Below is a letter written by Anna Baltzer who enlists our help to defy those who want to silence the discussion.  Also see complete extended interview.

Last night Dr. Barghouti and I were on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart talking about Palestine.

The show was overwhelmed with angry emails and phone calls prior to the appearance, and up until the last minute it seemed like they might cancel. During the taping the show had its only heckler in 11 years. The entire staff were very nervous and may come to regret the monumental decision (and not make it again) as they will surely be inundated now that the show has aired.

That is why it is CRUCIAL that the show receive letters of support from anyone who appreciated the interview.

PLEASE take a moment to give a quick thank you to the Daily Show. I’m sure they will likely be affected by numbers rather than length, so it’s OK to make it short, but spread the word to others! Be sure to put “Thank you” in the subject, and maybe Dr. Barghouti & my names. Fill out the form here:  http://www.comedycentral.com/help/questionsCC.jhtml (make sure to choose The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as your topic).

I believe the interview wouldn’t have happened 3 years ago. Times are changing. Keep on keepin’ on…

Anna

Citizen Paul at YMCA in Jerusalem

An Introduction by Citizen Paul

Welcome to Goals for Americans – Dedicated to new ideas and real accomplishments!

In this case, we show how to SAVE ISRAEL from ITSELF!

Come and meet some great Israeli Veterans – Dedicated to helping the PALESTINIANS!

…and get the true story of what is happening in the heart of the Middle East.

For over 40 years, while building a business, working in 55 countries, and solving critical foreign policy problems in Central America, I have been involved in World Affairs.

In 1989, I assisted local “Sister City” groups throughout the Soviet Union to build toward freedom with the International YMCA–– then in 1997, I established my Foundation, Goals for Americans, to provide long-range objectives for America.

I have also spent years in an effort to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem and bring peace to the Middle East. As a result of our own Roadmap to achieve a free Palestinian State in 2002, we received thoughtful responses from Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon, which you can see on the following pages.

Obviously, this effort was to no avail — so, finally, after creating our dynamic Plan V for Iraq — I went to Israel and Palestine, plus Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon to attempt to fathom the mystery of our constant, decades-long U.S. effort that never succeeded.

In Israel and Palestine, I was lucky to have great travel companions who knew Israel and Palestine and the Middle East intimately for the last 30 years.

We started out at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem and visited most of Israel — from the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem to Haifa and Tel Aviv –– and Palestine from the West Bank to the Golan Heights and back to East Jerusalem and the Dome of the Rock.

However, I was unable to get inside the “prison gates” of Gaza where Israel holds over 1.5 million Palestinians in dreadful conditions.
Lots of history in Jerusalem — from the birthplace and crib of Jesus to the sacred sites of the Jews and Muslims.

What an opportunity to try to find the answer to “why all my past efforts to save Palestine,” and those of all American administrations have failed.

Please read my complete report published on this website.
You’ll be amazed at what is revealed.

Americans are demanding answers to this question from Washington policy-makers about the endangered economy.

The same demand should be made from the same policy-makers about what has happened in the critical Middle East region.

Robert Fisk

Robert Fisk is in fact asking this question and answering it.

If anyone has the expertise to do this, it is Robert Fisk. He is one of a small handful of professional independent experts who have devoted their lives to learning about and writing about the realities of the situation in today’s Middle East.

We feature Fisk’s question and answer now because to fully appreciate why Goals for Americans will soon be publishing SAVING ISRAEL FROM ITSELF and SAVING AMERICA FROM ISRAEL what Fisk has to say is of critical importance.

Robert Fisk has been based in the region, with home in Beirut, since 1976. He began his career as the Middle East correspondent for THE TIMES OF LONDON. In recent years, he has been the star region and globe-trotting correspondent for THE INDEPENDENT.

Two years ago, Fisk published THE GREAT WAR FOR CIVILISATION – The Conquest of the Middle East. It is a tremendous book — both in content and length.

