allies within the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and its many offshoots.
The revolution certainly inspired many within the movement in Egypt and in Syria. But Iran’s ties to the ruling Syrian Allawite elite — a heretical Shiite sect that Sunni fundamentalists detest — complicated its outreach to Sunni militants. When Syria’s dictator Hafez Assad slaughtered thousands of Sunni fundamentalists in the town of Hama in 1982, and revolutionary Iran remained largely silent, Tehran’s standing within the Muslim Brotherhood collapsed.
With Hamas, Iran has the opportunity to make amends. The mullahs have a chance of supplanting Saudi Arabia, the font of the most vicious anti-Shiite Sunni creed, as the most reliable backer of Palestinian fundamentalists. Even more than the Lebanese Hezbollah, which remains tied to and constrained by the complex matrix of Lebanese politics, Hamas seems willing to absorb enormous losses to continue its jihad against Israel. Where Saudi Arabia has been uneasy about the internecine strife among Palestinians — it has bankrolled both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas — Iran has put its money on the former.
Although Fatah, the ruling party within the Palestinian Authority, may get a second wind thanks to the excesses of Hamas and the Israelis’ killing much of Hamas’s brain power and muscle, it is difficult to envision Fatah reviving itself into an appealing political alternative for faithful Palestinians. Fatah is hopelessly corrupt, often brutal, and without an inspiring raison d’être: a Palestine of the West Bank and Gaza is, as Hamas correctly points out, boring, historically unappealing, and a noncontiguous geographic mess. Fatah only sounds impassioned when it gives vent to its anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic, profoundly Muslim roots. It’s no accident that the religious allusions and suicide bombers of Fatah and Hamas after 2000 were hard to tell apart. If Hamas can withstand the current Israeli attack on its leadership and infrastructure, then the movement’s aura will likely be impossible to match. Iran’s influence among religious Palestinians could skyrocket.
Through Hamas, Tehran can possibly reach the ultimate prize, the Egyptian faithful. For reasons both ancient and modern, Egypt has perhaps the most Shiite-sympathetic religious identity in the Sunni Arab world. As long as Hamas remains the center of the Palestinian imagination — and unless Hamas loses its military grip on Gaza, it will continue to command the attention of both the Arab and Western media — Egypt’s politics remain fluid and potentially volatile. Tehran is certainly under no illusions about the strength of Egypt’s military dictatorship, but the uncertainties in Egypt are greater now than they have been since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981.
President Hosni Mubarak, Sadat’s successor, is old and in questionable health. His jet-setting son or a general may succeed him. Neither choice will resuscitate the regime’s legitimacy, which has plummeted even among the highly Westernized elite. The popularity and mosque-power of the Muslim Brotherhood, which would likely win a free election, continues to rise. A turbulent Gaza where devout Muslims are in a protracted, televised fight with the cursed Jews could add sufficient heat to make Egyptian politics really interesting. The odds of Egypt cracking could be very small — the police powers of the Egyptian state are, when provoked, ferocious — but they are now certainly enough to keep the Iranians playing.
Where once Ayatollah Khomeini believed in the revolutionary potential of soft power (Iran’s example was supposed to topple the pro-American autocrats throughout the Middle East), Khomeini’s children are firm believers in hard power, covert action, duplicity and persistence. With Gaza and Egypt conceivably within Tehran’s grasp, the clerical regime will be patient and try to keep Gaza boiling.
It is entirely possible that Tehran could overplay its hand among the Palestinians as it overplayed its hand among Iraqi Shiites, turning sympathetic Muslims into deeply suspicious, nationalistic patriots. The Israeli army could deconstruct Hamas’s leadership sufficiently that Gaza will remain a fundamentalist mess that inspires more pity than the white-hot heat that comes when jihadists beat infidels in battle. But with a nuclear-armed Iran just around the corner, the mullahs will do their best to inspire.
Ultimately, it’s doubtful that Tehran will find President-elect Barack Obama’s offer of more diplomacy, or the threat of more European sanctions, to be compelling. The price of oil may be low, but the mullahs have seen worse economic times. In 30 years, they have not seen a better constellation of forces. And as the Shiite prayer goes, perhaps this time round the Sunnis, too, inshallah (God willing), will see the light.
Mr. Gerecht, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Radical Shiites back radical Sunnis with the aim of destabilizing the Middle East
IRAN STATE SPONSORED PRESS TV HAILS EXPULSION
iran-010908-2.jpg
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
attends an anti-Israeli demonstration in Tehran,
Dec. 12, 2008.
A poster at rear shows the late spiritual leader
and founder of the Hamas movement,
Sheik Ahmed Yassin.
