It isn’t surprising that Aslan and Cole would be cheerleading for this disastrous deal, since they are both Board members of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). NIAC has been established in court as a lobbying group for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Said Michael Rubin: “Jamal Abdi, NIAC’s policy director, now appears to push aside any pretense that NIAC is something other than Iran’s lobby. Speaking at the forthcoming ‘Expose AIPAC’ conference, Abdi is featured on the ‘Training: Constituent Lobbying for Iran’ panel. Oops.” Iranian freedom activist Hassan Daioleslam “documented over a two-year period that NIAC is a front group lobbying on behalf of the Iranian regime.” NIAC had to pay him nearly $200,000 in legal fees after they sued him for defamation over his accusation that they were a front group for the mullahs, and lost. Yet Aslan and Cole remain on their Board.
Aslan also may genuinely like this deal, not simply because he is a subversive, but because he is an imbecile — a prime example of an empty-headed charlatan propped up by the mainstream media (and, no doubt, handlers who are far more intelligent than their front man) because he reflects currently acceptable thinking. But all too frequently, his true intellectual level shines through: he thinks Ethiopia and Eritrea are in Central Africa. He called Turkey the second most populous Muslim country, which was only about 100 million people off. He has also referred to “the reincarnation, which Christianity talks about” — although he later claimed that one was a “typo.” Aslan has claimed that Muhammad outlawed slavery (the Muslim prophet actually owned slaves). Aslan has asserted that Marx and Freud “gave birth to the Enlightenment” (both were born after it ended). He has insisted that the idea of resurrection “simply doesn’t exist in Judaism,” despite numerous passages to the contrary in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Aslan has also claimed that the Biblical story of Noah was barely four verses long — which he then corrected to forty, but that was wrong again, as it is 89 verses long. Aslan claimed that the “founding philosophy of the Jesuits” was “the preferential option for the poor,” but the Jesuits were founded in 1534, and according to the California Catholic Conference, “the popular term ‘preferential option for the poor’ is relatively new. Its first use in a Church document is in 1968.” He invoked Pope Pius XI as an example of how “historically, Fascist ideology did infect corners of the Catholic world,” apparently ignorant of the fact that Pius XI issued the anti-fascist encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge.
Similarly, Aslan has revealed that he can barely write English, indicating that his books are either ghostwritten or very heavily edited: he confuses “than” with “then”; apparently thinks the Latin word “et” is an abbreviation; and writes “clown’s” for “clowns.”
And as for the other academics listed here, Hatem Bazian actually pretends that “Islamophobia” as an academic discipline, issuing smears and libels in psuedo-academic dress of foes of jihad terror.
This is the intellectual caliber of American academia today.
“The Profs Who Love Obama’s Iran Deal,” by Cinnamon Stillwell, FrontPage, August 10, 2015:
Who supports the Obama administration’s increasingly unpopular Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) aimed ostensibly at curbing Iran’s nuclear program? Many of its strongest proponents come from the field of Middle East studies, which boasts widespread animus towards the U.S. and Israel along with a cadre of apologists for the Iranian regime determined to promote ineffectual diplomacy at all costs.
University of California, Riverside creative writing professor Reza Aslan concedes that his generation of Iranian-Americans “feel[s] far removed from the political and religious turmoil of the Iranian revolution” before falling in line with the Iranian regime’s propaganda: the deal will “empower moderates in Iran, strengthen Iranian civil society and spur economic development,” and create “an Iran that is a responsible actor on the global stage, that respects the rights of its citizens and that has warm relations with the rest of the world.” “Warm relations” are the least likely outcome of the increase in funding for Iran’s terrorist proxies Hamas and Hezbollah that even President Obama admits will follow the easing of sanctions.
Flynt Leverett, an international relations professor at Pennsylvania State University, whitewashes these terrorist groups as “constituencies” and “communities” which the Iranian regime “help[s] organize in various ways to press their grievances more effectively,” effective terrorism being, for Leverett, a laudable goal. Characterizing the regime as “a rising regional power” and “legitimate political order for most Iranians,” he urges the U.S., through the JCPOA, to “come to terms with this reality.”
