President Trump’s Speech
President Donald Trump’s international tour as Commander-in-Chief received a generous welcome on his first stop in Saudi Arabia, where he spoke with strong conviction on an array of issues including Islamic terrorism and then signing an arms agreement worth $110 billion.
Through his widely anticipated epic speech in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, President Trump made a pivotal alliance with the Muslim world. He dropped the use of the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism,” the same phrase he repeatedly disparaged Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for being reluctant to say. In its place, he decided to go with a less aggressive phrase: “Islamist extremism.” President Trump was disciplined and persistently on message as opposed to his usual off the cuff remarks at home. He was careful, methodical and very presidential in his speech delivery.
In all honesty, I was not aware that President Trump was in fact planning to meet with fifty Muslim leaders during his Saudi visit. The MSM has been hard at work promoting “fake news” and the “Russian Hoax” collusion story for months and they refused to acknowledge or even cover real stories in preparation for this historic visit, the way it should have been reported.
“We are adopting a principled realism, rooted in common values and shared interests,” Trump addressed the Saudis as well as fifty leaders of Muslim countries on Sunday, May 21, 2017. Well, we should ask what values do we, as ‘Americans’ share with head-choppers, barbaric and despotic Saudis other than arms sales and oil?
In his speech, the President stated, it was up to Muslim leaders to purge extremists from their midst:
“Drive them out,” he said. “Drive them out of your places of worship. Drive them out of your communities. Drive them out of your holy land. And drive them out of this earth.”
The President is right. Religious high authorities play a critical role in steering the masses toward or away from hate. The late Pope’s public pronouncement, for instance, absolving the Jews as the Christ killers has reduced anti-Semitism among rank and file Christians. Fatwas—religious decrees—by Islamic Muftis and Ayatollahs carry considerable weight with their respective followers.
Sadly, most decrees and adjudications of these high Islamic authorities are exclusionary and even hostile toward out-groups. These high divines are the suppliers of opinions as well as the teachers of the rank and file clergy who take the same ideas to the masses in villages and cities. Madrasahs in Pakistan, schools in Saudi Arabia and Maktabs—religious schools—in Iran, as well as innumerable mosques serve as places where this disease of hate can be transmitted with considerable success to the just too willing believers.
The President said “terrorists do not worship God, they worship death. … This is not a battle between different faiths … this is a battle between good and evil.”
That is correct. Civilized people cherish and celebrate life. Islamists relish death as stated in their ideology and practiced daily. The Khomeinist regime sent tens of thousands of its own children to their death clearing minefields in its holy war with Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. Not limiting itself to this horrific act, the Khomeinists massacred tens of thousands of political dissenters without the least due process. Islam wins when you kill or you get killed.
The President in his speech outlined that it is ultimately up to them to rise up and expunge the “hatred” ideology. It will be interesting to watch whether or not Saudi Arabia and the other 50 Muslim countries present at the meeting would ever make a 180-degree reversal and take an active and leading role in fighting Islamism!!
It is interesting to note what Obama wasn’t able to accomplish in eight years, President Trump did in one trip and with one powerful presentation.
In my opinion, the President’s speech was superb, to the point and insightful. Perhaps one of his best, considering the sensitivity of the issue. Trump’s speech was epical and in historic proportion which will resonate with powerful impact in the Muslim world as well as across the globe.
While I applaud the President for having the courage and insight to address such important yet sensitive subject matter to fifty Muslim leaders in the cradle of Islam, Saudi Arabia, I have a word of caution:
Until the elected officials address the threat of Islam problem as a whole to our society and culture, people will continue to die. If we simply ignore this threat, people will continue to die in these sporadic attacks. Until there is a true understanding of this faith and a means to control its fire, we, along with other people will continue to die. Until United States citizens understand that all violent Islamic fundamentalist groups and all devout Muslims wish to eradicate all non-believers, we will continue to remain at the mercy of Islamic terrorists.
Facts about Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia remains the most prolific sponsor of international Islamic terrorism. Saudi Arabia actively suppresses and even forbids the practice of other religions, including those of the “people of the book,” Jews and Christians. They don’t tolerate public worship by adherents of religions other than Islam and systematically discriminate against Muslim religious minorities, notably Twelver Shia and Ismailis.
Saudi Arabia, despite their great wealth and many universities, institutes and research centers that are equipped with the latest technologies, their society and culture and way of thinking remain backward.