BY REUEL MARC GERECHT
Anyone who knows anything about the Middle East knows that Sunni and Shiite radicals don’t work together — er, except when they do. Proof that the conventional wisdom is badly wrong is on offer in Gaza, where the manifest destiny of the Islamic Republic of Iran is now unfolding. Tehran has been aiding Hamas for years with the aim of radicalizing politics across the entire Arab Middle East. Now Israel’s response to thousands of Hamas rocket provocations appears to be doing just that.
Born in the 1980s from the ruins of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s corrupt and decaying secular nationalism, Hamas is a grass-roots, Sunni Islamist movement that has made Shiite Iran a front-line player in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Before Hamas, the mullahs had financed the Palestine Islamic Jihad, whose holy warriors became renowned suicide bombers. But Islamic Jihad has always been a fringe group within Palestinian society. As national elections revealed in 2006, Hamas is mainstream.
valentine-beau-ties.jpg
Although often little appreciated in the West, revolutionary Iran’s ecumenical quest has remained a constant in its approach to Sunni Muslims. The anti-Shiite rhetoric of many Sunni fundamentalist groups has rarely been reciprocated by Iran’s ruling elite. Since the death in 1989 of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the charismatic, quintessentially Shiite leader of the Islamic revolution, Iran’s ruling mullahs have tried assiduously to downplay the sectarian content in their militant message.
Khomeini’s successor, Ali Khamenei, has consistently married his virulent anti-American rhetoric (Khomeini’s “Great Satan” has become Khamenei’s “Satan Incarnate”) with a global appeal to faithful Muslims to join the battle against the U.S. and its allies. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the most politically adept of the revolution’s founding clerics, loved to sponsor militant Sunni-Shiite gatherings when he was speaker of parliament and later as president (1989-1997). He and Mr. Khamenei, who have worked hand-in-hand on national-security issues and have unquestionably authorized every major terrorist operation since the death of Khomeini in 1989, have always been the ultimate pragmatists, even reaching out to Arab Sunni radicals with a strong anti-Shiite bent.
The most radical branch of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad Organization and its most famous member, Ayman al-Zawahiri, became favored Arab poster boys for the clerical regime in the 1980s and 1990s even though Islamic Jihad, like other extremist takfiri Sunni groups, damns Shiites with almost the same gusto as it damns Western infidels. The laissez-passers that Iran gave members of al Qaeda before Sept. 11, 2001 (see the 9/11 Commission Report), the training offered to al Qaeda in the 1990s by the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah (again, see the report), and the “detention” of senior members of al Qaeda fleeing Afghanistan after the American invasion are best seen against the backdrop of clerical Iran’s three-decade long outreach to radical Sunnis who loathe Americans more than they hate Shiites.
In 2003, Iran launched two Arabic satellite TV channels both under the guidance of the former Revolutionary Guards commander Ali Larijani, a well-dressed, well-trimmed puritan with a Ph.D. in philosophy who crushed a brief period of intellectual openness in Iran’s media in the early 1990s. A favorite of Mr. Khamenei, Mr. Larijani pushed TV content extolling Hamas, anti-Israeli suicide bombers, anti-Semitism and an all-Muslim insurgency in Iraq. Iran’s remarkably subdued rhetoric against Arabs who gave loud support to insurgents and holy warriors slaughtering Iraqi Shiites between 2004 and 2007 is inextricably tied to Tehran’s determination to keep Muslim eyes focused on the most important issue — the battle against America and Israel. Iran’s full-bore backing of Hezbollah in the July 2006 war with the Jewish State, a conflict that Tehran and its Syrian ally precipitated by their aggressive military support of Hezbollah, drew Sunni eyes further away from Iraq’s internecine strife.
The 2006 Lebanon war, which lasted 34 days and saw Hezbollah’s Iranian-trained forces embarrass the Israeli army, made Tehran’s favorite Arab son, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, one of the most admired men in the Sunni Arab world. This was a remarkable achievement given that Hezbollah had helped Iran train some of the Iraqi Shiite militants who were wreaking a horrific vengeance against Baghdad’s Sunni Arabs in 2006 — a bloodbath that was constantly on Arab satellite television.
Prominent Sunni rulers — Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Jordan’s King Abdullah — have railed against a “Shiite arc” of power forming in the Near East, only to see few echoes develop outside of the region’s officially controlled media. Although the Sunni Arab rulers have sometimes shown considerable anxiety about the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon, Sunni fundamentalist organizations affiliated with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the mother ship for Sunni Islamists, have been much more restrained in expressing their trepidation.
With strong ties to its fundamentalist brethren along the Nile, Hamas has given Iran (really for the first time, and so far at little cost) an important ally within the fundamentalist circles of the Muslim Brotherhood. One of the Islamic revolution’s great disappointments was that it failed to produce more allies within the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and its many offshoots.
