Most recently Secretary Clinton suggested that Iran is ruled by a military dictatorship; in reality Iran is a religious autocracy! Mrs. Clinton continues to confuse the Middle East with the more conventional world; Secretary Clinton mere existence, a woman dealing with men in the “officialdom” of the Muslim world, is an insult, her lack of insight into that world, just adds insult to injury.
When Secretary Clinton, in front of a large crowd, commended Benyamin Netanyahu for his “concessions,” and suggested that the United States wanted the Israeli/Palestinian peace talks to continue without preconditions, the lady incensed the Islamic world without accomplishing anything positive. Secretary Clinton followed her speech in Israel with unplanned trips to various Arab Capitals in order to defuse the anger her words in Israel caused; she did not succeed in correcting her error.
One of the foreign policy mistakes that the United States has been making for many years has to do with having a woman as its chief spokesperson to the world, and especially to Muslim nations. It is quite in order for the United States to believe in, and to practice, equal rights for women, it is another to force members of cultures where men do not openly associate with women, to deal with women in official settings. Forcing men to deal with women while being the most powerful power or earth, is not only in bad taste, it is a humiliating, it is an ”in your face” action by the United States against Islam.
President Barak Hussein Obama [in]famous and reconciliatory speech in Cairo to the Arab world, notwithstanding, the Administration continues to demonstrate insensitivity and lack of understanding of the Islamic world. Even though the US Administration allowed relations with the State of Israel to erode, inroads into the Muslim World seem to elude the US.
One of the most insensitive action of the United States, the trend of forcing women on [Muslim] men in official settings, goes back to President Clinton whose Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, was not only a women dealing with Muslim men whose religion forbids them from doing so, Secretary Albright was also a person with Jewish roots, another “in your face” to Arabs, and to all Muslims.
It is all right for a nation to believe, advocate, and practice equal rights for all people; it is not right, however, to insult others’ culture by forcing them to either deal with [forbidden] woman who represent the United States, or, if they don’t, they must forego the ability to communicate with the only super-power left in today’s world. Humiliating Muslims and their culture is not an uncommon behavior of Western powers, but continuing to do so at the highest official levels of Government is insensitive, and, in large part, the source of Islamic rage against the West.
For more on the role of “humiliation,” please check January 2010 archives, this blog.