Here are just a few of the superlative reviews:

“A magisterial report from the shifting front lines of the Middle East. It deserves to be read by all those concerned with what is happening in Iraq today.” —The Boston Globe

“A stimulating and absorbing book, by a man who…has met the leading players, from bin Laden to Ahmad Chalabi… A formidable production.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Vivid, graphic, intense… A book of unquestionable importance… [Fisk’s] experience of war is unmatched, [as is] his capacity to convey that experience in concrete, passionate language.” —The Washington Post Book World

“Fisk’s magnum opus…seals [his] place as a venerable, indispensable contributor to informed debate in and about the Middle East.” —The Nation

“Powerful… Mr. Fisk is a gifted writer and an accomplished storyteller…his love affair with the region and the glamorous profession of being a foreign correspondent finds expression on every page.” —The Economist

No Washington policy-makers were at Fisk’s World Affairs Council talk in the basement at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on 30 September. He has a sequel book out now, The Age of the Warrior that brought him briefly to Washington.

But if the policy-makers are serious about wanting to understand what is wrong with U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and the urgency of changing those policies before it is too late, first we advise them to spend the next hour watching this GfA video of Fisk’s talk and then to read and ponder our unique and exclusive upcoming publication SAVING ISRAEL FROM ITSELF and SAVING AMERICA FROM ISRAEL.

Click the arrow to play the video below

Whether it’s Obama/Biden or McCain/Palin in the White House in January, the Israeli Lobby is in high-gear and getting ready.

Both parties and both campaigns have been infiltrated and pretty much already captured by different arms and different personalities of “The Lobby.”

This was clearly demonstrated when the day after he locked up the nomination Obama quickly pushed a joint U.S./Israeli flag pin into his lapel and went before American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to proclaim his loyalty so brazenly that even some of his advisers winced.

And just last week, right after being annointed by John McCain, and even as she was hunkered down preparing her acceptance speech, Sarah Palin said OK to the “request” from just one special interest group to come and see her. No less than the entire Board of Director of AIPAC marched up to her hotel suite even as all in the national media was kept away.

The Washington operatives in the multi-organization Israeli Lobby are super-busy preparing for big policy jobs in the White House and throughout the corridors of power — whomever wins the November election. They are also in hyper-drive formulating and pushing policy positions with which they will dominate the print media and the radio/TV air waves as well as the Washington politicians.

Whichever politicians prevail on November 5th, one group of these Israeli lobby organizations and operatives will be in power in government. The other group of them will be in power in the think-tanks and the media as well as as outside “advisers” and “contractors.”

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC, is the most public out-front group in the powerful Washington Israel Lobby. It remains so even with its two former top officials still awaiting trial as Israeli spies — another important subject the corporate media largely avoids even as Bush/Cheney “pardon” rumors are the talk of the town in insider circles.

BUT AIPAC is actually just one of many major organizations that make up the Israeli/Jewish lobby.

Another is of more recent vintange and known as the “Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings.”

Just as AIPAC and it’s Near East Institute think-tank are intertwined with the Israeli elite — including the politicians, the army, and the intelligence services — the same is the case with the Saban Center which is named for a close friend of Ariel Sharon and a man thought to still be a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, Haim Saban. His multi-millions (actually he has billions) in effect got Brookings to turn over its Middle East policy to him and his Israeli friends and to appoint none other than Martin Indyk to run it.

Right after the two political conventions concluded this arm of the Israeli Lobby held a media event to try to steer the future of U.S. policy in the Middle East — especially should Obama and Biden be in the White House as Brookings is traditionally aligned with the Democratic Party much as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and others are aligned with the Republicans.

They called their event “A GRAND STRATEGY FOR AMERICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST” and you can watch it in full above.

What you will see are three Jews and one westernized Arab, albeit someone most Arabs and nearly all Palestinians consider a collaborator. The hook for the discussion is the new book underwritten by the Saban Center, but published for them by Random House titled, A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East.