Diablo Valley College Middle East studies instructor Amer Araim’s seemingly wishful thinking is equally supportive of Tehran’s line: “it is sincerely hoped that these funds will be used to help the Iranian people develop their economy and to ensure prosperity in that country.” Meanwhile, Hooshang Amirahmadi, an Iranian-American international relations professor at Rutgers University, attempts to legitimize the regime by delegitimizing the sanctions: “The money that will flow to Iran under this deal is not a gift: this is Iran’s money that has been frozen and otherwise blocked.”
Others deny the Iranian regime intends to build a nuclear bomb. University of Michigan history professor Juan Cole has “long argued that [Iran’s leader Ali] Khamenei is sincere about not wanting a nuclear weapon” because of his “oral fatwas or legal rulings” indicating that “using such weapons is contrary to Islamic law.” His unwarranted confidence in the regime leads him to conclude:
[T]hey have developed all the infrastructure and technical knowledge and equipment that would be necessary to make a nuclear weapon, but stop there, much the way Japan has.
Evidently, Cole has no problem with a tyrannical, terrorist-supporting regime that seeks regional hegemony on the threshold of becoming a nuclear power.
Likewise, William Beeman, an anthropology professor at the University of Minnesota, maintains that, “It was . . . easy for Iran to give up a nuclear weapons program that never existed, and that it never intended to implement.” Like Cole, he uncritically accepts and recites the regime’s disinformation: “Iran’s leaders have regularly denounced nuclear weapons as un-Islamic.”
Beeman—who, in previous negotiations with the Iranian regime, urged the U.S. to be “unfailingly polite and humble” and not to set “pre-conditions” regarding its nuclear program—coldly disregards criticism of the JCPOA for excluding conditions such as the “release of [American] political prisoners” and “recognition of Israel,” calling them “utterly irrelevant.” No doubt the relatives of those prisoners and the Israeli citizens who live in the crosshairs of the regime’s continued threats of annihilation would disagree.
A number of academics have resorted to classic anti-Semitic conspiracy mongering to attack the deal’s Israeli and American opponents, calling them the “Israel Lobby.” Muqtedar Khan, director of the Islamic Studies Program at the University of Delaware, accuses “the Israeli government and all those in the U.S. who are under the influence of its American lobbies” of obstructing the deal, claiming that, “The GOP congress is now being described as the [Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin] Netanyahu congress.”
Hatem Bazian, director of the Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project at the University of California, Berkeley, takes aim at “pro-Israel neo-conservatives,” “neo-conservative warmongers,” “AIPAC,” and (in a mangled version of “Israel-firster”) “Israel’s first D.C. crowd” for “attempting to scuttle the agreement.” Asserting a moral equivalence between the dictatorial Iranian regime and the democratically-elected Israeli government, Bazian demands to know when Israel’s “pile of un-inspected or regulated nuclear weapons stockpile” will be examined before answering, “It is not going to happen anytime soon!” That Israel has never threatened any country with destruction, even after being attacked repeatedly since its rebirth, is a fact ignored by its critics.
The unhinged Facebook posts of Columbia University Iranian studies professor and Iranian native Hamid Dabashi reveal in lurid language his hatred of Israel:
It is now time the exact and identical widely intrusive scrutiny and control compromising the sovereignty of the nation-state of Iran and its nuclear program be applied to the European settler colony of Jewish apartheid state of Israel and its infinitely more dangerous nuclear program! There must be a global uproar against the thuggish vulgarity of Netanyahu and his Zionist gangsters in Israel and the U.S. Congress to force them to dismantle their nuclear program–systematically used to terrorize and murder Palestinian people and steal the rest of Palestine!
Elsewhere, Dabashi attacks adversaries of the JCPOA, including “Israel, Saudi Arabia, the U.S. Neocons, and their treacherous expat Iranian stooges masquerading as ‘Opposition,’” calling them a “terrorizing alliance,” a “gang of murderous war criminals,” and “shameless warmongers.”
