Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addresses the 64th United Nations General Assembly Wednesday.

Program Note: Tune in tonight to hear from Reza Aslan on AC360° at 10p.m. ET.

Reza Aslan
The Daily Beast

Iran’s presumptive president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, heads to New York today to once again address the United Nations General Assembly. And once again, he has prefaced his address to the world body with yet another jibe at Holocaust history.

Last Friday, during Iran’s annual Jerusalem Day festivities—an occasion for Iranians to show solidarity with Palestinians—Ahmadinejad told an assembled crowd at the University of Tehran that “the pretext for establishing the Zionist regime is a lie ... a lie which relies on an unreliable claim.”

“The occupation of Palestine has nothing to do with the Holocaust,” Ahmadinejad continued. “The very existence of this regime is an insult to the dignity of the people, but it won't last long. The Israeli regime’s days are numbered and it is on its way to collapse. This regime is dying. Fighting it is a national and religious duty. The West has launched the myth of the Holocaust but it’s a lie.”

Right on cue, the U.S. media went into hysterics—“Ahmadinejad Denies Holocaust… Again!” was the headline at The Daily Beast—just as Ahmadinejad hoped they would.

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A young girl accompanies Iranian women as they walk to hear the ayatollah give his speech Friday.

Program Note: To hear Reza Aslan's take on the latest developments in Iran, tune in to AC360° tonight 10 P.M. ET. In his piece from earlier this week, Aslan discusses the country's response to its recent, highly contentious presidential election results.

Reza Aslan
The Daily Beast

So let’s get this straight. We are supposed to believe that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was reelected in Iran’s presidential election last week by a 2 to 1 margin against his reformist rival Mir Hossein Mousavi. That this deeply unpopular president, whose gross mismanagement of the state budget is widely blamed for Iran’s economy hovering on the edge of total collapse, received approximately the same percentage of votes as Mohammad Khatami, by far Iran’s most popular past president, received in both 1997 and 2001? That Mousavi, whom all independent polls predicted would at the very least take Ahmadinejad into a runoff election, lost not only his main base of support, Tehran, but also his own hometown of Khameneh in East Azerbaijan (which, as any Azeri will tell you, never votes for anyone but its own native sons)…and by a landslide. That we should all take the word of the Interior Ministry, led by a man put in his position by Ahmadinejad himself, a man who called the election for the incumbent before the polls were even officially closed, that the election was a fair representation of the will of the Iranian people.

Bullshit.

Such bald-faced election fraud is a totally new phenomenon in Iran, which takes its election process very seriously. This is, after all, the only expression of popular sovereignty that Iranians enjoy. Over and over again, the electorate has defied the will of the clerical regime when it comes to choosing the country’s president: in 1997 and 2001, when 70% of the population rejected the establishment candidate, Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, in favor of a completely unknown cleric, Khatami, whose greatest political contribution was as head of Iran’s National Library; and again in 2005 when Iranians rejected Hashemi Rafsanjani—the billionaire former president and the quintessential establishment candidate—to vote instead for a little-known mayor of Tehran named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who until that time had never run for any political office (Ahmadinejad was appointed mayor of Tehran after his predecessor was charged with corruption).

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Editor's note: This is an excerpt from Reza Aslan's new book "How to Win a Cosmic War" published by Random House and in bookstores today. See Reza on AC360 at 10 pm ET tonight!

Reza Aslan

The problem with the ideological War on Terror is that “terrorist” is a wastebasket term that often conveys as much about the person using it as it does about the person being described. It can hardly be argued, anyway, that this was a war against terrorism per se. If it were, it would have included the Basque separatists in Spain, the Christian insurgency in East Timor, the Hindu/Marxist Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, the Maoist rebels in eastern India, the Jewish Kach and Kahane underground in Israel, the Irish Republican Army, the Sikh separatists in the Punjab, the Marxist Mujahadin-e Khalq, the Kurdish PKK, and so on.

