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CAIR Distributes 100,000 Korans; Overtly Proselytizes

The Hamas-founded Council on American-Islamic Relations has long pretended to be a civil rights organization, comparing itself at times to the NAACP, but a close look at its record reveals the real CAIR agenda to be – in common with all Islamists – promoting the Shari'a. This can be achieved two ways. The more circuitous method influences American public opinion through the educational system, the media, the arts, the courts, and the political process. The more direct method converts Americans to Islam.

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By Daniel Pipes  |  Tue, 30 Jun 2009  |  Permalink  |  Comments (18)

Conspiracy Theories in Iran's Unrest

"Iran is the world's most conspiracy-minded country" I declared in my book, The Hidden Hand: Middle East Fears of Conspiracy. An entire chapter of that study focused on the Islamic revolution of 1978-79, documenting how "Regardless of political complexion, Iranians interpret the revolution not as an act of will but as the manifestation of mysterious forces. They debate less the causes of the upheaval than the identity of those forces." Another chapter took up the Iran-Iraq war. In both cases, I showed how the conspiracy mentality had a major role in the evolution of events.

And so, as the events of the past month unrolled in Iran – an intense buildup to elections on June 12, the regime's blatant act of electoral fraud, the massive street demonstrations, and the violent crack-down – I watched with special interest the role of conspiracy theories in Iranian political life. To my surprise and delight, their role appeared to be minimal. For once, Iranians were dealing with realities in Iran rather than imagining foreign bogeymen manipulating events in the country.

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By Daniel Pipes  |  Mon, 29 Jun 2009  |  Permalink  |  Comments (7)

Ahmadinejad Threatens Obama

Nearly lost in the exchange of invective between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Barack Obama is the former warning to put the latter on trial. Thomas Erdbrink and William Branigin offer details at "Iran's President Rebukes Obama; Candidates Reject Election Review" in the Washington Post today.

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By Daniel Pipes  |  Sun, 28 Jun 2009  |  Permalink  |  Comments (15)

The National Jewish Democratic Council and Me

Back in February 2008, in the thick of the U.S. presidential primaries, Ira N. Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, the Democratic party's Jewish outreach organization, castigated me in the Philadelphia Jewish Voice as a "conservative flack," called my writings on Barack Obama having been raised a Muslim "ridiculous and offensive," and characterized my work as a "back-alley political mugging."

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By Daniel Pipes  |  Fri, 26 Jun 2009  |  Permalink  |  Comments (4)

Washington to Tehran: You Can't Come to My Birthday Party

Iranians bravely take the streets by the hundreds of thousands, confronting the police, the Pasdaran, and the basiji thugs of the Islamic republic – and what, other than words, does the Obama administration actually do to respond to these momentous events?

It disinvites Iranian diplomats from the July 4 festivities to be held at U.S. embassies, consulates, and missions.

I kid you not.

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By Daniel Pipes  |  Thu, 25 Jun 2009  |  Permalink  |  Comments (4)

Bibliography – My Writings on the Mujahedeen-e Khalq

Like many other Middle East analysts, I for many years kept my distance from the Mujahedeen-e Khalq, an Iranian opposition group. But I changed my mind in 1993, on receipt of Islamic Fundamentalism: The New Global Threat (Washington, D.C.: Seven Locks Press, 1993) by Mohammad Mohaddessin, a foreign affairs specialist for the organization. His book showed me that the MeK could be a useful and important ally in the common effort against the Islamic Republic of Iran; the fact that the mullahs so fear the MeK makes it only the more attractive to me. And so, for sixteen years, I have vocally advocated that the U.S. government work with the MeK – to little avail, I might add.

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By Daniel Pipes  |  Wed, 24 Jun 2009  |  Permalink  |  Comments (2)

Ahmadinejad or Mousavi?

A throwaway line of mine at the Heritage Foundation on June 3 has turned into a minor internet sensation. Here it is, as presented by the left-wing journalist who broke the story:

"I'm sometimes asked who I would vote for if I were enfranchised in this election, and I think that, with due hesitance, I would vote for Ahmadinejad," Pipes said. The reason, Pipes went on, is that he would "prefer to have an enemy who's forthright and obvious, who wakes people up with his outlandish statements."

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By Daniel Pipes  |  Sat, 20 Jun 2009  |  Permalink  |  Comments (27)

Assessing Binyamin Netanyahu's Speech at Bar-Ilan University

In a major speech today at the Begin-Sadat Center of Bar-Ilan University, Binyamin Netanyahu laid out his vision to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. In brief, it's a fine speech, making many needed points, but it fails on the critical point of prematurely accepting a Palestinian state.

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By Daniel Pipes  |  Sun, 14 Jun 2009  |  Permalink  |  Comments (43)

Assessing the Iranian Election

Better put, the Iranian "selection," as the exercise yesterday appears to have been window dressing for Supreme Leader Ali Khamene'i, the real power in Iran, to re-appoint Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. According to the authorities, Ahmadinejad received 63 percent of the vote, Mir-Hossein Mousavi 35 percent, and the remaining two candidates each about 1 percent.

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By Daniel Pipes  |  Sat, 13 Jun 2009  |  Permalink  |  Comments (34)  |  TrackBack (1)

Rooting for Ahmadinejad

The heart and the head sometimes go in different directions, and they do for me today as Iranians go to the polls to vote in their country's semi-legitimate presidential elections.

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By Daniel Pipes  |  Fri, 12 Jun 2009  |  Permalink  |  Comments (43)

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