Willful blindness to Iran’s brutal, terrorist-supporting regime, moral equivocation, and an irrational hatred for Israel and the West characterize the fawning support enjoyed by the mullahs from these and other professors of Middle East studies. In place of objective, rigorously researched plans for countering Iran’s aggression and advancing the safety of America and its allies, they regurgitate the crudest propaganda from Teheran. Until their field of study is thoroughly reformed, their advice—such as it is—should and must be utterly ignored.
awake says
Reza Aslan, “creative writing” professor indeed.
Brian says
As I have often said on blogs and in comments, Reza Aslan is a closet homosexual, just as Obama is a closet Muslim. If that mincing dance doesn’t say it all, then I don’t know what will!
Westman says
Aslan represents the Iran which prosecuted the Iranian “Happy” video dancers? And he dances? Muruna is live and well!
He represents the successor to the “no humor in Islam” jerk who sent my Iranian students to die in a war. A war that would never have occurred if the Shah had not been overthrown by the relgious nuts who saw themselves left behind by modernization and progress.
Those students studied hard and wanted to be and live like Americans but it was stolen by Shia Islam. They were beautiful, bright kids; no hijabs, few beards, and clean. Not the sorry mess like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hassan Rouhani, or Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
jihad3tracker says
****** THANK YOU, BRIAN, FOR A GREAT JOLT OF REALITY ABOUT REZA ASLAN ******
When readers and commenters here have a couple of spare minutes, please send a link to that clip of Mr. Poofy-poof to news directors and media types WHO HAVE USED ASLAN AS AN AUTHORITY PREVIOUSLY.
Huck Folder says
@ awake: beat me to it!
“…creative writing professor Reza Aslan…”
That phrase should always be used, like:
“Unindicted terrorist group cair”, or
“Designated terrorist group cair.”
That should become a millstone round his neck.
Follow it with a few of his choice faux pas,
then segue into whatever point you wish to make.
“Iran’s leaders have regularly denounced
nuclear weapons as un-Islamic.”
Does that make pakistan un-islamic?
Hamid Dabashi: “…force them to dismantle
their nuclear program – systematically used
to terrorize and murder Palestinian people
and steal the rest of Palestine!”
?? I understand the Exclamation Mark
at the end, but the rest sounds very islamic,
i.e. illogical. Can anyone explain the connections?
And who is this creep? Everything you don’t want to know:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamid_Dabashi
“In 2004, Dabashi was involved in a dispute at Columbia University between Jewish students and pro-Palestinian professors, which included accusations of antisemitism against the professors. According to the New York Times, Dabashi was mentioned principally because of his published political viewpoints, and that HE canceled a class to attend a Palestinian rally.”
“In 2002, Dabashi sharply criticized Rabbi Charles Sheer (who was the university’s Jewish chaplain between 1969 and 2004) after he admonished several professors for cancelling their classes to attend pro-Palestinian rallies. Dabashi wrote in the Columbia Spectator that Rabbi Sheer “has taken upon himself the task of mobilizing and spearheading a crusade of fear and intimidation against members of the Columbia faculty and students who have dared to speak against the slaughter of innocent Palestinians.”
“In September 2004, the New York Sun reported that Victor Luria, a Ph.D. student who worked in a Columbia genetics lab and who served in the Israeli military in 1998, sent an email to Dabashi sharply criticizing him for an article he wrote in Al-Ahram. Dabashi subsequently forwarded the email to several top Columbia officials, including Alan Brinkley, claiming that he feared a “potential attack by a militant slanderer” and asked for protection from campus security. Brinkley responded that there was “nothing threatening” about Luria’s email and that campus security would not be notified.” [A loose wingnut!]
“Dabashi has described the state of Israel as “a dyslexic Biblical exegesis,” “occupied Palestine,” “a vicarious avocation,” “a dangerous delusion,” “a colonial settlement,” “a Jewish apartheid state,” and “a racist apartheid state”
“In an interview with AsiaSource in June 2003, Dabashi stated that supporters of Israel “cannot see that Israel over the past 50 years as a colonial state – first with WHITE European colonial settlers, then WHITE American colonial settlers, now WHITE Russian colonial settlers – amounts to nothing more than a military base for the rising predatory empire of the United States. [Racist? Much? FBI?]