Rather, this was a war against a particular brand of terrorism: that employed exclusively by Islamic entities, which is why the enemy in this ideological conflict was gradually and systematically expanded to include not just the persons who attacked America on September 11, 2001, and the organizations that supported them, but also an ever-widening conspiracy of disparate groups such as Hamas in Palestine, Hizballah in Lebanon, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the clerical regime in Iran, the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, the Chenchen rebels, the Kashmiri militants, the Taliban, and any other organization that declared itself Muslim and employed terrorism as a tactic. According to the master narrative of the War on Terror, these were a monolithic enemy with a common agenda and a shared ideology. Never mind that many of these groups consider one another a graver threat than they consider America to be, that they have vastly different and sometimes irreconcilable political yearnings and religious beliefs, and that, until the War on Terror, many had never thought of the United States as an enemy in any war. Give this imaginary monolith a made-up name – say, “Islamofacism” – and an eerily recognizable enemy is created, one that exists not so much as a force to be defeated as an idea to be opposed, one whose chief attribute appears to be that they are not us.

By lumping the disparate forces, movements, armies, ideas, and grievances in the greater Muslim world into a single category (“enemy”), assigning them a single identity (war), the United States manufactured what the counterterrorism expert David Kilcullen termed “an undifferentiated enemy.” And as Sun Tzu said so long ago, if you do not know who the enemy is, you cannot win the war.

Anderson talks with his panel about the key moments in President Obama's first sit-down interview with Arab media.

Editor's note: Watch Nic Robertson's report from the Israeli/Gaza border tonight at 10p.

Reza Aslan
The Daily Beast

Would the war in Gaza still be happening if we'd listened to George Bush? The Daily Beast's Reza Aslan on why Bush has every right to say "I told you so" when it comes to the Middle East.

The devastating war in Gaza between Hamas militants and the mighty Israeli army has once again raised a chorus of criticism about the foolishness of George W. Bush’s democracy agenda in the Middle East. “Another pillar in his crusade to spread democracy” is how Margaret Carlson, writing for Bloomberg, describes the rise of Hamas. But the truth is that whatever violence or instability may have resulted from the push to promote democracy in the Middle East, the solution to lasting peace, prosperity, and sociopolitical reform throughout the region, and especially in Palestine, is more democracy, not less.

It was four years ago that a bumptious George W. Bush, fresh from his stunning re-election, took the podium on a cold January morning in Washington, D.C., and laid out an audacious—some would say foolhardy—vision for his second term as president.

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Editor's Note:
We are devoting many posts today to the anniversary of 9/11, with first-hand accounts, insight, and commentary dedicated to that day seven years ago that changed our world.
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Reza Aslan | BIO
Author, “No god but God”Perhaps the most significant change to have occurred over the last seven years of fighting the War on Terror is that we are no longer battling a terrorist organization called al Qaeda. We are now fighting a global social movement called al Qaeda.

The truth is al Qaeda was never the coherent, global entity it is so often imagined to be – an organization with an easily identifiable leadership structure and a systematic ideology. That al Qaeda existed only in the imaginations of those of us desperate for the days when America’s enemies were nations that could be assuredly defined and armies that could be conventionally overcome. It is no wonder that word al Qaeda continues to be rendered into English as “the base.” A base implies something concrete and conquerable, something that can be defended or assailed.

But the word al Qaeda also means “the rules” or “the fundamentals,” and is used by Arabs most often to refer to the basic teachings or creed of Islam. In that light, it may be somewhat appropriate to consider al Qaeda an Islamic form of fundamentalism, in so far as that word implies puritanical adherence to the elemental doctrines of a religion. But it is imprecise, and even dangerous, to consider al Qaeda the operational seat of global Islamic extremism.

al Qaeda is more like an ideological nerve center – a kind of brain trust propagating a series of simple propositions whose purpose is to classify the world into Good and Evil. Friend and Foe. Us and Them. As al Qaeda’s chief ideologue Abu Musab al-Suri said, “al Qaeda is not an organization…It is a call, a reference, a methodology.”

al Qaeda as methodology may be hard to swallow. Methodologies do not kill people; people kill people.