In the video, in order of appearance, are four long-time friends all with close ties to both the Israeli and U.S. governments as well as the many other organizations and personalities that make up the extended Israel Lobby in Washington:

• Martin Indyk, Zionist Jew originally from Australia and Israel, is the Director of the Saban Center
• Kenneth Pollack, Zionist Jew formerly with the CIA and son-in-law of Ted Koppel, is Senior Fellow of the Saban Center
• David Brooks, Zionist Jew and former employee of Bill Kristol and The Weekly Standard, now is a popular press and TV commentator.
• Marwan Muasher was Jordan’s first Ambassador to Israel and has long involvments with the Israeli government and Israeli/U.S. intelligence.

Vladmir Jabotinsky

“Zionist colonization must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an IRON WALL, which the native population cannot breach.”

From that day these words became the official and unspoken policy of the Zionist movement and later the state of Israel. Settlements were used from the beginning to create a Zionist foothold in Palestine.

After 1967 and the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the aim of the settlement movement became clear – create facts on the ground and make the creation of a Palestinian state impossible. Thirty nine years of occupation and the policy started showing results. There are now more than 200 settlements and outposts scattered throughout the West Bank blocking the geographic possibility of a contiguous Palestinian territory.

The Iron Wall documentary exposes this phenomenon and follows the timeline, size, population of the settlements, and its impact on the peace process. This film also touches on the latest project to make the settlements a permanent fact on the ground – the wall that Israel is building in the West Bank and its impact on the Palestinian’s peoples.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER DVD

Settlements and related infrastructures are impacting every aspect of life for all Palestinians from land confiscation, theft of natural resources, confiscation of the basic human rights, creation of an apartheid-like system, to the devastating impact in regards to the future of the region and the prospect of the peace process.

Palestinians and Israelis began the peace process based on a very simple principle: land for peace. Settlements destroy that principle and create a land with no peace.

Did you know…

• 78% of the settlement population comes from Europe and North America.
• Jewish settlers in the West Bank consume 5 times more water than Palestinians – water that is illegally taken from Palestinian water sources.
• 80% of the settlers consider themselves to be economic settlers who live in the settlements to benefit from government incentives.
• Palestinian travel is restricted or entirely prohibited on 41 roads and sections of roads throughout the West Bank, covering a total of over 700 kilometers of roadway. Settlers can travel freely on these roads.
• There are two different laws in the Occupied Palestinian Territories; one for the settlers – civil law – and one for the Palestinians – military law.
• There are now more Jewish settlers in Palestinian East Jerusalem than Palestinians.
• Israeli Jews living, working or investing in the settlements are entitled to significant financial benefits from the Government of Israel. These include generous loans for the purchase of apartments, exemption from tuition fees in schools and reductions in income taxes.
• Settlements with their bypass roads and security zones occupy 42% of the West Bank.
• Before Israel evacuated its 8,000 settlers from Gaza Strip, they were occupying 32% of the area, with the remainder inhabited by 1.4 million Palestinians. The population density was 600 per square kilometer in the settlements to 55,000 per square kilometer in the refugee camps, making Gaza the most densely populated place on earth.
• There are now more than 200 Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank.
• During the Oslo era, from its inauguration on the White House lawn in September 1993 until June 2001, Israel completed construction on 20,371 settlement units; a number equal to 62% of all settlement housing built from 1967 to 1993.
• The wall Israel is constructing in the West Bank is four times the length of the Berlin Wall and three times as high.
• The length of the ‘Green Line’ – the border between Israel and the West Bank – is 315 kilometers. The path of the Wall is 670 kilometers long.
• Israel receives approximately US $10 million every day from the United States.

Click the arrow to play the video below

Breaking Down the Iron Wall

A talk with filmmaker Mohammed Alatar

by Hillel Schenker*

“Palestinian filmmakers are really demonstrating a growing maturity,” says filmmaker Mohammed Alatar. We met at the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem, a week after the premier performance of his new documentary film The Iron Wall, which was shown at the Palestinian National Theater (Al-Hakawati) in front of a very receptive and mixed Palestinian, Israeli and international audience, under the patronage of Mr. Rafiq al-Husseini, Chief of Staff of the Palestinian Presidential Office. It also had a showing in Ramallah. We spoke the day after Hani Abu-Assad’s Paradise Now won the Golden Globe Award for best foreign language film, and before it was nominated for the 2006 Oscar in the same category. “I’m not just referring to the technical, cinematic side, but particularly the readiness to cope with difficult and serious subjects. Poll after poll has shown that the majority of Palestinians oppose suicide-bombing. Palestinian filmmakers should be able to show things as they are. And that’s what Paradise Now does,” he says.

The promotional flyer distributed before the showing of The Iron Wall says that “it covers the issue of the Israeli settlements in the Palestinian Occupied Territories and its impact on the two-state solution.” Although the name suggests that this powerful documentary film is devoted to the separation wall, its primary focus is on the settlements and their impact on Palestinian life and the prospects for peace. The wall is dealt with in the latter part of the film, and the title comes from right-wing Zionist Revisionist leader Vladamir (Zev) Jabotinsky’s theory of the need to create an “iron wall” between Arabs and Jews.

"Michal" a Jewish settler in the film who explains that she moved to settlement for economic reasons and would move if offered reasonable alternative housing elsewhere.

“Most Palestinians who have seen the film have criticized me for using the settler woman Michal,” said Alatar, “but in my view, she represents 65 percent of the settlers who are only there for economic reasons. If they had reasonable alternative housing at the same price inside Israel, most of them would be happy to leave the settlements. I want people to know that. At the end of the day, we each have to get into the other side’s shoes, to understand how they see things, so that we can look for a solution.” I tell Alatar that this reminds me of Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue, of “I and Thou” that has guided me in my journalistic activity.

Showing Life As It Is

Why did Alatar decide to make The Iron Wall? When we started the peace process, it was based on the principle of land for peace. Ten years later, after thousands of lives have been lost and with more and more land occupied, we haven’t reached peace. I could have continued living a comfortable life in America where I’ve been living for the past few years, but I felt it was necessary to come back to Palestine, to show life as it is, and to try to promote a solution.”

“If there is one thing on the ground that really disturbs us on a daily basis,” he continues, “it’s the checkpoints, where we get humiliated the most. However, the greatest obstacle to a solution is the settlements. That’s what I wanted to show in the film. People can say, ‘let’s talk,’ but as we talk, one less slice of land is available for a future Palestinian state.”

Palestinian father and son at checkpoint.

“What I wanted to do in my film,” he says “is to show the reality on the ground. I wanted to highlight how the settlements are the major obstacle to peace. I want people to know that out of the 600 checkpoints, there are only 24 separating us from Israel. All of the others separate Palestinians from Palestinians, and they were set up to protect the settlers.” He says that the equation is simple – no settlements, no checkpoints. There would be no need for young Israeli soldiers to humiliate Palestinians. “The settlement enterprise is not the Israeli people’s project, it’s the government project. The polls say that the majority of the Israelis don’t care about this very expensive project. So why should they continue to be built, and get financial support?”

Using Mainstream Voices

“I believe that the majority of the American Jews are peace-loving people,” he says, “but they lack information. That’s why I decided to present many of the ideas in the film not via fanatic Israeli leftists, but via mainstream Israelis like respected Ha’aretz commentator Akiva Eldar, the very knowledgeable Peace Now settlement watch expert Dror Etkes, Prof. Jeff Halper (though sometimes his formulations are quite strong) and even the settler Michal.” He tried to have decent on-camera conversations with ideological settlers, but it didn’t work. Also appearing on camera are articulate Palestinian spokespeople such as then Palestinian Authority Minister Ghassan El-Khatib and journalist Sama’an Khouri.

Expanding Settlements

Palestinians also learned things from the film. When it was shown in Ramallah, he was told by people that they didn’t realize that so much settlement activity went on during the euphoric early days of the Oslo process. They remembered Palestinian children handing out candy to Israeli soldiers, while Israel was continuing to create facts on the ground.

