Speakers at a September 12 panel at a conference on democracy in the Muslim world reflected Middle East Studies’ prevailing pro-Iran, anti-Saudi bias. That it occurred at the most infamous Saudi-sponsored academic center in America represents an ironic break with past practices that generally ignored Saudi human rights violations.
All participants in the panel “Jamal Khashoggi, Human Rights, and the US-Saudi Alliance” were critical of American alliance with Saudi Arabia. The panel’s chair, University of Denver Professor Nader Hashemi, set the tone with his introductory statement that “this panel is especially devoted to the memory, the legacy of Jamal Khashoggi.” During his presentation, Hashemi, a Board member of the conference sponsor, the Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy (CSID), lionized Khashoggi, the dissident Saudi writer murdered last year.
The panel was part of a conference titled Democracy and Good Governance in Muslim-Majority Countries: Lessons from the Last 20 Years, hosted by Georgetown University’s Saudi-sponsored Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU) the Copley Formal Lounge. The University of Denver’s Center for Middle East Studies and the Center for Global Policy were cosponsors.
Conference participants and audience members included past and present ACMCU faculty Jonathan Brown, John Esposito, and Tamara Sonn, as well as Georgetown’s Muslim chaplain Yahya Hendi. Also attending were George Washington University Professor William Lawrence, International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT) associate Ermin Sinanovic, CATO Institute sharia apologist Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, and his former CATO colleague, foreign relations analyst Stanley Kober.
Hashemi opened the panel by calling for a moment of silence to remember Khashoggi, a “friend of many people in this room,” whom Western media have frequently portrayed as a martyr for Saudi political reform. Saudi agents brutally murdered Khashoggi when he entered Turkey’s Saudi consulate reportedly to receive divorce papers for his first wife. Hashemi recalled that Khashoggi had received CSID’s “Muslim Democrat of the Year” award at last year’s conference. Hashemi’s University of Denver Center for Middle East Studies has reverently transcribed Khashoggi’s speech.
Hashemi advocated a tougher line against Saudi Arabia than against Iran. He expressed regret that Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS), the presumed author of Khashoggi’s assassination, “has gotten away and will get away with murder.” In contrast to Hashemi’s demand for sanctioning Saudi Arabia, he advocated for better relations with Iran using the myth of the “reformist” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javed Zarif: “If you get him in the privacy of a room he will probably say things that are very progressive and liberal,” Hashemi speculated about this “very articulate spokesperson.”
Such sentiments are nothing new for the Iranian-American Hashemi. Even though Saudi Arabia remains a critical American ally in confronting threats from Iran, which in turn remains a state sponsor of terrorism, he favors the latter. At past CSID events, Hashemi has hosted Trita Parsi, the founder and former president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a lobby for the Islamic Republic of Iran according to credible accusations. Analogously, Hashemi signed in 2018 and 2019 NIAC open letters promoting Iranian sanctions relief and has blamed American policy for Iranian belligerence in the Strait of Hormuz.
Panelist William D. Hartung, an Iran nuclear deal supporter and arms trade analyst at the Center for International Policy, similarly appealed for a “more balanced approach” between the Islamic Republic and Saudi Arabia. “Iran doesn’t have to be our best friend, but nor should it be we demonize Iran and give Saudi Arabia a free pass” as if it were a “privileged ally.” Although American sanctions have demonstrably restrained Iranian military spending, he argued against American policies of using Saudi Arabia “as part of a campaign of regime change or maximum pressure or demonization, kind of targeting of Iran.”
Hartung and his fellow panelist, Human Rights Watch (HRW) Middle East and North Africa Division Director Sarah Leah Whitson, advocated ending American arms sales to the Saudis. The panelists offered as justification their indiscriminate bombing in Yemen, where an Iranian proxy war has threatened Saudi Arabia. Sober observers have argued that engagement with Saudi Arabia’s deeply problematic theocracy is wiser than sanctions, particularly since the Saudi government fights jihadists, while Iran sponsors them.
While Iran is in fact a far greater threat to security and human rights in the Middle East than Saudi Arabia, Whitson noted that international outcry over Khashoggi’s murder has had an effect. “By some definitions, probably the Saudi definition,” MBS “and Saudi Arabia have paid a steeper price, for torturing and murdering Jamal Khashoggi than any other leader has paid for murdering and torturing a political dissident.” She added, “or for that matter hundreds of thousands of people such as Bashar al-Assad,” Iran’s Syrian dictator proxy.
Whitson even argued that recent extraordinary Saudi women’s rights reforms are “really just part of paying the bill for murdering Jamal.” Due to public relations concern, she argued, the Saudis had a “desperate need to do something that changes narrative.” Despite Whitson’s dismissal of Saudi reforms, MBS has recently implemented others, including recognizing a Jewish right to a homeland in Israel.
Changing Saudi relationships with Israel, another Iranian target, raised doubts about the panelists’ human rights bona fides, as suggested by Saudi media documentation of HRW’s pro-Iranian, anti-Saudi bias. Whitson boasted of none other than HRW’s rabid anti-Israel positions in order to fundraise at a 2009 gala dinner in the Saudi Arabia she now condemns. Likewise panelist Abdullah Alaoudh, an ACMCU senior fellow, has touted his father, Salman Al-Odah, currently sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia, as a liberal reformer, but his Islamist biography proves otherwise.
The Iranian attack on vital Saudi Arabian oil installations two days after the panel revealed some of its claims as risible, but ivory tower misinformation is no laughing matter. Proposals and theories discussed in Middle East studies are no parlor game, but have real-world consequences when policymakers and politicians act on their skewed, politicized views. In this case, deemphasizing the Iranian threat to the Middle East at the cost of devaluing an important, if flawed, American ally could plunge the region into war.