But when bin Laden refers to al Qaeda's attacks on America as “messages” to America, he is conveying a fundamental truth about the tactic of terrorism. These are not necessarily actions in pursuit of specific political or social ends. They are symbolic statements of power directed at a carefully selected audience. Indeed, it is the audience that can be regarded the principal victims of terrorism. Perverse though it may seem, terrorism’s actual victims – the bloodied, maimed, and murdered – are merely tools through which the terrorist’s “message” is delivered. What is that message? It is simply this: We are powerful, we are aggrieved, and we will not be ignored.

That is a message that has resonated with a wide spectrum of people – particularly young people – across the world (and not just the Muslim world). It is a message that cuts across all boundaries of religion, culture, class, and ethnicity. It is a message that has fed off the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the larger War on Terror: the use of torture; extraordinary renditions; the flaunting of international laws. It is a message that has become far more important than the messenger.

Of course, you can’t shoot a message (especially when you can’t even shoot the messenger).

Iran is making headlines after test-firing missiles... Last night on AC360° we sat down with CNN Senior Political Analyst David Gergen and Middle East Analyst Reza Aslan to explore the larger implications, and give context to what's happening in the region. Here are their observations and insight:

On attacking Iran:

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David Gergen
Former Presidential Adviser
CNN Senior Political Analyst
AC360° Contributor

"The big question tonight is whether, in fact, the United States and/or Israel will attack Iran while George W. Bush is still president in the next six months, before a new president comes in? That's what's rattling the oil markets and why, whenever the saber-rattling comes up, whether it's testing by the Israelis, military maneuvers by the Israelis, military maneuvers by the united states, or now today by Iran, whatever that happens, oil prices shoot upward. And it has put pressure on the candidates. What would you do?... there is a sharp difference here between Barack Obama, who would put much more emphasis on diplomacy, on more carrots, if you would, as well as sticks, versus john McCain, who would have fewer carrots and more sticks."

Obama vs. McCain on Iran:

"I think the Jewish community is very, very concerned in this country because this could be what they call an existential threat to Israel. The Jewish community will tell you if Ahmadinejad gets a bomb, he could do in six minutes what it took Hitler six years to do. So it's understandable they're very, very concerned. I think Americans generally are not in a warlike mood. There's been no preparation for this. And for that reason, I think they may be more sympathetic to the Obama position on Iran while on Iraq they're more sympathetic to John McCain."

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Reza Aslan
Middle East Analyst
Author, "No god, but God"
AC360° Contributor

On Iran's inent:

"I think they just want to make a statement, and they want to assure that both Israel and the United States understands unequivocally that any kind of military attack on Iranian soil will be met with devastation. I think Iran wants to just flex its muscles. We have to understand that at this point Iran does feel as though it is a bit threatened. It is literally surrounded on all sides by American troops. It sits between Pakistan and Russia, both nuclear nations. And it's learned a pretty valuable lesson from its fellow axis of evil neighbors. One didn't have nuclear weapons and was demolished. The other does have nuclear weapons, and we have paid hundreds of millions of dollars to it to get rid of it. I think Iran feels it's sitting in a pretty comfortable place now."

On Iran's plans

"I think Iran’s got a pretty sophisticated plan here. They're going to have Ahmadinejad talk about the fact that it's impossible for the U.S. Or Israel to even think about attacking while at the same time the commanders of the revolutionary guard are going to make these much more statements about the consequences of such an attack. To be perfectly frank, i think the real issue here is that at the same time we're seeing this acceleration of belligerence on all sides, we're also seeing a much softer tone being taken by, say, the foreign minister of Iran or the supreme leader's chief policy adviser. On the possibility of negotiations with the United States."

On the statement this makes

"I get a feeling from reading the Iranian press, that the overwhelming sentiment there is let's just hold things off as long as we can. We know we can probably get a better deal from the next president, and there's an enormous amount of bush hatred in that country. I think there's a sense that if we can just keep things the way they are, keep the status quo going, we'll have a better chance of negotiations no matter whether it's McCain or Obama."

