Anti-Muslim rhetoric tragic for US: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Imam Muhammad al-Asi, a member of the Islamic Center of Washington, to discuss US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s anti-Islam rhetoric.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Trump’s comments are nothing new in the sense that he likes stirring up controversy but it is coming at a time when vitriol against Muslims is at an all-time high; Islamophobia is increasing. What kind of an impact are his recent comments going to have?

Asi: Well, his comments are going to have two opposing types of reactions. One of them is that there is undoubtedly in the United States a fragment of the population that is so conservative that you can call it racist. And he sort of addresses himself to that crowd and obviously his statements among that crowd, and we’ve heard and listened and viewed some of them in the past 24 hours who were reverberating with his statements. They obviously agree with him almost one hundred percent.

And then, on the other side, of course, I think there is a larger pool of people who have at least common sense to realize that his statements are way out of play. This is not the way people should be speaking; but Donald Trump is known to be this personality who likes to play to the camera and to the audience. He likes to raise his ratings and he likes theatrics and American politicians at this time are going through their roles of trying to shore up their base and obviously he is playing to a certain segment of the American population but his statements are very injurious.

This is a person who is, you can say, a jingoistic, xenophobic fascist; and it is very sad to say that if he is nominated as the Republican presidential front-runner, then this country is obviously on a course of division. We will be able to call it the “Divided States of America.”

Press TV: Let me just jump in there very quickly if I can. Despite the fact that Donald Trump has a very limited base which reverberates with his comments, there are also those people who are angry or scared and those emotions are what Donald Trump is playing on specifically after the Paris terrorist attacks and the San Bernardino shootings where Islam is being vilified.

Asi: Well, this is precisely… If we want to put Donald Trump in the internal politics of the United States, there is internal give-and-take in the Republican Party between the Paleo-conservatives and the neoconservatives; and obviously he is trying to cater to the neo-conservatives to win over their support.

Outside of the United States, there is the entanglement of US policies with both the Israeli regime and the Saudi regime and he does not have the energy to speak to the internal politics of the United States and he does not have the energy to speak to the external politics of the United States.

So here he is. He is trying to out-speak his competitors and they are all xenophobic, there is Cruz, there is Carson, there is Rubio, they’re speaking against immigrants; they are speaking with a racist tone; and now it is this anti-Islamic propaganda and the Islamophobia that is feeding their rhetoric and this is tragic for the American elections and for the American future.

When this person presents himself to be outspoken, yet he is incapable of facing the realities of the internal Republican dynamics and he is incapable of speaking to the fallacies and the tragic trajectory of US foreign policy, he is a theatrical person.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir