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Letter from the Publisher

October 2008

We would like to first of all wish a very happy Eid Al-Fitr almubarak to Muslims around the world as they celebrate this day marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadhan.  We pray for peace and joy and Allah's grace and blessings for the Islamic community and the entire world.  These are very difficult times for a large number of planet earth's population as they face economic hardship, war and violence, and natural disasters that seem to be getting worse as a result of global warming.  Strong faith, and hope for the prospect of meaningful amelioration in their daily lives keep people motivated to withstand all theses troubles and traumas and live on.  We therefore need strong leadership among the global rulers so that these challenges are faced with strength and integrity and hopefully resolved for the betterment of all and not just a few. 

This past month world leaders met in New York City to attend the United Nations General Assembly and made their speeches.  Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad painted Iran's nuclear activities as entirely peaceful in his speech and blamed "a few bullying world powers" for seeking to hinder Iran's progress by exerting political and economic pressures on Iran and “threatening and pressuring “ the International Atomic Energy Agency.  His remarks came on the back of the latest report by the IAEA on Iran stating that Tehran has blocked the agency's investigations into whether it researched ways to make a nuclear bomb in the past, and that Iran had increased the number of centrifuges for enriching uranium to 3820, in defiance of U.N. resolutions.  Although the machines are only producing low-enriched uranium suitable for power plants only, experts say that producing enough of that can make it easy to reprocess into weapons-grade material in the future.  The Islamic Republic needs to clear up suspicions and build confidence in the peaceful nature of its nuclear program as the diplomatic window appears to be closing and there are increasing worries that Israel or the United States might resort to military action.  There are still many more diplomatic options that need to be pursued, including direct negotiations with Tehran's leadership by the United States, as has been recommended by us in this newsletter for many years, and most recently by five former US Secretaries of State.

Prior to his appearance at the U.N., President Ahmadinejad had an interview with CNN's Larry King, in which he struck a more conciliatory note towards the people of the United States and expressed his willingness to meet with both presidential candidates even in front of the media to discuss world issues.  He also expressed that he and his country wish no harm to the Jewish people, and that throughout history Iran has demonstrated that it is a nation that is for peace and friendly ties with others.  Our impression from all this is that Iran would like to resolve its differences with the IAEA, the United States and the U.N. Security Council in a peaceful manner, and we hope that this process can lead to meaningful negotiations in the coming months to end the nuclear standoff.  Not only the Middle East but the entire world would benefit from a peaceful resolution, and likewise the whole region as well as the globe would suffer grave consequences should there be a military attack on Iran.