Reza Aslan
Author, “No god but God”

The media spotlight on Pope Benedict’s first trip to the United States seems to have completely overshadowed the American tour of another global religious leader, the Aga Khan.

The Aga Khan is the spiritual leader of some 20 million Ismaili Muslims. The Ismailis are Shiah who broke off from the main Shiite branch of Islam, known as the Ithna Ashari, or Twelvers, in the middle of the 8th century. Ismailis live primarily in South Asia, while some 300 million Twelver Shia live mostly in Iran, Iraq, and other parts of the Middle East.

The Aga Khan - the title means something like “the Noble Lord” - is believed to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. As such, his position among followers is absolute. He has sole authority to interpret the Quran and Islamic law, and his word on both subjects is infallible. But this Aga Khan, the 49th imam in a line that stretches back 13 centuries, is unlike any other spiritual leader.

He is a graduate of Harvard University. His personal worth is estimated to be in the billions. He jaunts around the globe in private jets and yachts. His father, the previous Aga Khan, was once married to Rita Hayworth. In his fitted suits and silk ties, he looks more like a well-aged movie star than a spiritual leader.

But don’t let the clothes and the fabulous riches fool you. The Aga Khan is not only a devout and transcendent man of deep religious faith, he is also one of the most generous philanthropists in the world.

His Aga Khan Development Network is a massive charitable fund dedicated almost entirely to caring for the poor. He runs nearly 200 hospitals. He funds thousands of schools, charities, arts programs, museums, and theaters.

His humanitarian services extend across the globe and, despite being funded almost exclusively by the tithes of his followers, are doled out to people of all faiths, whether Muslim or not.

He is a shining example of a moderate, pluralistic, and modern Muslim leader, which is why it’s a shame that he has come to the U.S. at such an inopportune time. (He is here to celebrate his 50th year as the Aga Khan).

For those of us who are sick and tired of media pundits always asking, “where are the moderate Muslim leaders,” and for those who want to punch something every time Tom Friedman sarcastically wonders why there are no “Muslim Mandela’s” out there, the Aga Khan, and the millions of modernist, democratically minded, reformist, and pluralist Muslims who follow him, are the perfect answer.

Too bad no one is paying attention.

An Iranian man casts his vote in the parliamentary elections on March 14 in Tehran, Iran. Iranians have begun to vote in elections in which reformist opposition have been barred from running against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

As the three remaining presidential candidates begin staking out their positions on important foreign policy issues facing the country, each will have to explain how they plan to deal with an increasingly powerful, increasing belligerent Iran.

It is no exaggeration to say that America's relations with the Islamic Republic hinges on who will be the next president and commander in chief.

Iran is having an election, too. But unlike the primary season in the United States, Iranians do not support the ballot choices offered to them by the regime of the Islamic Republic.

A new nationwide public opinion survey of Iran conducted by Terror Free Tomorrow and D3 Systems shows widespread disillusionment with the candidates running in the Parliamentary elections on March 14.  When asked which candidates they plan on supporting – whether Reformists or Conservatives – a third of Iranians replied "neither," while a quarter said they do not know.

Only 8% said they would vote for the Conservatives; 22% for the Reformists.

Iranians, it seems, are simply not inspired by any of the candidates running for office.  This has partly to do with the regime's decision to exclude many Reformist candidates from contesting the elections.  A staggering 68% of Iranians supported allowing all Reformist candidates to run for office, compared to a mere 10% who agreed with the regime's ban.

More significantly, the vision of the Iranian people for a more open and fully democratic system of government remains strong.  86% of those surveyed said that they support a political system in which all of Iran's leaders, including the Supreme Leader, would be chosen by a free and direct vote of the people.

The power and role of the Supreme Leader is at the core of the Islamic Republic because it is the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and not President Ahmadinejad, who exercises ultimate authority.  Yet the survey found that almost nine in ten want the most powerful official in Iran to be held accountable to the voters.