The revolution certainly inspired many within the movement in Egypt and in Syria. But Iran’s ties to the ruling Syrian Allawite elite — a heretical Shiite sect that Sunni fundamentalists detest — complicated its outreach to Sunni militants. When Syria’s dictator Hafez Assad slaughtered thousands of Sunni fundamentalists in the town of Hama in 1982, and revolutionary Iran remained largely silent, Tehran’s standing within the Muslim Brotherhood collapsed.
With Hamas, Iran has the opportunity to make amends. The mullahs have a chance of supplanting Saudi Arabia, the font of the most vicious anti-Shiite Sunni creed, as the most reliable backer of Palestinian fundamentalists. Even more than the Lebanese Hezbollah, which remains tied to and constrained by the complex matrix of Lebanese politics, Hamas seems willing to absorb enormous losses to continue its jihad against Israel. Where Saudi Arabia has been uneasy about the internecine strife among Palestinians — it has bankrolled both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas — Iran has put its money on the former.
Although Fatah, the ruling party within the Palestinian Authority, may get a second wind thanks to the excesses of Hamas and the Israelis’ killing much of Hamas’s brain power and muscle, it is difficult to envision Fatah reviving itself into an appealing political alternative for faithful Palestinians. Fatah is hopelessly corrupt, often brutal, and without an inspiring raison d’être: a Palestine of the West Bank and Gaza is, as Hamas correctly points out, boring, historically unappealing, and a noncontiguous geographic mess. Fatah only sounds impassioned when it gives vent to its anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic, profoundly Muslim roots. It’s no accident that the religious allusions and suicide bombers of Fatah and Hamas after 2000 were hard to tell apart. If Hamas can withstand the current Israeli attack on its leadership and infrastructure, then the movement’s aura will likely be impossible to match. Iran’s influence among religious Palestinians could skyrocket.
Through Hamas, Tehran can possibly reach the ultimate prize, the Egyptian faithful. For reasons both ancient and modern, Egypt has perhaps the most Shiite-sympathetic religious identity in the Sunni Arab world. As long as Hamas remains the center of the Palestinian imagination — and unless Hamas loses its military grip on Gaza, it will continue to command the attention of both the Arab and Western media — Egypt’s politics remain fluid and potentially volatile. Tehran is certainly under no illusions about the strength of Egypt’s military dictatorship, but the uncertainties in Egypt are greater now than they have been since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981.
President Hosni Mubarak, Sadat’s successor, is old and in questionable health. His jet-setting son or a general may succeed him. Neither choice will resuscitate the regime’s legitimacy, which has plummeted even among the highly Westernized elite. The popularity and mosque-power of the Muslim Brotherhood, which would likely win a free election, continues to rise. A turbulent Gaza where devout Muslims are in a protracted, televised fight with the cursed Jews could add sufficient heat to make Egyptian politics really interesting. The odds of Egypt cracking could be very small — the police powers of the Egyptian state are, when provoked, ferocious — but they are now certainly enough to keep the Iranians playing.
Where once Ayatollah Khomeini believed in the revolutionary potential of soft power (Iran’s example was supposed to topple the pro-American autocrats throughout the Middle East), Khomeini’s children are firm believers in hard power, covert action, duplicity and persistence. With Gaza and Egypt conceivably within Tehran’s grasp, the clerical regime will be patient and try to keep Gaza boiling.
It is entirely possible that Tehran could overplay its hand among the Palestinians as it overplayed its hand among Iraqi Shiites, turning sympathetic Muslims into deeply suspicious, nationalistic patriots. The Israeli army could deconstruct Hamas’s leadership sufficiently that Gaza will remain a fundamentalist mess that inspires more pity than the white-hot heat that comes when jihadists beat infidels in battle. But with a nuclear-armed Iran just around the corner, the mullahs will do their best to inspire.
Ultimately, it’s doubtful that Tehran will find President-elect Barack Obama’s offer of more diplomacy, or the threat of more European sanctions, to be compelling. The price of oil may be low, but the mullahs have seen worse economic times. In 30 years, they have not seen a better constellation of forces. And as the Shiite prayer goes, perhaps this time round the Sunnis, too, inshallah (God willing), will see the light.
Mr. Gerecht, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
YEMEN: Clashes in Amran Governorate could spread - analyst
15 Jan 2009 12:37:51 GMT
Source: IRIN
SANAA, 15 January 2009 (IRIN) - Clashes between two tribes in Amran Governorate, northern Yemen, have been taking place for over three months, and tribal leaders and observers fear the conflict could spill over into other northern areas.
