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AAI in the News

Expert in Arab American policy speaks in Iowa City

By Kathryn Fiegen
Iowa City Press-Citizen
Posted on Tuesday September 25, 2007

A national expert in Arab American policy returned to Iowa City today to tell residents that they have the power to change the United States’ course in the Middle East, if only they band together and act.

Dr. James Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute, came to Iowa City in April to tell Iowans that they have the opportunity to set the tone in how 2008 presidential candidates campaign over the war in Iraq.

Zogby repeated that this afternoon to a packed meeting room in the Iowa City Public Library, but also asked the crowd to pledge that they will not vote for any candidate that doesn’t provide real answers. If enough voters make that pledge and promise to caucus, candidates will take notice, Zogby said.

“The point right now is there is a chance to do something,” he said.

Zogby said leaders and candidates today offer a narrow view of the country’s options in Iraq.

“It’s either, gotta leave or gotta stay,” he said.

He said media disseminates the overly-simplified answers to the country’s woes in the Middle East, making it even harder to understand what is happening and what needs to be done. Also, education lags behind, he said. Arab history is written into many textbooks as an “interesting side show” to European history, Zogby said.

“The ignorance has gotten us into a hole, a hole so deep we’re no longer safe and we don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

Many candidates in the 2008 presidential race have made decisions about the Middle East based on “political convenience” and religious ideology, he said, and they are not willing to answer questions from voters about their stance.

“Try to ask many candidates about the Middle East conflict and watch them sputter,” Zogby said.

The candidates who do take a stance are often alienated, he said. Zogby said when Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., announced publicly that he thought the country should not shun its adversaries, Republicans “pounced on him.” The same thing happened with the Democratic Party when Obama announced that a transition out of Iraq ought to be deliberate, Zogby said.

“We are operating on clichés,” he said.

The biggest lies to come out of the war in Iraq did not involve weapons of mass destruction or Sept. 11, 2001, but that it would take $2 billion and six months to solve the conflict and instill Democracy in the region, Zogby said.

“The biggest lie was that it would be a cake walk,” he said. “And that is the lie we are living today.”

The Arab American Institute is a Washington, D.C.-based organization that is the political and policy research voice for the Arab American community. Zogby appeared as a part of the University of Iowa’s International Mondays series.

Judith Amundson, 68 of Iowa City, said Zogby’s speech left her energized to do something. A registered Independent, Amundson said she was considering changing her registration so she can caucus in January.

“I think we have made such a mess and we have made it for years and years and I’d like to find a way out,” she said. “This is a year when I truly want to caucus.”

During his speech, Zogby said the conservative right has emphasized that if good people go into the Middle East, the sheer force of their actions will bring peace and Democracy.

“In every place we’ve marched, we’ve not left Democracy, we’ve left chaos,” he said.

Iowa City resident Mary Gravitt, 65, said this resonated with her.

“I liked that he touched on the will of the right,” she said. “That’s just Nazi-fascism of the 21st century. We’re in trouble.”