It wasn’t easy making the film. He was afraid that they were going to lose one of the crew members during a violent outburst in Hebron when they were filming some young, armed settlers. Israeli TV news programs recently showed similar footage when armed and masked settlers challenged IDF soldiers, causing a media uproar. Another time he wanted to film settlers in Kiryat Arba, and he realized that if he showed them his American passport, with the name Mohammed, he wouldn’t get very far. Using his ingenuity, he tied an orange ribbon (used by the Israeli opponents of the disengagement) to his car, and that became his passport. No one stopped him.

‘To Make Peace with your Enemy, Go to War with Yourself’

Mohammed Alatar had a tough childhood, growing up as a refugee in Jordan. He remembers watching Israeli TV, particularly the Egyptian movies on Friday afternoons. He also saw the sexy Israeli women in bikinis, something that his mother didn’t exactly like. Once he saw a press conference with Moshe Dayan that took place at the King David Hotel. He thought, I know who King Hussein is, but who the hell is King David?
He met his first Jew when he went to the United States, in Chicago. He was having trouble with the immigration authorities, and realized that he needed the help of a lawyer. They said the best immigration lawyer available was Jewish. Two days later he went to meet him. He usually said that he was from Jordan, but this time he decided to say “I’m from Palestine, though you call it Israel.” The lawyer responded “Never heard of it.” He thought, I can’t do business with him, but then the lawyer said something to me in Arabic, and it turned out he was an Israeli!” He then called in four other associates for consultation about the case, all Jews. “I had always heard that Jewish men had big noses, but when I looked around me, I realized that I had the biggest nose in the room!”

“The toughest decision in people’s lives,” he says “is to let their cookies crumble. I soon began to realize that Jews are like everyone else. If that’s how much I know about them, how much do they know about me? To make peace with your enemy, you have to go to war with yourself, with your own stereotypical beliefs – the sooner the better. I decided to read everything I could about the Jewish people, and about Zionism. I can’t say I’ve become a friend, but I have a much deeper understanding.”

Using Film as a Medium for Understanding

Filmmaker, Mohammed Alatar

Alatar hopes the film will be shown on the PBS network in the United States, and took out eight minutes to fit their guidelines. Not only film, but satellite TV is having an impact on public opinion. Alatar saw a debate on Al-Jazeira, where Bassam Al-Sarhi asked a Hamas representative, are you ready to accept a two-state solution and to make peace? “The audience applauded,” he said. “Suicide-bombers aren’t resistance against the occupation. They’re fighting the Jews. On the Israeli side people should say the same thing about the settlers,” says Alatar.

“This is not a balanced film,” he says, “but it’s an objective film. It’s made by an open-minded Palestinian, and I challenge anyone to challenge the facts.” Now the film is on its way to international festivals. But his primary target audience is the mainstream American Jewish community.

His next project is to solicit funding for a film that will tell the story of the Jewish people to Arab audiences, in Arabic. It will include all of the Israeli voices, from Avigdor Leiberman on the right to Yossi Sarid on the left. “We simply don’t know much about each other,” he says. “Can you imagine 200,000 Holocaust survivors meeting 200,000 refugees at Allenby Bridge?”

* Hillel Schenker is co-editor of the Palestine-Israel Journal

by Citizen Paul

It was a year ago this month that the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Nicholas Burns, wrote me.

In his letter to me and Goals for Americans on July 18, 2007, the Under Secretary said, “I wish you and your organization continued success in your efforts to educate the American population about for the foreign policy challenges we face.”

This year in May I was fortunate to be able to personally visit five countries in the Middle East.  This was a visit I had long prepared for and a visit that has propelled me to reach some tough conclusions that will soon be detailed in the special report I’m preparing and titling Saving Israel From Itself.

In this special report I am assuming the responsibility of an American citizen who is determined:

• to help right the wrongs the Government of Israel has inflicted on the people of Palestine,
• to finally correct the injustices that have lead to so much hatred and bloodshed in that part of the world,
• to outline how a real peace can finally be achieved between Israel, the Palestinian people, and the Arab and Muslim countries.

