By Naseem Jamali

Yes, Barak Obama is not a Muslim. On the contrary, he has repeatedly asserted that he is a Christian in response to his opponents’ attempts to portray him as a Muslim (hence kind of a Manchurian candidate for Muslims or as a terrorist sympathizer).

Facts marshaled for this unwelcome portrayal are that Obama’s father was a Muslim, his middle name is Hussein and he spent his early childhood in the largest Muslim nation of Indonesia , and probably studied in a madrassah.

Having so far quieted such rumors of his putative Muslim identity, it would appear that there is no chance that Obama will own up to any aspect of his Muslim heritage or exposure to Muslim religion, culture and people.

His campaign has gone so far as to remove two women wearing Muslim head scarves from the front rows at a rally in Detroit and generally Obama has given a cold shoulder to Muslim and Arab groups’ repeated invitations to meet with them. But internationally the dynamics are quite different altogether: he need not embrace Muslims to have an influence with them.

His candidacy has created perhaps as great an excitement amongst Muslims in the world as it has amongst Americans of all shades and stripes as can be witnessed in press coverage or in brief travel abroad. His approval by Muslims may also be part of the general approval internationally as measured by a recent Pew poll.

Obama may not want to be counted as a Muslim but Muslims are eager to count him as one of their own, for he has given rise to the hope, justified or not, that once elected he will show fairness and regard for them due to precisely those facts that his critics cite to portray him as a Muslim.

At the least, they feel that he would end the hostility towards them that accelerated since 9/11, the worst of it being the unjustified invasion of Iraq .

This push and pull of Obama’s identity gives him a unique opportunity to lay the ground work for his declared phased withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq after November elections.

While not buying into Muslim identity and explicitly denying it whenever warranted, he can nevertheless draw on his widespread approval in Muslim populations and governments to articulate and later perhaps keep election promise.

Since those opposed to withdrawal often invoke the scenario of chaos and bloodbath if American forces leave, Obama and his team have a need to develop a plan designed to assure that this kind of conflagration is unlikely to occur.

One reason the Republicans continue to have traction with chaos and civil war argument is due the Vietnam exit images seared in not too distant memory: American forces leaving abruptly in disarray with desperate men and women hanging on helicopters leaving from U.S. embassy roof.

The Obama team need to spell out the “what and how” of orderly and phased withdrawal in order to dispel such lingering worries. They have already decisively ruled out military bases in Iraq , as Susan Rice did in an interview with BBC on June 17, which certainly will meet an important demand of all Iraqi factions.

But for the American electorate, Obama has to convince them that he has a plan for the safe passage of American troops. Any such plan should include peacekeepers to oversee the transition to a civil society. This is precisely where his unstated but challenged and denied Muslim identity can help.

On his planned visit to Afghanistan, he should make a call for peacekeepers drawn from Muslim countries operating under the authority of the United Nations to act as buffers not only for withdrawing American forces but between Iraqi factions as well.

Only a person with Obama’s profile can get a purchase with Muslims to try a new path. In a way, he can be a catalyst of the same brand of politics in the Muslim world as he is promoting in the U.S.

As he continues to convince a large segment of American population to look beyond race and gender, he can be part of the initiative for Muslims to look beyond religion.

A call for peacekeepers would certainly find many Muslim governments responding to it in part because it would give them a vehicle to blunt the appeal of Bin Landen and his ilk.

The notion of Muslim peacekeepers is not a pie in the sky. There is a history and there are military, political and economical capacities behind it. There is an instrumentality: the Organization of Islamic Conference founded in 1969 and consisting of 57 countries with majority Muslim populations representing 1.5 billion people.

Though one seldom hears of this organization - being given to safe pronouncements and dull conferences plus the absence of bold actions due to the consensus nature of its functions, a bold move on Iraq may just meet with consensus. 

There is experience – Pakistan and Bangladesh are already the top two contributors of peacekeepers to the U.N. Peacekeeping Forces along with many other Muslim countries with smaller forces.

There are resources – besides the obvious - the oil rich Saudi Arabia, Iran, UAE, Kuwait etc – many Muslim countries have economies ranging from moderate to flourishing and have well- disciplined and well-equipped armed forces.

There is the political will – Muslims throughout the world, as majorities in other countries, overwhelmingly want peace to return to Iraq and Americans to leave at the earliest. Support for it at the popular level, including Iraq , is likely to be strong.

Obama has to be careful not to call simply for Arab peacekeepers or select countries from the Middle East, for most of them either have territorial interests in Iraq or are sympathetic to one or more factions fighting there.

Arab countries surrounding Iraq are overwhelmingly Sunni and their forces would not inspire enough confidence amongst majority Shia. Earlier calls for Arab forces failed before they even got off the ground for the same reason. True to his declaration that he would be willing to talk to Iran , Obama should, as a start, not oppose Iran from participating in peacekeeping duties.

Needless to say that the support by ordinary Iraqis will be critical for it is not only they who are suffering in vast numbers but also provide fighters, material and moral support for blood letting. The support will be forthcoming only if the peacekeepers are perceived as impartial, nonsectarian and importantly, not occupiers.

It may be that a call for Muslim peacekeepers would fail as spectacularly as the idea of Arab peacekeepers. But he has to try, and by spelling out a plausible plan for withdrawal from Iraq in association with relevant international agencies and forces, the most important consequence might be his election to the presidency.