“Israel has no privilege greater or less than Pakistan or Kuwait or Saudi Arabia. These are all military bases but some of them, like Israel, are like the hardware of the American imperial imagination.”
“In an interview with the Electronic Intifada in September 2002, Dabashi referred to the pro-Israel lobby as “Gestapo apparatchiks” and that “The so-called “pro-Israeli lobby” is an integral component of the imperial designs of the Bush administration for savage and predatory globalization.” He also criticized “fanatic zealots from Brooklyn” who have settled on Palestinian lands.
“Dabashi has also harshly criticized the New York Times for what he describes as a bias towards Israel, stating that the paper is “the single most nauseating propaganda paper on planet.”
“In September 2004, Dabashi sharply criticized Israel in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram, writing that:
What they call “Israel” is no mere military state. A subsumed militarism, a systemic mendacity with an ingrained violence constitutional to the very fusion of its fabric, [?] has penetrated the deepest corners of what these people have to call their “soul.”… [dehumanizing?]
“Half a century of systematic maiming and murdering of another people has left its deep marks on the faces of these people, the way they talk, the way they walk, the way they handle objects, the way they greet each other, the way they look at the world. There is an endemic prevarication to this machinery, a vulgarity of character that is bone-deep and structural to the skeletal vertebrae of its culture.
“Responding to Dabashi’s Al-Ahram essay, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger said, “I want to completely disassociate myself from those ideas. They’re outrageous things to say, in my view.”
“Jonathan Rosenblum, director of Jewish Media Resources, later wrote that “Dabashi apparently subscribes to Lamarckian genetics [that an organism can pass on experiences and characteristics that it acquires during its lifetime to its offspring]. Not only have the alleged actions of Israeli Jews effected changes in their very bone structure, but those changes are transmitted to subsequent generations.
“Dabashi’s depiction of the debased Jewish physiognomy is racism pure and simple.” In The Bulletin, Herb Denenberg wrote that Dabashi’s article “is not borderline racism. It’s as gross and obvious as racism can get.”
“Writing in The Nation, Scott Sherman wrote that Dabashi’s article was “troubling” [is that ALL?] because of its “sweeping characterization of an entire people–“Israeli Jews” or not—as vulgar and domineering in their very essence. The passage can easily be construed as anti-Semitic. Dabashi, at a minimum, is guilty of shrill and careless writing.” [‘creative writing?]
“In a sworn statement submitted to the US Commission on Civil Rights, Dabashi stated that he has not expressed, nor ever harbored, [!] any anti-Semitic sentiments and that the 2004 Al-Ahram essay was being misconstrued.
“He has also criticized pro-Israel groups in the United States, saying that the “pro-Israeli Zionist lobby in the US banked and invested heavily in infiltrating, buying, and paying for all the major and minor corridors of power.” In the same article, Dabashi endorsed cultural and academic boycotts of Israel.
“In a letter to the Columbia Spectator, Dabashi wrote that the above passage was “not a racial characterization of a people, but a critical reflection on the body politics of state militarism” and the effects that it has on human beings. Dabashi also apologized for “any hurt that I may have inadvertently caused” due to the interpretation of the passage. ‘That ‘apology’ and $1 will get you a cup of coffee!]
“In an article published January 2009, Dabashi advocated for boycott efforts targeting both individuals and institutions:
“The divestment campaign that has been far more successful in Western Europe needs to be reinvigorated in North America – as must the boycotting of the Israeli cultural and academic institutions… Naming names and denouncing individually every prominent Israeli intellectual who has publicly endorsed their elected officials’ wide-eyed barbarism, and then categorically boycotting their universities and colleges, film festivals and cultural institutions, is the single most important act of solidarity that their counterparts can do around the world.”
“Dabashi is on the advisory board of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel.”