Over 50 people, including women and children, have been killed in clashes between the Harf Sufian and al-Osaimat tribes since November 2008, according to local sheikhs. The tribes belong to powerful rival tribal coalitions, the Bakil and the Hashid.
Mohammed Aysh, an expert on tribal conflict in Yemen, said the clashes could lead to fighting between the Hashid and the Bakil. He pointed out that elements of the two tribal coalitions were engaged in highway robbery and abductions in late December; scores of people were abducted and their vehicles seized.
He said the clashes could lead to a shift in the balance of power, and a waning of the government's authority over Bakil areas, which could come more and more under the influence of Shia rebel leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, whose stronghold is in Saada Governorate.
"The Bakil tribes would successively support al-Houthi, especially as the government stance towards the conflict seems neutral," he told IRIN.
The conflict has its roots in the early 20th century with disagreements over land known as al-Sawad, bordering al-Osaimat and Harf Sufian areas, but flared up again in the wake of the Saada conflict. [see: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=79410]
Throughout 2008, the Harf Sufian tribe (part of the Bakil coalition), supported al-Houthi in his fight against government troops in Saada. Harf Sufian leaders accuse the government of supporting the Hashid coalition in the current conflict.
A Harf Sufian tribal leader who preferred anonymity told IRIN the government was stirring up the conflict to take revenge on the Harf Sufian tribe for backing al-Houthi and killing a number of government soldiers.
"The al-Osaimat tribes [Hashid coalition] are supported by the state, which also gave them weapons," he said, adding that heavy weaponry had been used in the conflict.
Al-Osaimat tribal leader
Sheikh Nasser Abu Shawsa of the al-Osaimat tribe said the current conflict had its origins in a dispute over the al-Sawad area, but denied the government was supporting his tribe against the Harf Sufian. He also accused Harf Sufian tribesmen of being followers of al-Houthi.
"The Houthis are supporting Harf Sufian against us. The dispute over that land [al-Sawad] is just an excuse…" he told IRIN.
According to Shawsa, 20 al-Osaimat tribespeople have been killed and another 60 wounded, with 30 killed and 80 wounded on the Harf Sufian side.
"The conflict will continue until God or the state resolves it," he added.
Sheikh Bakil Hubaish, a prominent leader in Harf Sufian, said farms and houses had been destroyed, leaving some families homeless, but that the clashes had not affected development: "Illiteracy is rampant and if there is a school, you don't find staff. There are no paved roads. People and children are accustomed to wars."
Source: IRIN
SANAA, 15 January 2009 (IRIN) - Clashes between two tribes in Amran Governorate, northern Yemen, have been taking place for over three months, and tribal leaders and observers fear the conflict could spill over into other northern areas.
Over 50 people, including women and children, have been killed in clashes between the Harf Sufian and al-Osaimat tribes since November 2008, according to local sheikhs. The tribes belong to powerful rival tribal coalitions, the Bakil and the Hashid.
Mohammed Aysh, an expert on tribal conflict in Yemen, said the clashes could lead to fighting between the Hashid and the Bakil. He pointed out that elements of the two tribal coalitions were engaged in highway robbery and abductions in late December; scores of people were abducted and their vehicles seized.
He said the clashes could lead to a shift in the balance of power, and a waning of the government's authority over Bakil areas, which could come more and more under the influence of Shia rebel leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, whose stronghold is in Saada Governorate.
"The Bakil tribes would successively support al-Houthi, especially as the government stance towards the conflict seems neutral," he told IRIN.
The conflict has its roots in the early 20th century with disagreements over land known as al-Sawad, bordering al-Osaimat and Harf Sufian areas, but flared up again in the wake of the Saada conflict. [see: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=79410]
Throughout 2008, the Harf Sufian tribe (part of the Bakil coalition), supported al-Houthi in his fight against government troops in Saada. Harf Sufian leaders accuse the government of supporting the Hashid coalition in the current conflict.
A Harf Sufian tribal leader who preferred anonymity told IRIN the government was stirring up the conflict to take revenge on the Harf Sufian tribe for backing al-Houthi and killing a number of government soldiers.
"The al-Osaimat tribes [Hashid coalition] are supported by the state, which also gave them weapons," he said, adding that heavy weaponry had been used in the conflict.
Al-Osaimat tribal leader
Sheikh Nasser Abu Shawsa of the al-Osaimat tribe said the current conflict had its origins in a dispute over the al-Sawad area, but denied the government was supporting his tribe against the Harf Sufian. He also accused Harf Sufian tribesmen of being followers of al-Houthi.
"The Houthis are supporting Harf Sufian against us. The dispute over that land [al-Sawad] is just an excuse…" he told IRIN.