On my trip I met so many wonderful young people — Israelis and Palestinians alike.

I was so moved to hear how they are working tirelessly to achieve a peaceful future, all too often having to oppose what their governments are doing and what my own government in Washington is doing.

Of course I am well aware that leaders in government are often subjected to tremendous pressures from lobbyists and special interests.  That is true in Washington just as it is in the Middle East.

When it comes to peace and justice in the Middle East, starting first and foremost with peace in the area known as The Holy Land — Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories today — these governments, including our own, have failed us badly.

It is with all of these concerns in mind that I take very special interest in what Nicholas Burns has to say.

Mr. Burns has now left the State Department and, as he indicates, is now speaking up as a private citizen about our foreign policy, about the Arab-Israeli conflict, and about the dangerous situation in the greater Middle East from Pakistan to Egypt.

Mr. Burns, a career diplomat, is certainly a tremendously talented individual who has distinguished himself serving our country for many years.

And yet I have to conclude that I am quite disappointed in what Mr. Burns is saying, and not saying, especially now that he is, in effect, a free man no longer constrained by representing official government policy.

This 20-minute video of Mr. Burns presenting his conclusions on July 30, 2008, about the situation in the Middle East as the Bush Administration comes to a close is important for all of us to watch and consider.

So important in fact that next week I will be making my own reply.

Noam Chomsky has long called them the Arab “client regimes”.

Whatever one calls them, everyone is now agreed, including the “Moderates” themselves, that they are in serious trouble.

The “Moderates” themselves clearly blame their troubles primarily on Israel and the U.S.

They blame Israel for policies that year after year discredit them.

And they blame the U.S. for year after year standing with Israel no matter how badly the Israelis break their promises, keep violating international law, and threaten far and wide.

For many of the “Moderates”…though they fittingly moderate their words and condemnations…President Bush’s outrageously biased and insensitive speech to the Israeli Knesset was a kind of final straw.

In today’s Washington the Arab “Moderates” often work closely with various groups associated with the supposedly “liberal” wing of the multi-faceted Israeli/Jewish lobby.

That’s how one of the leaders of the “Moderate” camp, Marwan Muasher, a few days ago teamed up with the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings to speak about his new book titled The Arab Center: The Promise of Moderation (Yale University Press, 2008)

Muasher is the former Foreign Minister and deputy Prime Minister of Jordan. He was a champion of Jordan signing a peace treaty with Israel in 1994 and became the first Jordanian Ambassador to Israel at that time.

But these days Muasher is clearly worried. Things have not turned out as was forecast by the “Oslo Peace Process” and the Jordanian Peace Treaty. Much the opposite in fact; the region is in turmoil and Muasher himself admits: “Arab moderates who embrace a future of regional peace and democracy appear to be losing ground in today’s Middle East. They are pushed to the political margins by radicals strengthened by chaos in Iraq and the failure of Arab-Israeli peacemaking, as well as by autocratic elites determined to hold onto power and privilege.”

With this perspective in mind watch this exclusive GfA video for answers from the Arab “Moderates” to these questions:
Is the Middle East “Peace Process” and the “Two-State Solution” Still Alive and Kicking?

What is happening to the “Arab Moderates” who have aligned themselves with both the U.S. and Israel?

What Changes are Needed and what Changes can be Expected from Washington?
While watching realize how much the “Moderates” are now pleading not only for major policy changes from Washington but for more help to ensure their own survival. That also explains why, cornered as they feel they are, Muasher teamed up with both Martin Indyk and Tom Friedman for this presentation to the Washington policy-makers — two American Jews with long and close times to Israel.

Muasher was introduced by Martin Indyk, Director of the Sanban Center. Then Muasher’s remarks were commented and expanded upon by Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist.

Muasher by the way has been well-rewarded by the powers that be in Washington, and in the Bush/Cheney Administration.