There’s quite a bit more there about this professional taqiyyameister, supremacist dipshit. And here too:
http://www.danielpipes.org/2255/hamid-dabashi-columbia-universitys-hysterical-professor
The creep’s got form. He’s really helping to drag down his ‘university’.
john spielman says
I am sorry Reza, but I will not listen to you because you’re so full of SHITTE that if given an enema you would fit in a shoe box
Walter Sieruk says
It’s very obvious that Obama , Kerry and the other naive and gullible politicians of the West are no match at all for the sly, insidious and deceptive Islamic fiends who have great power in the tyrannical Islamic regime of Iran. This so called “deal’ with Iran is not only a travesty but also a sick and tragic joke. Any thinking person after really looking at this “deal” will see it as a farce,a hoax and a disaster.
mortimer says
Juan Cole’s unflagging support for the Iranian mullahocracy’s TERRORIST STATE would be more horrifying if the mullahs all adopted SS uniforms.
The Western world just sees that the ayatollahs are ‘religious’ and then turn off their attention. Adolf Hitler and Himmler were also ‘religious’…they were members of a secret death cult society.
The Islamic Death Cult has nothing that a moral person can defend. Juan Cole’s ethics seem to be based on his unhealthy fascination with the Shi’ite legal system which prescribes the death sentence for nearly every perceived crime. Aslan and Cole seem in worlds of their own. Their students cannot be getting a good education.
jewdog says
It’s bad enough that some of our top-flight universities take so many millions from the petro-states, but do they also have to sell their souls by staffing their departments with Islamo-fascist parrots?
And yes, Reza Aslan is a clown’s clown.
Stephanie says
1 min Taqiyyah—’deceit’ Q3:28, 16:106—PhD Reza Aslan,
ALL Muslims believe in the SAME Allah”
http://192.96.206.71/reza-aslan.html
mortimer says
Stephanie wrote: “ALL Muslims believe in the SAME Allah”
Allah is ‘the best of deceivers’. So are his devout followers.
Stephanie says
PhD Reza Aslan: US, Iran “more ALIKE than they are different,”
youtube video
https://twitter.com/schnellmann_org/status/627564787665371136
Stephanie says
PhD Reza Aslan
Champ says
So you think you can dance …
Angemon says
All sound like people right up Obama’s alley.
Huck Folder says
I thought the likes of ‘Rev’ Wright (very silent these days?),
Alinsky, Ayers, Ahmedinejad, Aslan,…
were ‘right up obuMBoy’s back alley’?
michael mansolino says
This guy has the smile and dance moves of a village idiot; no wonder he is happy about a deal with these savages who would have no problem killing him if he were over there. This is the kind of moron ushering in the demise of civilization that will be replaced by a savage blood cult who condones honor killings, pedophilia, polygamy, and slavery as described in that terrorist manifesto known as the Koran. 1400 of these savages being kicked out of every civilized country and not one idiot in our government is choosing to remember the lessons past. In fact, these same “F”ing crooked idiots choose not to recognize the actions of these savages over the last twenty years; Europe and the United states will fall if we don’t hit these savages hard every where they exist.
Alissa says
Shoot. I was hoping someone was going to come around the corner and kick his ass.
Don McKellar says
Get out of the closet already, Reza! You’re GAY! Reza Aslan is a gay moslem! Yes, that means, at best, either jail, or a forced sex change in Iran under your mullah masters in Iran, but that’s Islam for you. They could kill you, according to the Koran, but I’m sure they’ll have mercy on you and give you choice between the first two options like they do all gays in Iran.
Is THIS why the leftists love Reza Aslan so much? Have they got their gay-dar on and recognized one of their pet project protected people. Not only that but a MOSLEM GAY MAN! Reza Aslan has both bases covered. No wonder he’s a leftist darling still — even after all the astonishing idiocy and deception that Robert Spencer lays bare and reminds us all of in the story.
Yes, Reza Aslan is made out of leftist teflon — he is a gay moslem man. Nothing sticks to him! Keep on dancing in your rainbow sweats! Maybe you can become the Richard Simmons of Iran — in between jail time and provided you can duck the forced sex change…
Cecilia Ellis says
Bet he stays away from tall buildings . . .
Jade says
He probably thinks he looks cool dancing. We’re laughing AT you, “professor”, not with you. You look as stupid as you are.
kay says
The thing to do is hammer on Reza Aslan over at youtube in the discussion threads.