Indeed, apart from the economy, the indicia of democratic governance of ensuring free elections and a free press are the most important long-term goals Iranians have for their government.

The poll also proved once again that the Iranian people yearn for a more democratic future with closer ties to the U.S. More than three-quarters of Iranians back normalizing relations with the United States, and 71% want to work with the U.S. to help resolve the Iraq war. 70% are also in favor of providing full inspections to nuclear sites and a guarantee not to develop nuclear weapons in return for outside aid and investment.

At the same time, however, Iranians are becoming increasingly impatient with American foreign policy toward their country.  When a similar poll was conducted by Terror Free Tomorrow/D3 in June 2007, it found that Iranians were far more supportive of offering concessions to the United States in return for normalized relations than they appear to be today.  Moreover, Iranians who believe developing nuclear weapons is "not at all important" has dropped from one-third in June to only one-fifth today.

In good news for President Ahmadinejad, Iranians are growing ever more confident in his handling of the economy.  Nearly half of those surveyed believed Ahmadinejad's policies have succeeded in reducing unemployment and inflation, while 42% believe the Iranian economy is headed in the right direction.  In June, that number stood at only 27%.

These are dangerous trends.  Iran is at a pivotal moment in its history. Despite the regime's constant vilifying of the United States (or perhaps because of it), the Iranian people continue to look to the U.S. as a beacon of political freedom and economic opportunity.  Iranian youth in particular, who make up some two-thirds of the population, yearn for the same rights and freedoms they see in other parts of the world when they turn on their satellite televisions or log on to the Internet.

The next American President will inherit an Iranian portfolio that has remained more or less unchanged, and ineffective, for three decades.  Now is the time for a new policy that supports the Iranian people without linking Iranian opposition groups to the U.S., that furthers constructive engagement without unduly empowering regime hardliners.  While these steps are undoubtedly difficult to balance, for most of the Cold War, they provided the cornerstone of American policy toward the Soviet Union.

As President Reagan told us, America's greatest ally against the Soviet Union in winning the Cold War was the average Soviet, "Citizen Ivan," Reagan said.  The new TFT survey shows this is no less true with Iran today.

- Reza Aslan, Author "No god but God"

For some time now a trio of self-proclaimed ex-terrorists has been making the rounds of the lecture circuit, charging thousands of dollars for their fantastical tales of life as murderous Muslim extremists.

Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem – both US citizens – and Zacharia Anani, a Canadian national, all claim to have been members of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Anani claims personal responsibility for the deaths of over two hundred people. Shoebat says he was part of a terrorist cell inside the United States.

Their most recent appearance was at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, which hosted the three at its 50th Annual Academy Assembly on the topic, "Dismantling Terrorism: Developing Actionable Solutions for Today's Plague of Violence."

Shoebat, Saleem, and Anani were asked to speak about their personal experiences as Islamic terrorists, to provide the next generation of US soldiers with an inside account of radical terrorism.

The selection by the Air Force Academy of these speakers was criticized by both the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Why? Because it turns out these guys are not ex-terrorists at all but—wait for it—fundamentalist Christians posing as ex-terrorists. Their fervently anti-Islamic message, in which all Muslims are labeled as radicals, is a prelude to a testimony about how accepting Jesus into their hearts and becoming born again saved them from a life of terrorism.

Walid Shoebat is a favorite of the “Left Behind” crowd and has spoken at Tim LaHaye's Pre-Trib (Pre-Tribulation) Research Center. Kamal Saleem, whose real name is Khodor Shami, worked for Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network for sixteen years, and was hired by Focus on the Family in 2003. In 2006, he launched Koome Ministries, whose mission is to “expose the true agenda of [Muslims] who would deceive our nation and the free nations of the world... America must wake-up and set a continued Christian agenda of Liberty and Truth as a standard to follow throughout the free world."

Since the three began their speaking careers, the authenticity of their claims has been repeatedly challenged by academics and terrorism experts, who have found many aspects of their stories don't add up.

