By Arsalan Iftikhar
Date Posted: October 2007

Congressman Keith Ellison never sought to make history. Although he never sought the limelight, being the first American Muslim elected to the United States Congress shall inherently place him in the annals of American political history. Representing the 5^th congressional district of Minnesota (arguably one of the most liberal congressional districts in the nation), Keith has brought a new dimension to the hallowed halls of Congress and we recently sat down for dinner to talk about the historical significance of his election.

Along with my dear friend Rick Jauert (who also happens to be Keith’s communications director), we met up at a Capitol Hill restaurant to break bread, munch on yummy kabobs and wax poetic about the state of our nation and the future of our world.

By Arsalan Iftikhar
Date Posted: April 8, 2008

ONCE UPON A TIME in a happy place called The Netherlands, there was a little Dutch cherry-picker named Geert Wilders. After growing up in the land of Rembrandt and tulips, Geert one day decided that he wanted to become a politician and help the people of Holland by becoming one of their elected leaders.

While his friends became doctors and lawyers, our cherry-picker Geert one day found himself a member of the Dutch parliament. Instead of representing the multicultural and diverse Dutch population, he decided one fine day that he wanted to be the political leader of the most right-wing, anti-immigrant nationalistic party that has ever graced the halls of The Hague, which is also, fittingly, the judicial seat of the International Criminal Court (also known as the ICC or War Crimes Tribunal).

By Arsalan Iftikhar
Date Posted: March 1, 2008

IN YET ANOTHER page taken directly from the Ann Coulter political playbook, the presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton has taken another fear-mongering and xenophobic potshot at the presumptive Democratic presidential frontrunner, Sen. Barack Obama. From conspiracy theories about Obama being a "secret Muslim" to the consistent (if not deliberate) Obama/Osama name-game, the current bizarre demagoguery by the Clinton camp shows that her campaign and its surrogates are continuing to make use of popular prejudices and xenophobic innuendo to pander to voters' ethnic biases to continue to score cheap political points.

By Arsalan Iftikhar
Date Posted: December 7, 2007

The presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney has been wrought with ridiculous commentary as to whether a Mormon is fit to become president of the United States. Indeed, Mormons in America have long endured discrimination, ridicule and hostility in our country.

So it is beyond absurdity that Romney, who is a target of religious bigots himself, has now channeled that same religious bigotry by making American Muslims collectively feel like the GEICO cavemen.

By Arsalan Iftikhar
Date Posted: November 13, 2007 (The Providence Journal)

TRANSLATED, the word Pakistan literally means "Land of the Pure." Sadly, nothing has been more impure than the declaration of martial law by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the most recent of the five military dictators that Pakistan has endured in its 60-year history. Today's political and social turmoil jeopardizes an already shaky political equilibrium and will have global repercussions for decades.

"King" Musharraf, in a televised address to 160 million Pakistanis, cited the danger to the country posed by "extremists" and said that only emergency rule (a.k.a. martial law) could solve this problem. He then proceeded to summarily suspend the constitution, sack the entire Supreme Court, close transmission of privately owned television news channels and curb the broadcasts of international broadcasters. Parliamentary elections scheduled for next January were delayed for up to a year, officials told The New York Times.