It’s easy and fun. It demoralizes the bad guys.
Aslan just talks nonsense. He’s arrogant. He’s a front man for Iranian Islamofascism .He’s a perfect target.
Tim says
at least he is wearing his PRIDE colors after decades of being a closet case…
Shawn says
Can’t anyone do a serious petition against this Charlatan teaching at a University of California, Riverside?!
It is disgraceful for a good institution to have among its instructors, a Supporter of a Terrorist regime (Islamic Republic Regime), with proven strong Ties to NIAC- A lobbying group for the Islamic Republic-A strong Proxy of the Regime in USA.
I hope someone takes initiative to Petition against his position at UC, Riverside.
kay says
Re: “It is disgraceful for a good institution to have among its instructors, a Supporter of a Terrorist regime (Islamic Republic Regime),”
Reza Aslan is proven to share a bed with the evil bad guy Islamofascists in Tehran.
And Noam Chomsky at MIT supports Islamic State as a “defender of the people” in Iraq.
There are of course others.
What is needed is a public hammering of these academic supporters of bloodthirsty Islamic fascism.
In social media and so forth. One example is youtube. Both these bad guys are prominent on youtube. So is the evil Tariq Ramadan, the chief bad guy apologist.
No one can expect that Aslan or any other fifth columnist will be removed from an academic position.
But it is certainly possible to clobber their public images and make life really difficult for them by introducing reasoning, evidence and the bad stuff they stand for.
This is of highest importance in hammering on the bad guys in academia. They are a real problem and it is of great importance to humiliate them. “You’re not the good guys. You’re the Bad Guys! And here is the proof.” We have to reduce their social capital and lower their team morale.
The disgrace is not that people like Aslan, Chomsky, Ramadan or others get and keep major appointments. The disgrace is not that they are well-known public intellectuals. Everybody has the right to speak, including Nazis, Communists, and Islamists. The point is that we take these public discussions as Teachable Moments, present the good guy perspective and break their narrative.
Sam Harris has the right approach. He is calm, reasoned, articulate, well-informed. And an atheist. Maybe few or none around here support Sam Harris apart from me. But he is one of the most important resources for counter-jihad.
So the point I make is clear, and it is emphasized by Bill Warner: the good guys must get together and work together. I have studied what Aslan and Ramadan have to say. I have also studied what the atheist critics of Islam have to say. Examples of the latter are Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens as well as Sam Harris.
For the purposes of counter-jihad, Aslan ‘n Chomsky ‘n Ramadan BAD.
For the purposes of counter-jihad, Harris ‘n Dawkins ‘n Hitchens GOOD. Clear?
A person who does not get this is someone who understands NOTHING about counter-jihad and is therefore pretty useless to this effort. I have already clearly proven that the Anglican Church and Pope Francis are not on the counter-jihad team.
As a self-led keyboard warrior I do more for counter-jihad than the Anglicans and the Catholics put together. And I know a LOT more about the history and doctrine of jihad and Sharia than their policies and leaders demonstrate. The Anglicans and the Catholics have no playbook! But I have a playbook. And it is based on research, strategy, debate and social media.
I’m so glad I played a lot of Chess back in high school. The Anglicans and the Catholics are losing the Great Game because they don’t even know how to play.
In Chess, the pieces have to be brought into play and co-ordinated both for defense and and attack. The pieces must have scope and the opponent pieces must be marginalized or tied down.
There are books on strategy. The main thing here is to mount an effective campaign in social media.
I did an unrelated media campaign yesterday, for eight hours, across a whole range of online groups. Jesus is not the leader of my team. He’s a pacifist. Not useful. Sun Tzu is the leader of my team. This is now all guerrilla warfare. And that is proven very effective in the real world.
Shawn says
Can’t anyone do a serious petition against this Charlatan teaching at a University of California, Riverside.
It is disgraceful for a good institution to have among its instructors, a Supporter of a Terrorist regime (Islamic Republic Regime), with strong Ties to NIAC- A lobbying group for the Islamic Republic-A strong Proxy of the Regime in USA.
I hope someone takes initiative to Petition against his position at UC, Riverside.