According to Tom Quiggin, Canada's only court-qualified expert on global jihadism, and a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police intelligence and national security expert, "Mr. Anani's not an individual who rates the slightest degree of credibility, based on the stories that he has told."

Among other things, Quiggin points to Anani's claim of killing hundreds of people after joining his first militant group in Lebanon at age 13. Anani, now forty-nine, would have been 13 in 1970. However, the fighting in Lebanon did not begin in earnest until 1975, and religious-based terrorism was practically unheard of there until after 1979. According to Anani, he left Lebanon for Egypt to attend Al-Azhar University at age 18, three years earlier.

Professor Douglas Howard teaches the history of the modern Middle East at Calvin College in Michigan, where Kamal Saleem spoke last November. He was shocked to hear Saleem claim that a member of his family was the “the Grand Wazir of Islam.”

"Wazir is a variation of vizier,” Professor Howard explained. “The Grand Vizier was a political role in the Ottoman empire. No Muslim would ever claim that in connection with the role of mufti, which is a scholar of Islamic texts. It's like someone saying they were the governor of Christianity.”

Professor Howard described the talk at Calvin College as “a tent meeting revival sermon sponsored by academic organizations.”

“His personal story gives him credibility as an anti-Islamic preacher,” he said. “But it is not verifiable and without it he's no different from other fundamentalist preachers and there's plenty of those out there."

Here’s a question: if the claims of these three are true, why aren’t they in Guantanamo?

Mikey Weinstein, head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which has worked tirelessly to uncover precisely the kinds of constitutional violations of church and state that occurred when these three spoke, or rather, witnessed, at the Air Force Academy, put it this way: "If their claims are true, these alleged ex-terrorists should be deported or prosecuted, unless our government now considers conversion to fundamentalist Christianity a reason to disregard prior terrorist activities. If their claims are fabricated, they have criminally defrauded every institution that has paid them to speak."

Strangely, no arrests warrants have yet been issued.

- Reza Aslan/Author "No god but God"

The LA Times’ endorsement of Barack Obama does not come as a surprise. Obama’s meteoric rise in California’s more progressive suburbs – and among Hollywood’s more progressive celebrities – was always a given. For many in the Golden State, particularly younger voters, Obama is this year’s Howard Dean, except with an actual shot at the nomination.

But what is surprising is the rationale my hometown paper gives for ultimately choosing Obama over Hillary:

“No public relations campaign could do more than Obama's mere presence in the White House to defuse anti-American passion around the world,” the editors of the Times write.

I’ve already written about the lunacy of this argument in the Washington Post noting that the people of the Muslim world could not give a damn about the color of the American President’s skin (or, for that matter, the President’s gender). They care only about one thing: what the next President will do to fix the mess George W. Bush has put us in. In this regard, the Times admits there is little that separates Obama from Clinton save “a sense of aspiration.”

I agree with the Times that Obama is a wonderful orator. I get goose bumps when I hear him talk about coming together as one country to fix Washington.

Except that it’s not Washington’s fault the economy is in shambles. It’s the Republicans' fault. It’s not Washington’s fault that Iraq is ablaze and Afghanistan is lost. It’s the Republicans' fault. So maybe a little partisanship is not such a bad thing right now.
Maybe a little of what the Times calls “withering political fire” would actually be good for the country. I know I wouldn’t mind giving the Republicans a taste of their own medicine.

But even so, if we are electing a President based on his or her bipartisanship, it’s hard to think of a candidate who has done more work across the aisle than Clinton. Yet, that’s not what the Times is talking about. In the end, it’s not so much Obama’s abilities that matter, but his life story.

Borrowing Clinton’s own sound bite, the Times argues that, “Clinton is an essay, solid and reasoned; Obama is a poem, lyric and filled with possibility.”

The Times prefers the poem. In any other election year I would agree. But maybe a little prose – something boring but competent – is exactly what we need right now.

-Reza Aslan, 360° Contributor