November 2012 Show;

Host Goudarz Eghtedari speaks with Mike Ghouse, a Muslim advocate living in Texas, about the elections and Obama's plan in the next cycle.

Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, interfaith, politics, foreign policy, Islam, India, Israel, peace and justice. He is committed to building a cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. He is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity's show on Fox TV and a commentator on national radio. He writes weekly at Dallas Morning News and bi-monthly at Huffington Post and several periodicals. His daily blog is www.TheGhousediary.com

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September 2012 Show!

Host Goudarz Eghtedari speaks with journalist and blogger Richard Silverstein about the current Israeli administration's push for another American war in the Middle East. Silverstein's recent story on an Israeli plot caught international attention via BBC's News Hour.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19271083

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July 2012 Show;

July 13, 2012
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As president Morsi calls the peoples assembly to start its role in legislation until the new constitution draft is put to vote, the constitutional court and Council of the Army insist that the assembly is null and can not resume.  An interview with Professor Mohammed Aman, University of Wisconsin, and Professor Nader Hashemi, University of Denver, with regards to recent presidential elections and current struggle between the popular revolution and the military establishment that claims the control of the country.

Mohammed Aman is Professor of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin –Milwaukee (UWM) and Editor–in-Chief of the refereed journal Digest of Middle East Studies (DOMES) since its inception in 1990. His research and subject expertise center around education in the Arab world; information and national development; intellectual freedom and censorship in the Arab world, e-governance and democracy. Prof. Aman received his BA from Cairo University, MS from Columbia University and Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh, and did post doctoral work at NYU.

Nader Hashemi is Assistant Professor at Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver (2008-present); He is the author of Islam, Secularism, and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies (Oxford University Press, 2009) and co-editor of The People Reloaded: The Green Movement and the Struggle for Iran's Future (Melville House, 2011). 

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June 2012 Show;

Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote ControlHow to Lobby our way out of war with Iran

June 8, 2012 at 9 AM

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Medea Benjamin is a cofounder of both CODEPINK and the international human rights organization Global Exchange.  She has been an advocate for social justice for more than 30 years. Described as "one of America’s most committed -- and most effective -- fighters for human rights" by New York Newsday, and called "one of the high profile leaders of the peace movement" by the Los Angeles Times, Medea has distinguished herself as an eloquent and energetic figure in the progressive movement. In 2005 she was one of 1,000 exemplary women from 140 countries nominated to receive the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the millions of women who do the essential work of peace worldwide. In 2010 she received the Martin Luther King, Jr. Peace Prize from the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

Since the September 11, 2001 tragedy,  Medea has been working to promote a U.S. foreign policy that would respect human rights and gain us allies instead of contributing to violence and undermining our international reputation.  In 2000, she was a Green Party candidate for the California Senate.  During the 1990s, Medea focused her efforts on tackling the problem of unfair trade as promoted by the World Trade Organization. Widely credited as the woman who brought Nike to its knees and helped place the issue of sweatshops on the national agenda, Medea was a key player in the campaign that won a $20 million settlement from 27 US clothing retailers for the use of sweatshop labor in Saipan. She also pushed Starbucks and other companies to start carrying fair trade coffee.

Her work for justice in Israel/Palestine includes taking numerous delegations to Gaza after the 2008 Israeli invasion, organizing the Gaza Freedom March in 2010, participating in the Freedom Flotillas and opposing the policies of the Israel lobby group AIPAC. In 2011 she was in Tahrir Square during the Egyptian uprising and In 2012 she was part of a human rights delegation to Bahrain in support of democracy activists; she was tear-gassed, arrested and deported by the Bahraini government. 

A former economist and nutritionist with the United Nations and World Health Organization, Benjamin is the author/editor of eight books. Her latest book is called Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control, and she has been campaigning to get lethal drones out of the hands of the CIA. Her articles appear regularly in outlets such as The Huffington Post, CommonDreams, Alternet and OpEd News. Medea can be reached at:medea[@]codepink.org.

Kate Gould is the Legislative Associate for Middle East Policy at the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), a Quaker lobby in the public interest fielding the largest registered team of peace lobbyists in Washington, D.C.  Kate is one of only a handful of registered lobbyists working to prevent war with Iran, and she also lobbies on Israel/Palestine peace.  She is originally from Oregon and has lived and worked in the Middle East.  Kate is a board member of Churches for Middle East Peace, and is a contributor to Foreign Policy in Focus and other media outlets. 

May 2012 Show;

Muslim Immigrants in Europe, subjects of discrimination, isolations and scape goating by right wing politics.