According to Shawsa, 20 al-Osaimat tribespeople have been killed and another 60 wounded, with 30 killed and 80 wounded on the Harf Sufian side.
"The conflict will continue until God or the state resolves it," he added.
Sheikh Bakil Hubaish, a prominent leader in Harf Sufian, said farms and houses had been destroyed, leaving some families homeless, but that the clashes had not affected development: "Illiteracy is rampant and if there is a school, you don't find staff. There are no paved roads. People and children are accustomed to wars."
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Bush gets emotional, defends record in Iraq, home
Bush defends troubled record in farewell address
16 Jan 2009 01:14:49 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Updates with speech)
By Matt Spetalnick and Tabassum Zakaria
WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Thursday defended his actions to avert a collapse of the financial system and protect America from another terrorist attack as he mounted a farewell bid to polish his troubled legacy.
Five days before handing over the presidency to Barack Obama, Bush delivered a televised final address to the American people in which he sought to define a White House record that some historians are already ranking among the worst ever.
But even as he focused on what he saw as his successes, Bush was preparing to leave Obama with unfinished wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a bitter conflict in Gaza, a U.S. economy deep in recession and a U.S. image badly tarnished overseas.
"Facing the prospect of a financial collapse, we took decisive measures to safeguard our economy," Bush said from the White House, referring to a massive government intervention he ordered, counter to his free-market roots. "The toll would be far worse if we had not acted."
Trying to reassure recession-weary Americans, Bush said: "Together, with determination and hard work, we will restore our economy to the path of growth. We will show the world once again the resilience of America's free enterprise system."
Obama has said dealing with the economic meltdown, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and one that has sent shockwaves across the globe, will be a top priority.
Bush warned, however, that the gravest challenge facing the incoming president remained the threat of another terrorist attack like the al Qaeda strikes on Sept. 11, 2001.
He acknowledged that some of his actions in response to 9/11 had been controversial but he stood by them and reasserted his with-us-or-against-us doctrine widely criticized overseas.
"There is legitimate debate about many of these decisions. But there can be little debate about the results," the two-term Republican said. "America has gone more than seven years without another terrorist attack on our soil," he said.
Some of Bush's actions after the 9/11 attacks, such as establishing a detention center for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo and approving harsh interrogation methods that human rights groups said amounted to torture, severely damaged America's image abroad. Obama has vowed to close the facility.
"Our enemies are patient, and determined to strike again," Bush said in a brief address from the White House with Vice President Dick Cheney, his Cabinet and several dozen selected citizens in attendance. "Good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise."
POSITIVE SPIN
With the clock ticking down on his presidency, Bush and his aides used his last day of public events before Inauguration Day to try to put a positive spin on his record.
Farewell speeches are a ritual for departing U.S. leaders, but the stakes are especially high for Bush, who will step down with one of the lowest public approval ratings of any president in modern times -- in the mid-20 percent range.
In a final ceremony at the State Department earlier on Thursday, Bush defended his foreign policy -- from the unpopular war in Iraq to nuclear standoffs with Iran and North Korea. "We have made the world freer," he said.
Bush touted security gains in Iraq as vindication for a U.S. troop buildup he ordered there at a time of rampant sectarian violence in 2007.
The Iraq war, launched without U.N. authorization in 2003, undercut U.S. credibility abroad and contributed to a resounding victory by Obama against John McCain, the nominee of Bush's Republican Party, in the November election.
Bush also made clear he saw his failed effort to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians in his final year as not totally in vain, despite a 3-week-old Israel-Hamas war in Gaza with no end in sight.
He lauded his administration's handling of Iran and North Korea, both of which have faced U.S.-led campaigns to isolate them over nuclear programs. By contrast, Obama has said he would pursue direct diplomacy with America's foes.
On the home front, Bush cited higher public school standards, lower taxes and new prescription drug benefits for the elderly as a few of his accomplishments.
Bush's farewell address carried little of the introspection he showed at his final news conference on Monday when he admitted regrets about no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq and over the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.
But Bush, who has said it will be left to history to judge his record, did concede: "I have experienced setbacks. There are things I would do differently if given the chance." (Additional reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Eric Beech)
--------
By JENNIFER LOVEN, AP White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven, Ap White House Correspondent – Mon Jan 12, 9:37 pm ET
WASHINGTON – With rare public emotion, George W. Bush sat in judgment on his controversial, consequential presidency on Monday, lamenting mistakes but claiming few as his own, heatedly defending his record on disasters in Iraq and at home and offering kindly advice to a successor who won largely because the nation ached for something new.