Andrew E. Harrod is a Campus Watch Fellow, freelance researcher, and writer who holds a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a J.D. from George Washington University Law School. He is a fellow with the Lawfare Project. Follow him on Twitter at @AEHarrod.
Angemon says
An anti-Western Saudi was murdered in Turkey by other Saudis, therefore US bad. Makes sense?… Oh, and I wonder how many of those “critics” are as outraged with, for example, the fates of Zahra Kazemi, Darioush Forouhar or Sattar Beheshti?…
Well, being anti-American certainly wins points with the red-green alliance…
Infidel says
True, but can’t Riyadh be influenced to cut funding to this group, not just for dissing the Saudis, but for plugging Iran?
mortimer says
KSA will send its wealth to another college.
mortimer says
KSA will try to get them all fired. And if not, invite them to a Saudi embassy for a chat.
Lotus says
After Kashoggi, we all know what that means!
mortimer says
They came within a hair’s breadth of calling ‘TAKFIR’ against the House of Saud. I believe that the House of Saud has been delivered an ultimatum by these fools. The Saudi intelligence will have to send out their version of 007 to liquidate all the enemies of KSA. One by one, those foolish critics of KSA will start to disappear mysteriously.
If the House of Saud wants to survive (and they do), it has no other choice than to send out Arabian 007s to suppress its enemies and critics. They will be smarter at it next time. They make it look like an accident.
Lotus says
Both Iran and Saudi Arabia can be considered enemies of the West, but the way Western countries treat them differs greatly.
Iran has for many years now been openly hostile to us, and so Western countries have a more openly frosty or even belligerent relationship with it.
Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has been more stealthy in its attempts to undermine Western societies and their values and to disseminate Wahhabi Islam, a venture which has, from its point of view, been very successful.
Saudi has been immensely helped in this endeavour by the fact that it possesses vast amounts of oil and gas, which means that Western countries are loth to criticise it and in fact shamelessly suck up to it.
Their is no more loathsome sight in politics than seeing the Saudi head of state turn up in Washington and watching the US President lick his sandals. The hypocrisy is truly breathtaking.
https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2019/10/15/the-saudi-stink-of-hypocrisy/
https://www.theweek.co.uk/87832/wahhabism-what-is-it-and-why-does-it-matter
gravenimage says
Neither of these Muslim thugs are allies of ours.
KWJ says
Same with Qatar and lesser Turkey. Not allies really. Qatar is very actively undermining the US and it’s all the investments they have in the US that keeps causing Americans to embarrassingly kick their sandals. It’s not just oil but what all that money was invested in and purchased, such as a refinery in Texas recently, Saudis run ports in England, Qataris now have some military plane or something in Virginia, the major shares in media, even school textbook companies…yet Americans don’t stand up to this and influence peddling.
The Muslim Brotherhood is an enemy to the US in every way. So, a frenemy kills an MB guy. Who cares? Only those who support the MB and traitors.
But yeah, for decades now the Saudis have demeaned American politicians and ambassadors. They really do make fun of them behind their backs as it then gets repeated. As for American citizens in general, they think we’re repeatedly duped by our government and they have a lot of dirt they can reveal.
gravenimage says
No Muslims are really allies of ours.
Beth Singer says
No, the Muslims are our enemies, unless there is some way we serve their interests, and then we use each other. As the papers retrieved from the Muslim Brotherhood by the FBI attest, they want nothing more than to weaken and bring down the US and the rest of Western civilization. These goals do not a friend make. We need to get the word out about their motivations, their history and what the lunatic author of the Qur’an said. And Georgetown should be ashamed of itself; uncover everyone of those crucifixes and keep them uncovered at all times.
FYI says
“Arabian 007s”?Intriguing idea.
The name is Bund.Abdool “Jims” Bund
Might make for some interesting islamic movies:-
Iranian version..
“The islamic world is not shi’te enough”
Saudi version..
“The Sunni islamic world doesn’t need shi’tes”
…
Above it are Nineteen.
Tomorrow all the infidels die …again.
From iran to Israel with hate.
For infidel eyes only.
jihadism never dies.
Spectre… of endless jihad.
FYI says
Also an islamic bond would certainly..
1)Have a “license to kill” infidels {as the koran is OK with murder k2:191 just as long as the targets are non-muslim infidels:Hindus,Buddhists,Jews,Christians,Sikhs,Ex-muslim “apostates”,Atheists”..}
2}And would surely have a copious supply of women{being polygamous k4:3 and perhaps even a child bride k65:4:the koran is OK with that too},perhaps a bit of infidel crumpet on the side{like muhammed with Mary the Copt:but of course in islamic teaching it isn’t adultery if the woman is an infidel is it?}
He probably won’t be great at foreign languages as allah thinks Arabs are not linguistically gifted.
{“What!A FOREIGN TONGUE and an Arab?koran 41:44}
music,alcohol,extramarital sex of course may be haram in islam but the devout muslim is free to indulge as long as nobody finds out.
gravenimage says
All of these Muslims–as they see it–have a licence to kill.
gravenimage says
Profs at Infamous Saudi-Sponsored Academic Center Advocate Iranian Hegemony, Downgrade Saudi-American Ties
…………………..
Still sucking up to thugs who hate the free West, whichever ugly “flavor” they happen to be…
KWJ says
Exactly. And these professors should not be taken too seriously because they are notoriously wrong and often intellectual inbreds, no less unethical in being paid in some way or another by various interests.
I wonder if the Washington Post has hired or stood up for all the other Saudi dissidents, disappearances and exiles.