May 11, 2012 at 9 AM

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Tugrul Keskin is Assistant Professor of International and Middle Eastern Studies and Center For Turkish Studies at Portland State University. His research and teaching interests include Sociology of Islam and the Middle East, Social and Political Theories, Marxism, Post-Colonial Theory, Islamic Movements, Sociology of Africa (Imperialism and Re-colonization in Africa after 1950s), Modern Kurdish, Uyghur and Turkish Nationalism. Previously, Dr. Keskin taught as an instructor of Sociology and Africana Studies at Virginia Tech University and has also previously taught as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology at James Madison and Radford Universities. He received his PhD from Virginia Tech in Sociology, with certificate degrees in Africana Studies, Social and Political Thought, and International Research and Development. The topic of his Ph.D. dissertation is A Comparative Analysis of Islamist Movements: Jama’at-e-Islami in Pakistan and the Fethullah Gulen Movement in Turkey – Reactions to Capitalism, Modernity and Secularism.

At the end I'll also interview Dr. Muhammad Sahimi on P5+1 and Iranian negotiations scheduled to start shortly in Baghdad and to promote his upcoming lecture in Portland.

April 2012 Show;

The Iranian Nuclear program and IAEA.

Aired on April 13, 2012 at 9 AM
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Muhammad Sahimi is a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, and holds the NIOC Chair in petroleum engineering at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. Sahimi received his B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Tehran and after briefly working for the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), he received a scholarship from the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and travelled to the USA, where he has since remained, completing his PhD at the University of Minnesota in 1984.  Since 2003, Dr. Sahimi has frequently written on the subject of Iranian politics, particularly the Iranian nuclear program. His writings have been published in Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, the Harvard International Review, and The Progressive.

March 2012 Show;

Voices of the Middle East presents:
Friday March 9, 2012 at 9 AM
KBOO 90.7 fm or webcast at www.kboo.fm

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Have the diplomatic efforts of the Obama administration toward Iran failed? Was the Bush administration's emphasis on military intervention, refusal to negotiate, and pursuit of regime change a better approach? How can the United States best address the ongoing turmoil in Tehran? This book provides a definitive and comprehensive analysis of the Obama administration's early diplomatic outreach to Iran and discusses the best way to move toward more positive relations between the two discordant states.
Trita Parsi, a Middle East foreign policy expert with extensive Capitol Hill and United Nations experience, interviewed 70 high-ranking officials from the U.S., Iran, Europe, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Brazil—including the top American and Iranian negotiators—for this book. Parsi uncovers the previously unknown story of American and Iranian negotiations during Obama's early years as president, the calculations behind the two nations' dealings, and the real reasons for their current stalemate. Contrary to prevailing opinion, Parsi contends that diplomacy has not been fully tried. For various reasons, Obama's diplomacy ended up being a single roll of the dice. It had to work either immediately—or not at all. Persistence and perseverance are keys to any negotiation. Neither Iran nor the U.S. had them in 2009.

“With the eye of a Washington insider, Trita Parsi assembles all the pieces of this complex puzzle in an original and persuasive way. I am aware of no one who has subjected the Obama administration’s policy on Iran to this kind of sustained scrutiny. Parsi displays a nuanced understanding of the historical context and an exceptionally fine-tuned appreciation for the political conditions and vulnerabilities of both Iran and the United States.”—Gary Sick, Columbia School of International and Public Affairs

I interviewed Dr. Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council about President Obama's Iran Policy and AIPAC conference this week.  

Second part of the VOME is an interview with Tina Foster the attorney with Child Foundation, a charity organization registered in Portland that was under investigation by US Government for money transfer to Iran, this case was closed this week with most of the accusation being rejected by US Judge overseeing the court.  The founder of Child Foundation, Dr. Mehrdad Yasrebi was sentenced to one year probation and moving restrictions from home.

January 2012 Show;

Stalemate in Obama's Iran Policy

 January, 13, 2012
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A live interview with Professor William Beeman, University of Minnesota, and Reza Marashi, Policy Director with National Iranian American Council on issues related to sanctions and threats of war with Iran.  Panel also reviewed President Obama's change of policy on Iran from negotiations to pressure and hostile track.

Reza Marashi joined NIAC in 2010 as the organization’s first Research Director.  He came to NIAC after four years in the Office of Iranian Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.  Prior to his tenure at the State Department, he was an analyst at the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) covering China-Middle East issues, and a Tehran-based private strategic consultant on Iranian political and economic risk. Marashi is frequently consulted by Western governments on Iran-related matters.  His articles have appeared in The New York Times, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, The National Interest and Al Jazeera, among other publications. He has been a guest contributor to the BBC, NPR, Financial Times, Reuters, and ABC News, among other broadcast outlets.  Follow Reza on Twitter: @rezamarashi

Professor Beeman is an internationally known expert on the Middle East and the Islamic World, particularly Iran, the Gulf Region and Central Asia. He has also conducted research in Japan, India, Nepal, China and Europe. From 1996-1999 he sang professionally in Europe as an operatic bass. He continues his musical career.  His scholarly interests and research include sociolinguistics and the semantics of interaction; cross-cultural comparison of theatrical and performance genres; opera; paralinguistic and nonlinguistic semiotics; action anthropology; philosophic anthropology; peasant and nomadic societies. 

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