By turns wistful, aggressive and joking in his final news conference, Bush covered a huge range of topics in summing up his eight years in the White House — the latest in a recent string of efforts to have his say before historians have theirs. Then the White House said he would do it again Thursday night in a final address to the nation.
Reaching back to his first day in office, he recalled walking into the White House and having "a moment" when he felt all the responsibilities of the job landing on his shoulders. Barack Obama will feel that next week, he said, his tone gently understanding.
Indeed, he was full of supportive words for Obama — the nation's first black president — and talked of being deeply affected while watching people say on television that they never thought they would see such a day, many with "tears streaming down their cheeks when they said it."
"President-elect Obama's election does speak volumes about how far this country has come when it comes to racial relations," Bush said, seeming almost awe-struck.
He brushed off any suggestion that he'd found the job of president too burdensome — or that Obama would find it so. "It's just pathetic, isn't it, self-pity?" he said. "And I don't believe that President-elect Obama will be full of self-pity."
At the same time, Bush showed his skin is not so thick as all that. "Sometimes the biggest disappointments will come from your so-called friends," he advised Obama. Bush's former press secretary, Scott McClellan, released a scathing tell-all book last year that still stings around the West Wing.
Asked one last time by reporters about the major controversies of his presidency, Bush had a ready answer for each:
• On the dismal economy he leaves behind for Obama, Bush said, "I inherited a recession, I'm ending on a recession. In the meantime, there were 52 months of uninterrupted job growth." The 2001 recession began in March, two months into his presidency, but economists agree the seeds were sown long before.
Bush also defended himself against economic attacks from his own party on the huge government bailout of Wall Street financial firms. He said, his voice rising, "If you were sitting there and heard that the depression could be greater than the Great Depression, I hope you would act, too, which I did."
• On the five-year-old Iraq war, the issue that will define his presidency, Bush said history will judge his actions but it is a fact that violence diminished and everyday life became more stable after his decision in 2007 to send an additional 30,000 American troops into the fight.
• He vigorously took issue with critics of the federal response to Katrina, the hurricane that devastated New Orleans. Gesturing and speaking with feeling, he said, "Don't tell me the federal response was slow when there were 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed," he said. "Has the reconstruction been perfect? No. Have things happened fairly quickly? Absolutely."
• The president claimed progress toward peace in the Middle East, though any hopes for an accord soon have been dashed by, among other things, a bruising offensive by Israel in the Gaza Strip.
• Most angrily, Bush dismissed "some of the elite" who say he has damaged America's image around the world. "No question, parts of Europe have said that we shouldn't have gone to war in Iraq without a mandate, but those are few countries," he said.
The president's actions after the Sept. 11 attacks — such as establishing the prison for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, approving tough interrogation methods that some say amount to torture and instituting information-gathering efforts at home decried by civil rights groups — were compounded by global outrage at the 2003 invasion of Iraq, particularly later when the alleged weapons of mass destruction that were the main justification for war turned out not to exist.
"In terms of the decisions that I had made to protect the homeland, I wouldn't worry about popularity," he said.
Asked about mistakes, Bush cited a few that he preferred to term "disappointments" — not finding those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the abuses committed by members of the U.S. military at the Abu Ghraib detention center in Iraq, giving a speech two months after the start of the Iraq war under a "Mission Accomplished" banner on an aircraft carrier, Congress' failure to pass free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, and the negative tone in Washington that belied his 2000 campaign promise to be a "uniter not a divider."
But he offered no evidence he takes personal responsibility for any of those failures. The only two areas where he seemed to acknowledge that errors in judgment had been his were his penchant for cowboy rhetoric, such as saying "Bring 'em on!" to foes in Iraq, and his decision to pursue partial privatization of Social Security immediately after his 2004 re-election.
He said arguing for immigration reform would have been a better use of the political capital he earned through his victory, in part because lawmakers were not yet convinced that Social Security presented an imminent crisis. Over two years of intensive efforts, Bush achieved reform in neither area.
Bush, who watched a Republican drubbing last fall, gave his party advice about how to rise from the ashes. Referring back to the divisive immigration debate, in which conservatives blocked broad changes and raised concern that illegal immigrants would be given amnesty, Bush said the image of his party that resulted was "Republicans don't like immigrants."
"This party will come back. But the party's message has got to be that different points of view are included in the party," he said.
Bush began what he termed "the ultimate exit interview" Monday with a lengthy and gracious thank-you to his core of usual reporters, calling many by name and saying he respects their work even if he often dislikes the product.
Looking to his first day out of office, Bush appeared somewhat flummoxed but also relieved at the prospect of waking up at his Texas ranch next Wednesday with, by his own admission, little idea what to do beyond bringing coffee to his wife.
