Seymour Hersh: Obama 'Only Hope' for US-Muslim Ties

The following piece is part of an ongoing series of OffTheBus reports by citizen policy experts critiquing different aspects of Campaign 08.

Barack Obama represents "the only hope for the US in the Muslim world," according to Pulitzer-prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. Because Obama's father was a Muslim, he "could lead a reconciliation between the Muslim countries and the US." With any of the other candidates as president, Hersh said, "we're facing two or three decades of problems in the Mideast, with 1.2 billion Muslims."

Hersh, who writes for The New Yorker about the Bush Administration in Iraq and Iran, spoke to my history class at UC Irvine on Tuesday. In Obama's 2006 book The Audacity of Hope he wrote that his Kenyan father was "raised a Muslim," but says he was a "confirmed atheist" by the time his parents met. His parents separated when he was two years old and later divorced.

Of course if Obama did win the nomination, one can only imagine what the Republicans would do with the fact that his father was a Muslim. We've already had Mitt Romney smiling next to a campaign sign in South Carolina that said "No to Obama Osama."

Hersh did not hold out much hope for improved relations between the US and the Muslim world. "The only good news I can bring you is that tomorrow morning there will be one less day of the Bush presidency," he told an overflow crowd in a public lecture at UC Irvine. Bush "doesn't care about" his low standing in the polls, and as a result "he's going to keep going until 11:59 a.m. on January 20, 2009."

Even after Bush's term ends, "much of the damage is yet to come," Hersh said. "The problems for the next president may be intractable."

"They say the surge has worked," Hersh said. "But do you think someday we will get an oil deal in Iraq? They'll burn the fields first. We're hated in Iraq."

As for Afghanistan, "we became more of a threat to the people than Taliban," Hersh said. We're "losing the war there," he said, and concluded that "Afghanistan is a doomed society."

Hersh said he had just returned from Syria, where he was working on his next New Yorker piece, on the mysterious bombing carried out by the US and the Israelis. "The Syrians have a much longer-term perspective than we do," he said. "They say 'we've been here for 10,000 years; we're not going away.'"

As for the short term, Hersh said, "Cheney thinks war with Islam is inevitable, so we might as well have it now." Administration plans for bombing Iran call for targeting the Revolutionary Guards. Iran's response, Hersh said, is likely to be "asymmetrical" - instead of striking back directly at the US, they will "hit the oil" in the Gulf. The result will be oil prices of "$200 or $300 a barrel," double or triple the current price.

But will Bush bomb Iran? Hersh's answer: "How the hell should I know?"

Comments

[cognate]

To heck with Muslims. They don't vote for us anyway.

[realitytrumpsbull]

9 trillion, and counting, how much more of this
'fun' can we honestly afford?

[GuiltyByStander]

Obama, as the son of a formerly-Muslim atheist, has little to offer a hard-nosed Muslim -- though I could agree that it's time we started talking to the moderates.

No question we must muster all the credibility we have as an offering of good will to the Muslim world. Aren't we missing the fact that Joe Biden practically forced the Clinton administration to take action in the Balkans and in doing so helped save hundreds of thousands of Muslims? The Dutch army as part of the UN was paralyzed while Muslims were murdered until the US intervened. That's credibility. Why aren't we using it?

Let me point out too that when Musharraf took Pakistan off the rails a couple of weeks ago, both he and Bhutto called the head of the Foreign Relations Committee. Not Clinton, not Obama, not Bush, but Biden.

[marcialosangeles]

This is the most sohmoric rational I have heard yet--the Muslims who for centuries have not been able to work out their differnces will suddenly, with the election of a half Muslim US President, find the road to reconciliation??? If only the world worked in such a simplistic way.

[Garvagh]

I have good friends who have traveled in Syria, Iran and Libya, and loved the warm reception they received almost everywhere. The remarkable stupidity of the Bush administration, in spurning Iranian offers of help with assessing and dealing with any threat posed by Saddam Hussein, created the Iraq War quagmire. Syrian and Iran have offered to help the US to withdraw its forces with minimum difficulty from Iraq. This country should accept the offer. The US was the largest buyer of Iraqi crude under the UN sanctions, and there was no need to overthrow Saddam to have kept up the oil flow. In any event, if another country (say China) buys Iraqi crude, that means that the US can buy what the Chinese did not buy when they elected to go with Iraqi oil.