He has a new job, this time in Washington, as the Senior Vice President of External Affairs at The World Bank. Paul Wolfowitz may have departed, but there are still many with neocon views and approaches at the World Bank and other Washington power centers.

For easy in viewing we’ve broken the video into three approximately half hour parts:

VIDEO #1 – Muasher speaks after being introduced by Indyk followed by short comments from Tom Friedman

VIDEO #2 – Martin Indyk asks questions of both Muasher and Friedman

VIDEO #3 – A few questions fromn the Audience Questions for both Muasher and Friedman.

And as you watch these videos also consider how limited and inadequate is the general discussion in Washington about matters Middle East and “Peace Process” related. We are continuing and in fact expanding our efforts to correct this situation with two upcoming special publications — Citizen Paul Reports on his Trip to the Middle East which will be followed by Plan Palestine and a New Middle East.

Afghanistan and Pakistan

WHAT THE NEXT PRESIDENT NEEDS TO UNDERSTAND AND DO

Whether the American people choose Senator John McCain or Barack Obama, the next American President will be consumed by foreign policy issues involving Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, as well as Iraq, Israel, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians. Much else is going on in our troubled world but the situation in the greater Middle East will have to be a major priority for the next U.S. government.

One of the most thoughtful and distinguished journalists from that part of the world is Ahmed Rashid who lives in Lahore, Pakistan. Rashid’s most recent book is titled Descent into Chaos and his previous best-seller is Taliban and Jihad. He has covered Afghanistan’s changing fortunes since the 1978 Soviet invasion, the rise of Osama bin Laden, and the destabilization of the entire strategic area. Today he writes for the Far Eastern Economic Review, the Daily Telegraph, and The Wall Street Journal.

Rashid recently outlined the major mistakes the U.S. has made in Afghanistan and Pakistan in recent years. Watch our GfA exclusive video. Indeed we urge both of the Presidential candidates and their foreign policy advisers to take a half hour and do so.

Senior Foreign Policy Advisers to all three of the current Presidential Candidates
Left to Right: Lee Feinstein, Clinton National Security Director
Denis McDonough, Obama Foreign Policy Coordinator
Randy Scheunemann, McCain Chief Foreign Policy Advisor

Lee Feinstein – National Security Director – Hillary Clinton for President

Denis McDonough – Foreign Policy Coordinator – Obama for America

Randy Scheunemann – Chief Foreign Policy Advisor – John McCain 2008

During or after watching this discussion and debate with the three senior Foreign Policy Advisers of the leading Presidential candidates we encourage you, if you have not done so already, to review our special 48-page PLAN V For Victory and Peace in Iraq which we presented in recent months to all members of Congress and many leading government officials.

Read the Complete Transcript Here

Laith Kubba is one of the most knowledgeable Iraqis now helping to rebuild his country from positions both in the government and in the private sector. He was one of the founders of the Iraqi National Congress and served on its first Executive Committee and as its spokesman in 1992. From 1993 until 1998 Kubba was the Director of International Relations at the Al Khoei Foundation in London. He has also served on the boards of regional institutions including the Iraq Foundation and the Arab Organization for Human Rights. He has a Bachelors degree from the University of Baghdad 1976 and a Ph.D. from the University of Wales in the United Kingdom.

After the Administration of Iraq by Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority, Kubba was the Senior Advisor to Iraqi Prime Minister Jaafari and the official spokesman for the newly sovereign Iraqi government in 2005. Kubba currently works in both London and Washington where is the Director for the Middle East and North Africa at the National Endowment for Democracy.

Mr. Kubba was interviewed for GfA on March 14, 2008. In this interview Kubba underscores the main theme in our PLAN V for IRAQ, the critical importance of implementing federalism with substantially more power and authority devolving to the Provinces. Kubba stresses that the Kurdish region may decide at some point to seek more autonomous or even independent status. But the rest of the country must now find ways to restructure Arab Iraq as a truly federal but united State, and this means new political, constitutional and regional arrangements suited to truly rebuilding such a unique country that has suffered such traumatic events in its history.

Laith Kubba Video Below