Saudi Arabia applies Sharia (Islamic law) as the law of the land. Judges decide many matters relating to criminal offenses pursuant to Sharia in accordance with conventional rules of jurisprudence and precedent.
There is not a single church or synagogue in the cradle of Islam, Saudi Arabia, while thousands of mosques are tolerated and welcomed in non-Muslim lands. Islamic countries that allow for Jewish and Christian places of worship subject these “people of the book” to countless subtle and not-so-subtle forms of persecution. Muslims in non-Muslim lands proselytize relentlessly and convert others while any Muslim who leaves Islam is judged as an apostate and automatically condemned to death.
Saudi Arabia’s discriminatory male supervision arrangement remains intact despite their pledge to eliminate it. Under this system, ministerial policies and practices prohibit women from acquiring a passport, marrying, traveling, or accessing higher education without the approval of a male guardian, usually a husband, father, brother, or son.
Iran’s Regime on Notice
On Iran’s influence, Trump said: “The government that gives terrorists safe harbor, financial backing … it is the regime that is responsible for so much instability in that region. I am speaking of course of Iran. From Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen, Iran funds, arms and trains terrorists, militias and other extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos across the region” and calls for the destruction of Israel and death to America.
President Trump is quite accurate with respect to the Islamic Republic of Iran. The ever-conniving mullahs dread the Iranian people. Granted that a small percentage of Iranians, known as the 3Fs—fools, fanatics and frauds—support the mullahs. No totalitarian rule can ever survive without a segment of the population, for one reason or another, supporting it. Yet, time is not on the side of the mullahs. By their mismanagement, thievery and oppression of the masses, they have created explosive internal conditions.
In dealing with the mullahs ruling Iran, what you see is not what you get, and what you hear is not what they mean. Transparency and honesty are not their strong suit. So, we need a first-rate sleuth to see through their smoke-and-mirrors, as well as beyond their twisted tongues into their warped brains.
For those misguided advocates of working a deal with the Islamic Republic: The Islamic Republic has been denying and violating a long-suffering people all of its human rights. They are guilty of beating, imprisoning and torturing hundreds of women who braved participating in peaceful demonstrations pleading for equal family rights, on the annual International Day of Women and other such occasions.
The regime has systematically beaten, imprisoned, and tortured all manner of citizens, from school teachers to students to union workers, for daring to raise their voices against the plight to which they have subjected them.
They have directed systematic genocidal measures against all non-Shi’a religious minorities, with Baha’is as their prime target. They arrest some Christians — whom even their Quran calls “People of the Book” — for observing Christmas. They have implemented barbaric practices of stoning, hanging and amputations for those who are convicted of crimes in their kangaroo courts without due process. They even imprison those few lawyers who rise in the defense of the innocent. They have plundered, mismanaged and doled out Iran’s national wealth with the result that the great majority of the people are living in poverty. They have forced Iranian women into prostitution to survive or simply are sold as sex slaves in Persian Gulf states.
They spend a fortune on the nuclear program that they claim is only aimed for peaceful purposes, while turning Iran into little more than a gas station nation, with its precious oil wealth squandered and its facilities on the verge of collapse through neglect. They have created a suffocating social atmosphere that has driven masses of the people to the use of hard drugs as a way of numbing their pain.
They look far and wide to support any and all terrorists. The Islamic Republic’s delusional theology mandates the creation of horrific conditions in the world so that the Hidden Imam is compelled to appear and establish his rule. They spared no efforts at sabotaging any settlement between the Palestinians and Israelis. They arm and train all Palestinian factions such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Lebanese Hezbollah.
The Islamic Republic’s hands are dripping with the blood of thousands of Iraqis and Syrians, victims of its bloodthirsty kin mercenaries aiming to kill a budding democracy in Iraq next door and helping Bashir al Assad to massacre and gas his own people.
President Trump is right, of course; the world needs to isolate the Islamic regime in Iran and instead to embrace the people of Iran. Moral support from America has been at most tentative and minimal, a terrible failure of the Obama administration. He missed an opportunity to answer the call of the Iranian people: “Obama, you’re either with us or with them.” Now that Obama is gone, President Trump has an opportunity to become a champion of freedom by his support for the legitimate rights of the Iranian people.
A Persian saying is instructive here: A lion of the forest of Mazendaran cannot be apprehended by other than a Mazendarani warrior. So, let the Iranian people deal with the Iranian problem of the IRI. They are the ones best suited for the job. Don’t try to do it for them. Just help them out and support them.
© 2017 Amil Imani – All Rights Reserved