[justfacefacts]

I just read that it is going to rain pigs. So it must be true. I don't pretend to uncover my own facts beyond my blog gurus and trouble my wee little head weighing facts or using critical thinking. If you say so, or I read it, its gotta be real!

Oh, by the way. Lou Dobbs has said maybe a trillion times he is not and will not run for anything. But of course, you know better having read it, somewhere. He's just frankly not nuts enough or beholding to political parties or corporations to play dead and sell out the people he comes from as a poor farm kid who made it on his own.

And by the way, lots of people who speak on behalf of the middle class do have a brain, are honorable people and have the maturity to see a diverse picture with many sides.

This requires going far beyond the 'we alone OWN THE TRUTH zealots' of the left or right. It's amazing to learn as time passes what we thought we knew-was some shaded version of someone elses thinking and no where close to reality or fact.

So get a helmet. I read the pigs are airborne.

[Truthortradition]

How about we stop invading the Muslim World because we need oil? How about we stop electing Republicans who live and breathe for oil? How about we go green? Obama is not the only solution to the Muslim problem.
Remember when Osama said he conceived 9-11 decades ago when America, led by Republicans, invaded Beirut, downed the twin towers and killed thousands of Muslims---all over oil.
Maybe if we elect the Democrats to rule this nation, the Muslims will know that at the very least, we won't kill them for oil.
Yea, I'm a Hillary fan because I think she understands the Muslim world better than any other candidate. I've listened to her lecture for hours to ivy league schools on the subject. Hope she continues to lead the pac.

[1will]

I wonder what Hersh is smoking.
So Obama's father was raised a Muslim but became an athiest. That makes him an apostate in the eyes of Muslims. They kill you for that in many parts of the Muslim world. www.apostatesofislam.com
If Hersh likes Obama he should just say so instead of making up illogical reasons to vote for the man. I'm sure there's a great deal of legitimate reasons to support him.
Obama, like the majority of Americans, is an infidel in the eyes of Muslims. According to the Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq (the Ayatollah who's supposed to lead them and also be our best buddy) American indidels are 'Unclean' and are on the same list as pigs and dogs. According the fundementalist Muslims infidels are supposed to submit to Muslims and pay a special tax (Jizya), convert or die. Period. Now Obama could be the new posterboy for appeasement and probaly be loved by the Islamic world but otherwise Hersh's views are just a fantasy.
As for losing in Afghanistan, we're not. We may not have had the success we desired in Afghanistan but I doubt it's anyworse than under the Taliban. I wonder what the statistics are for stonings, honor killings and beheadings since we overthrew the Taliban.

[Ryter]

I'm a little worried that I'll be struck down for saying what I am about to say. With all due respect - I disagree with the esteemed Mr. Hersh. There I said it!

Barack Obama does not guarantee a successful relationship with Muslims anymore than JFK could bring peace to Ireland.

We want a track record, specific negotiating experience, and maturity to be our guide in these matters. No doubt that FIVE time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Bill Richardson, has these qualities.

12 members of Congress nominated Bill Richardson yesterday (11/15) the fifth time for his work in Sudan and North Korea.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5goq3QS5sfNYNH9AcGrphznpukaBQD8SU2MN80

He has already successfully negotiated the release of US servicemen and hostages in Iraq, Sudan, Cuba, and North Korea. This work goes back to 1994.

There was one person standing on the stage in Vegas last night with the qualifications to do the job that we need to have done - Bill Richardson. Take another look.

richardson­forpreside­nt.com

[KarenZipdrive]

Huh? Obama's never been a practicing Muslim as an adult, so how does his absentee Muslim-turned athiest father factor into anything?
After Hillary backed him off like a Border Collie herding a recalcitrant lamb last night, I'm not sure Obama has the balls to be president.
He seems like a very nice guy, but we need a real bitch (or bastard) in office right now-- someone who can undo the damage Bush and the neo-cons have done to us over the last eight years.
I think Hillary's the right bitch to get the job done. I don't nesessarily want to have a beer with her, but I'd love to have her as my attorney.
And remember, she comes equipped with Bill Clinton, and he's far more politically brilliant than Elizabeth Edwards or Michelle Obama.

Seymour Hersh may be a Pulitzer winning journalist, but I think his opinion is rather far-fetched this time.

