Reading Matt Yglesias, I couldn’t help but wonder. Assume the candidate was intelligent and had a responsible temperament. What would it actually be like? Presumably such a President would limit or cut off aid to Israel and directly support a Palestinian state. (We might keep some aid for purposes of leverage.) In the Arab world we would probably take some different sides, and more specific sides, than we do now. I fear we would end up embroiled in a Muslim religious civil war in the Middle East. When needed, we would likely intervene to help out Muslims in the Balkans or in Kuwait. Might we get more free trade? After all most Muslims live abroad and would like to sell their goods here. The President could try to up the immigration quotas from Muslim countries but I doubt if Congress would accede. Public and Supreme Court support for the separation of church and state would go up, not down. Haven’t Muslim black nationalists, historically, had a big interest in prison reform? Would our President give the bomb away to Muslim nations? Would it be easier to find Koranic recital CDs in Borders? Would the President pressure the Fed to drive nominal interest rates close to zero, thereby implementing Milton Friedman’s optimum quantity of money?
I fear we would end up embroiled in a Muslim religious civil war in the Middle East.
That would be terrible, wouldn’t it? Might last a 100 years…
What about just a Muslim person? It’s a more plausible hypothesis. ‘What if we elected a White Christian Nationalist?’….hmmm…what *would* the world look like?
_”The President could try to up the immigration quotas from Muslim countries…”_
I’m not sure what you mean by this- there are not many immigration quotas that have strong effects on “Muslim countries”. There are some per-country limits that say that no more than a certain percentage of visas can be given to citizens of any one country. I’m not completely in favor of these limits but they only really impact 3 countries- Mexico, the Philipines, and India, none of which is a muslim country in the majority. So, it’s not at all clear what you take to be at stake here.
The reason the US aids Israel is that Israel has nuclear weapons. If the Israeli government feels it faces a choice between using those nuclear weapons and extinction, it will use those nuclear weapons. Therefore to the extent that the US government has an interest in avoiding a nuclear war in the Middle East it has an interest in making sure the Israeli government feels that it has other options.
Why would a Muslim US president be any more eager for a nuclear war in the Middle East than any other possible US president?
This is just plain silly. More than for any other political office, people expect a presidential candidate to be “regular folks”: even a vegetarian would have a hard time being elected president. The only scenario under which a Muslim black nationalist would be elected would be if some future electorate reflected this (as in the transition from a pagan Roman Empire to Christianity), in which case this hypothetical president would have a mandate to carry out whatever policies the public supported. You do mention “elected” by popular vote, rather than imposed by conquest or coup or some other similar scenario.
Steve: True enough. On the other hand that distinction will probably be lost on most Muslims worldwide, who will simply take one look at Obama’s middle name and conclude that he was born Muslim, and therefore, under shari’a, is still lawfully Muslim. The fact that he’s not actually a practicing Muslim doesn’t change this; it merely makes him an apostate, which raises an even bigger question: If/when America has as its president a man widely regarded as an apostate Muslim, how will that play in the Arab/Muslim world?
As a non-black Muslim I can’t see myself making any of these changes. Maybe the US would become marginally more like Turkey.
//On the other hand that distinction will probably be lost on most Muslims worldwide, who will simply take one look at Obama’s middle name and conclude that he was born Muslim, and therefore, under shari’a, is still lawfully Muslim. The fact that he’s not actually a practicing Muslim doesn’t change this; it merely makes him an apostate, which raises an even bigger question: If/when America has as its president a man widely regarded as an apostate Muslim, how will that play in the Arab/Muslim world?//
Uh, no. He is not an apostate according to Shari’ah (however, I am merely a student of Islamic law, so you may know better). I live in the Middle East (I’m an American), where, like most of my regional neighbors, I am inundated with satellite news channels, from Europe, the US, and a variety of Middle Eastern countries. It is well understood over here that Senator Obama is a Christian — he keeps shoving it down all of our throats that he’s never been a Muslim. CNN is widely watched here, alongside BBC, Deutschewelle (sp?), TV5, and al Jazeera.
The correct answer (from a british point of view at least) is: I don’t know, but it would be hilarious.
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