O PINIONS MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2007
PAGE 11
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Fact-electual diversity BY JUSTIN ELLIOTT GUEST COLUMNIST
Brown Jug, move over. The Brown Spectator is now the premier humor magazine on campus. For those of you who don’t know, the Spectator is a right-wing magazine that appears at the Ratty more and more often these days thanks to a few Brown alums who started a fundraising operation called the Foundation for Intellectual Diversity (motto: “ideas without labels”). The officers of the foundation include Travis Rowley ’02, whose book “Out of Ivy” is a heart-rending account of his brutal victimization at the hands of the campus left. Ideally, a conservative magazine like the Spectator would provide a welcome counterpoint to Brown’s prevailing “liberal orthodoxy.” Instead, the latest issue of the publication that calls itself “a journal of conservative and libertarian thought” is a hilarious mix of bad writing, bad arguments and other crimes against journalism. Editor in Chief Pratik Chougule ’08 leads the charge with two classic conservative-aseternal-victim narratives. In “Teaching Republicans: Dogmatism at the Brown Alumni Magazine,” Chougule takes aim at the BAM for printing two letters to the editor responding to a recent cover story on campus politics. Chougule was one of a handful of students featured in the BAM cover story, and both letter-writers criticize his comments about Iraq and Iran. In his Spectator article, Chougule asserts the letters have a “totalitarian tone” (whatever that means) and writes, “most galling … is the Brown Alumni Magazine’s decision to publish only these two letters. While I am certainly speculating, I think it is fair to
assume that (Howard) Karten ’65 and (Sara) Silberman ’63 were not the only alumni to send letters to the editor.” Chougule reinforces his anti-totalitarian credentials with the assertion that “reeducation in journalistic integrity wouldn’t be such a bad idea for the editors at the Brown Alumni Magazine.” I went ahead and asked BAM editor and publisher and known pinko Norman Boucher about the letters — something Chougule could have done instead of “certainly speculating.” Here’s what Boucher wrote me via email: “The letters we printed were the only ones we received about the article.” Oops. Who is it, again, that needs reeducation in journalistic integrity? Chougule’s other article, titled simply “Sharia Law,” takes on the Nonie Darwish speaker controversy. Darwish is an “Arab feminist” who gave an emotional, somewhat loony speech earlier this month about the threat of radical Islam. Chougule tells his version of the story of how Darwish’s initial invitation to speak was withdrawn by Hillel. His is a lurid tale of radical Islamist censorship. “When Hillel announced its decision to invite Darwish to speak, the Brown University Muslim Students Association promptly insisted that Hillel rescind the invitation. Their reasoning: Darwish is ‘too controversial.’ After a brief period of internal debate, Hillel buckled and withdrew its invitation.” Chougule doesn’t cite any source for his “too controversial” quote or, for that matter, any of his narrative. The kicker, however, comes later: “In successfully pushing to silence a woman ... simply for voicing grievances against Islamic radicalism, the Muslim Students Association sends an unequivocal message: Muslims who defend Israel and America in the War on Terrorism … are anti-Muslim.” That’s quite a condemnation. Our poor Muslim Students Association really comes
across as an al-Qaida sleeper cell. If Chougule had bothered to spend two minutes on Google before breathlessly alerting us that the Brown MSA hates Israel, he would have found an official University statement from December that dispels all of his allegations: “It has been reported in many venues that the Muslim Students Association voiced objections to the original idea of bringing Ms. Darwish to the Brown campus. That is not, in fact, true. The Muslim Students Association was not approached as a group about the event nor did they express any objection to her speaking at Brown. Any representations to the contrary are false.” Hmm. The only mystery left is where Chougule got his false narrative. It turns out some right-wing commentators in the national media, including CNN talk show host Glenn Beck, picked up the Darwish story late last year. Unsurprisingly, while scoring cheap talking points on a campus story, the pundits got some basic facts wrong, including the (non) role of the Muslims Students Association. Chougule apparently decided that Beck, who once described himself as “a recovering alcoholic rodeo clown with limited education,” was a good source for campus news. So much for “Sharia Law.” Unfortunately, Chougule’s not the only Spectator writer to suffer from a trigger-happy keyboard. Managing Editor Jason Carr ’09 has a thought-piece in the latest issue called “Asian-Americans in Admissions: When Success Breeds a Backlash.” Surely this is a complex issue that deserves a nuanced treatment, especially because Brown admission data is not public, meaning that any speculation about discrimination is, well, speculation. The argument Carr delivers instead is vintage Spectator. He begins by seeming to quote our own admission officer: “according
to Brown Dean of Admission James S. Miller ’73, the University works to achieve, ‘selection by a personal estimate of character on the part of the admission authorities, based on the probable value to the college and to the community of his admission.’” Except Carr immediately reveals that the quote is from 1926, and the speaker not our own James S. Miller but A. Lawrence Lowell, former president of Harvard University — “that rabidly anti-Semitic institution of yore [sic].” Whoah! Bet you weren’t expecting that one. Rather than actually quoting Miller, Carr puts words from a completely different context in his mouth — a context which happens to be anti-Semitic. No explanation is necessary. The analysis is damning. I can’t cover the whole magazine here, only encourage you to flip through and share a few guffaws with your friends. “Panda Porn” is a strange, extended analogy involving Sex Power God and Chinese pandas having sex. There’s another piece arguing Israel should put the peace process “on the ash heap.” There’s an article taking on the Red Terror (“Thievery as Public Service: Understanding Communism”) approximately 20 years after everyone stopped caring. All of this from a publication that bestows the title “editor” on twenty-five individuals. What’s worse, this column will probably inflame the magazine’s misplaced sense of victimhood. Seriously though, if the Spectator is the cutting edge of “intellectual diversity” at Brown, can someone please tell me how to opt out?