Monday's news conference offered only one bit of news, and — in these times when Bush has seemed to fade from office a little more each day — even that was overtaken by events.
He said he would ask Congress to release the remaining $350 billion in Wall Street bailout money if Obama wants him to — but that Obama had not yet asked. A mere two hours later, Obama had made his request to Bush, and the White House said the president had agreed.
16 Jan 2009 01:14:49 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Updates with speech)
By Matt Spetalnick and Tabassum Zakaria
WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Thursday defended his actions to avert a collapse of the financial system and protect America from another terrorist attack as he mounted a farewell bid to polish his troubled legacy.
Five days before handing over the presidency to Barack Obama, Bush delivered a televised final address to the American people in which he sought to define a White House record that some historians are already ranking among the worst ever.
But even as he focused on what he saw as his successes, Bush was preparing to leave Obama with unfinished wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a bitter conflict in Gaza, a U.S. economy deep in recession and a U.S. image badly tarnished overseas.
"Facing the prospect of a financial collapse, we took decisive measures to safeguard our economy," Bush said from the White House, referring to a massive government intervention he ordered, counter to his free-market roots. "The toll would be far worse if we had not acted."
Trying to reassure recession-weary Americans, Bush said: "Together, with determination and hard work, we will restore our economy to the path of growth. We will show the world once again the resilience of America's free enterprise system."
Obama has said dealing with the economic meltdown, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and one that has sent shockwaves across the globe, will be a top priority.
Bush warned, however, that the gravest challenge facing the incoming president remained the threat of another terrorist attack like the al Qaeda strikes on Sept. 11, 2001.
He acknowledged that some of his actions in response to 9/11 had been controversial but he stood by them and reasserted his with-us-or-against-us doctrine widely criticized overseas.
"There is legitimate debate about many of these decisions. But there can be little debate about the results," the two-term Republican said. "America has gone more than seven years without another terrorist attack on our soil," he said.
Some of Bush's actions after the 9/11 attacks, such as establishing a detention center for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo and approving harsh interrogation methods that human rights groups said amounted to torture, severely damaged America's image abroad. Obama has vowed to close the facility.
"Our enemies are patient, and determined to strike again," Bush said in a brief address from the White House with Vice President Dick Cheney, his Cabinet and several dozen selected citizens in attendance. "Good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise."
POSITIVE SPIN
With the clock ticking down on his presidency, Bush and his aides used his last day of public events before Inauguration Day to try to put a positive spin on his record.
Farewell speeches are a ritual for departing U.S. leaders, but the stakes are especially high for Bush, who will step down with one of the lowest public approval ratings of any president in modern times -- in the mid-20 percent range.
In a final ceremony at the State Department earlier on Thursday, Bush defended his foreign policy -- from the unpopular war in Iraq to nuclear standoffs with Iran and North Korea. "We have made the world freer," he said.
Bush touted security gains in Iraq as vindication for a U.S. troop buildup he ordered there at a time of rampant sectarian violence in 2007.
The Iraq war, launched without U.N. authorization in 2003, undercut U.S. credibility abroad and contributed to a resounding victory by Obama against John McCain, the nominee of Bush's Republican Party, in the November election.
Bush also made clear he saw his failed effort to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians in his final year as not totally in vain, despite a 3-week-old Israel-Hamas war in Gaza with no end in sight.
He lauded his administration's handling of Iran and North Korea, both of which have faced U.S.-led campaigns to isolate them over nuclear programs. By contrast, Obama has said he would pursue direct diplomacy with America's foes.
On the home front, Bush cited higher public school standards, lower taxes and new prescription drug benefits for the elderly as a few of his accomplishments.
Bush's farewell address carried little of the introspection he showed at his final news conference on Monday when he admitted regrets about no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq and over the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.
But Bush, who has said it will be left to history to judge his record, did concede: "I have experienced setbacks. There are things I would do differently if given the chance." (Additional reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Eric Beech)
--------
By JENNIFER LOVEN, AP White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven, Ap White House Correspondent – Mon Jan 12, 9:37 pm ET
WASHINGTON – With rare public emotion, George W. Bush sat in judgment on his controversial, consequential presidency on Monday, lamenting mistakes but claiming few as his own, heatedly defending his record on disasters in Iraq and at home and offering kindly advice to a successor who won largely because the nation ached for something new.
By turns wistful, aggressive and joking in his final news conference, Bush covered a huge range of topics in summing up his eight years in the White House — the latest in a recent string of efforts to have his say before historians have theirs. Then the White House said he would do it again Thursday night in a final address to the nation.
Reaching back to his first day in office, he recalled walking into the White House and having "a moment" when he felt all the responsibilities of the job landing on his shoulders. Barack Obama will feel that next week, he said, his tone gently understanding.