Bill Clinton would be the best choice for healing America's abysmal relationship to the world right now, but he can't run...unless we can somehow slip him in by the side door.
Hey, I have an idea! Let's elect his wife!

[MichaelBernard1]

I think we Americans need to stop thinking like we run the world. First, we are not an empire. Second, America had a free ride post World War II economically. We squandered our economic hegemony by spending all that wasted money on government, by shipping half or more of our engineers and scientists off to work in Defense, and by failing to read David Brinckley's book titled, "Washington Goes to War" about U.S. Federal Government ramping up for a world war and never ramping down. "The world is a dangerous place" even when Communist Red Chinese had a per capita income of $300 per year, and Soviet Russians, our allies, lost 60 million people. Instead, we stole from Great Britain her empire, and carry on with it in our peculiar, ineffective, American style. At least the Brits had a foreign service to match their world hubris, which included smart cynics like the baldly racist Rudyard Kipling. Americans have no foreign service to match our presumed world leadership. We don't even speak the language, and we have immigrants living here in America from every part of the globe. Read the new book just out which describes how the American C.I.A. has messed up just about everywhere. Read the great book about Mossadegh, the Iranian Democrat.

Frankly, given the record of U.S. Government and Politicians in mucking up everything they work on, I hesitate to allow them even their purview within our United States borders. I mean, look at the disaster that is the American educational system, the American health care system, the American economy, American politics, American everything. That great America we enjoyed just a few generations ago, has been totally, utterly destroyed by our foolish leadership and their profligate, feminist, know-nothing sentiments. Americans have finally acquired the governance we deserve, for being so cavalier about the beautiful Country, Society, and Government we all had, just a few generations ago. I know of it, because I am old enough, at age 53, to remember.

[Plowboy]

I like Seymour Hersh; he is perhaps our most important reporter. And he usually gets to the truth well before others do! Thus he seems controversial at times to the unthinking. But much as I also like Obma and see him as a potentially valuable part of our future foreign outreach program, he is not the only one who can bring us renewed respect. Richardson, who has been a successful negotiator in the Middle East and can certainly speak the language of our important neighbors, could also lead us in such a trust rebuilding effort. (I think a Richardson/Obama ticket would be a winner in the election and in the governing of our nation.)
What we need most is honesty and a renewed focus on justice. We need to re-establish our own credibility concerning the traditional American values that the Neocons have lured us away from.

[TheLar]

I have the utmost respect for Mr. Hersh, but I'm not sure that Obama is the only hope. If any of the other candidates treat Muslims with respect and decide to talk to them, there's no reason things can't progress past the abysmal state they're in.

Regarding Romney near the "Obama Osama" sign: I experience no end of amazement at how superficial the Republican attacks on Obama are. This guy speaks so gently and intelligently, with respect for all: he is nothing like Osama in any way except their names sound similar. Is that the best Republican warriors can do? Is that their only way of criticizing, by going down to the grade school level playground bully level?

Apparently it is.

Larry Nocella
http://www.LarryNocella.com/

[TWOSHORT]

How does one know when somebody want's too change there way's?To me Action speak louder than word's!Obama maybe the Action the World's been waiting for!

[spmlawyer]

Gee, Seymour's at it again. I wonder what he would have written when Chamberlain got on that plane. How sad it is that a noted writer would see that the best way to make peace with the Muslims (note Seymour's assumptive and monolithic stereotype) is to push the only candidate who has some Muslim blood in him/her. Now, are we talking one generation or can we go back several more. Perhaps if we go far enough, we'll have a few more choices. Our relationship with the Muslim world will improve when we start behaving like the world leader we are. . .like revamping our foreign service to accommodate the reality that there are lots of Muslims out there, but also to understand that there are as many issues (as well as political, social and economic variables) within the Muslim community as exist in the West, like putting a full court press on our Muslim allies and Israel to get on with creating the 2-state solution, like emphasizing the teaching of Arabic on the same level as Spanish and French (Chinese, too while we're at it), like exposing our kids to the accomplishments of Islamic civilizations along with the less savory parts of Christian-Islamic strife and like teaching the world that everyone can be a New Yorker because, here, we don't take people at face value, but revel in the richness that Muslim citizens (along with Hispanic, Chinese, Indian, Jamaican, Tibetan, and, of course, Native NYers) bring to the table. It's always about food anyway.