Former Herald Executive Editor Justin Elliott ’07 is actually an alumnus from Yale. His real name is Martin Silberman. We apologize to our readers for any confusion.
Iraq: More real and less moralpolitik BY BORIS RYVKIN OPINIONS COLUMNIST
The United States stands at a critical geopolitical crossroads. The next year will determine whether the United States attains the position of power broker or sees its power break. The current situation in Iraq underscores an unfortunate adage: politicians rarely make effective strategists. In order for the United States to buttress its strategic interests and national security needs, minimize its military casualties and wartime expenditures and strengthen its regional influence, it must repudiate democracy building and return to a realist mindset. A new vision for Iraq and the Middle East is necessary if U.S. fortunes are to improve. Iran’s nuclear ambitions and regional aims must be addressed in any serious discussion of Iraq. The regime in Tehran faces a number of serious challenges in its nuclear development. The quality of the nuclear fuel at the Bushehr and Isfahan facilities is dubious, as are the centrifuges necessary for uranium enrichment. The lack of a delivery mechanism is another problem, which is underscored by a few comparisons. South Africa began its nuclear program near the end of World War II and tested its first device only in 1976. It should be noted that the country had a wellfunded and advanced research and development core, large territorial uranium deposits and near-perfect secrecy. According to the Institute for Science and International Security, the first bomb measured a gargantuan 4.5 me-
ters in length and weighed 3,400 kilograms. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reported that China, a state with a $700-billion trade surplus and a standing army of over 2.3 million, has produced only 80 land-based weapons after 40 years of nuclear development. Given Iran’s low uranium deposits, dearth of trained scientists and 11 percent unemployment rate, historical precedent should cause us to question our hysteria. Whatever weapon Iran does produce, it will simply be too large to hand to individual terrorist groups. Iran’s nuclear drive is not aimed at global apocalypse, but at sustaining an increasingly tenuous regime. Iran’s aims are almost purely regional. Shackling Western diplomacy with its public provocations and military posturing, it has made tremendous inroads on the Arab street. The regime has expanded its influence in Lebanon by footing the bill of last summer’s conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, signed military cooperation pacts with Syria and funds the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance in Iraq. While problematic, this situation presents an opportunity for U.S. strategists. It was Iran that backed the Northern Alliance against the Taliban more than five years before Enduring Freedom. Tehran fears a success of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, perhaps more than we do. It is especially eager to augment its position at the expense of its chief Sunni rival to the west and the second regional player of significant importance — Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia’s relations with the United States are heavily one-way. The threat emanating from Riyadh could be traced back to 1925, when the House of Saud captured
Mecca and Medina to become the dominant political force in the Arabian Peninsula. The victory was achieved in part due to Muhammed Saud’s alliance with the followers of Muhammed Abd bin-Wahhab, the founder of Salafism, considered among the most fundamentalist strains of Sunni Islam. In 1979, Khomeini’s rise in Iran and the seizure of sensitive parts of Mecca by extremist elements led the Saudi royal family to make what former C.I.A. Director James Woolsey called a “Faustian bargain” with the Salafi clerics. The royals ceded most educational, religious and cultural authority to the clerical elite in return for increased legitimacy and fewer investigations into state corruption. Presently, the Saudi royals are largely shunned on the Arab street as apostates and Western sell-outs, forcing them further into the arms of the clerics.Twentyfive percent of state GDP is set aside for socalled “patronage projects,” largely bribes to tribal and religious leaders as well as the export of Salafism across the globe. The billions of Saudi Riyals spent on such efforts, which include complete or partial funding of over 200 Islamic centers, 1,500 mosques and 202 colleges were publicly acknowledged by the royal family. According to the think-tank Fredom House, King Fahd, the main mosque in Los Angeles, has been directly staffed by Saudi officials. Fifteen of the 19 Sept. 11, 2001 hijackers were Saudi nationals. Right up until the U.S.-led invasion, the U.S.’s trusted “allies” in Saudi Arabia were directly equipping and financing the Taliban. The Saudis pose a distinctly transnational threat, and to a US fighting an ideological conflict and defending
far-reaching global interests, a more lethal danger than Iran’s regional aspirations. Having positioned the chief players, we return to Iraq. The United States should move toward trade and diplomatic normalization with Tehran, perhaps engaging in limited military cooperation. The Saudis, heavily divided about supporting the Sunni insurgency between clerical hardliners and wealthy coastal Shiites, would be pushed to step up aid. Accepting Riyadh, and not Tehran, as the chief threat to US interests, Iran would be allowed to consolidate a sphere of influence in the Shia south. The Saudis would be pressed to create a sphere of influence in Anbar Province. U.S. troop deployment could be reduced from 133,000 to less than 50,000, with bilateral negotiations beginning with Turkey on a package of financial and military incentives to allow for a maximum of Kurdish autonomy and a minimum of tolerance for the increased troop presence. Iraq’s collapse into three pieces and a Saudi-Iranian balance coordinating a massive proxy sectarian conflict would completely change U.S. fortunes. The Saudis would have to divert funding to check Iranian influence and a feigned embracing of Tehran might convince them to stop seeing their relations with the United States as a oneway street. Iranian regional influence would be weakened, a split from Syria made more likely and its nuclear program delayed. The United States could emerge as a major regional power broker and frame Iraq into a larger balance of power strategy. Boris Ryvkin ’09 wants to be a politikian.