Indeed, he was full of supportive words for Obama — the nation's first black president — and talked of being deeply affected while watching people say on television that they never thought they would see such a day, many with "tears streaming down their cheeks when they said it."
"President-elect Obama's election does speak volumes about how far this country has come when it comes to racial relations," Bush said, seeming almost awe-struck.
He brushed off any suggestion that he'd found the job of president too burdensome — or that Obama would find it so. "It's just pathetic, isn't it, self-pity?" he said. "And I don't believe that President-elect Obama will be full of self-pity."
At the same time, Bush showed his skin is not so thick as all that. "Sometimes the biggest disappointments will come from your so-called friends," he advised Obama. Bush's former press secretary, Scott McClellan, released a scathing tell-all book last year that still stings around the West Wing.
Asked one last time by reporters about the major controversies of his presidency, Bush had a ready answer for each:
• On the dismal economy he leaves behind for Obama, Bush said, "I inherited a recession, I'm ending on a recession. In the meantime, there were 52 months of uninterrupted job growth." The 2001 recession began in March, two months into his presidency, but economists agree the seeds were sown long before.
Bush also defended himself against economic attacks from his own party on the huge government bailout of Wall Street financial firms. He said, his voice rising, "If you were sitting there and heard that the depression could be greater than the Great Depression, I hope you would act, too, which I did."
• On the five-year-old Iraq war, the issue that will define his presidency, Bush said history will judge his actions but it is a fact that violence diminished and everyday life became more stable after his decision in 2007 to send an additional 30,000 American troops into the fight.
• He vigorously took issue with critics of the federal response to Katrina, the hurricane that devastated New Orleans. Gesturing and speaking with feeling, he said, "Don't tell me the federal response was slow when there were 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed," he said. "Has the reconstruction been perfect? No. Have things happened fairly quickly? Absolutely."
• The president claimed progress toward peace in the Middle East, though any hopes for an accord soon have been dashed by, among other things, a bruising offensive by Israel in the Gaza Strip.
• Most angrily, Bush dismissed "some of the elite" who say he has damaged America's image around the world. "No question, parts of Europe have said that we shouldn't have gone to war in Iraq without a mandate, but those are few countries," he said.
The president's actions after the Sept. 11 attacks — such as establishing the prison for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, approving tough interrogation methods that some say amount to torture and instituting information-gathering efforts at home decried by civil rights groups — were compounded by global outrage at the 2003 invasion of Iraq, particularly later when the alleged weapons of mass destruction that were the main justification for war turned out not to exist.
"In terms of the decisions that I had made to protect the homeland, I wouldn't worry about popularity," he said.
Asked about mistakes, Bush cited a few that he preferred to term "disappointments" — not finding those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the abuses committed by members of the U.S. military at the Abu Ghraib detention center in Iraq, giving a speech two months after the start of the Iraq war under a "Mission Accomplished" banner on an aircraft carrier, Congress' failure to pass free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, and the negative tone in Washington that belied his 2000 campaign promise to be a "uniter not a divider."
But he offered no evidence he takes personal responsibility for any of those failures. The only two areas where he seemed to acknowledge that errors in judgment had been his were his penchant for cowboy rhetoric, such as saying "Bring 'em on!" to foes in Iraq, and his decision to pursue partial privatization of Social Security immediately after his 2004 re-election.
He said arguing for immigration reform would have been a better use of the political capital he earned through his victory, in part because lawmakers were not yet convinced that Social Security presented an imminent crisis. Over two years of intensive efforts, Bush achieved reform in neither area.
Bush, who watched a Republican drubbing last fall, gave his party advice about how to rise from the ashes. Referring back to the divisive immigration debate, in which conservatives blocked broad changes and raised concern that illegal immigrants would be given amnesty, Bush said the image of his party that resulted was "Republicans don't like immigrants."
"This party will come back. But the party's message has got to be that different points of view are included in the party," he said.
Bush began what he termed "the ultimate exit interview" Monday with a lengthy and gracious thank-you to his core of usual reporters, calling many by name and saying he respects their work even if he often dislikes the product.
Looking to his first day out of office, Bush appeared somewhat flummoxed but also relieved at the prospect of waking up at his Texas ranch next Wednesday with, by his own admission, little idea what to do beyond bringing coffee to his wife.
Monday's news conference offered only one bit of news, and — in these times when Bush has seemed to fade from office a little more each day — even that was overtaken by events.
He said he would ask Congress to release the remaining $350 billion in Wall Street bailout money if Obama wants him to — but that Obama had not yet asked. A mere two hours later, Obama had made his request to Bush, and the White House said the president had agreed.
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