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Traditionalism: An Islamic Vision For America
An Interview With Dr. Robert D. Crane
By Dr. Muhamad Mosleh
Islam Online Washington D.C.
Introduction
Robert D. Crane has been a personal advisor to American presidents, cabinet officers, and congressional leaders during the past four decades. From the time of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 until the beginning of Nixon's victorious campaign for the presidency in 1967 Dr. Crane was his principal foreign policy advisor, responsible for preparing a "readers digest" of professional articles for him on the key foreign policy issues. During the campaign Dr. Crane collected his position papers into a book, Inescapable Rendevous: New Directions for American Foreign Policy, with a foreword by Congressman Gerald Ford, who succeeded Nixon as President. On January 20, 1969, Dr. Crane moved into the White House as Deputy Director (for Planning) of the National Security Council. The next day, the Director, Henry Kissinger, fired him, because they differed fundamentally on every single key foreign policy issue. Kissinger was determined to orchestrate power in order to preserve the status quo. Crane was equally determined to promote justice as the only source of dynamic and long-range stability.
In 1981, President Reagan appointed Dr. Crane to be U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, but this also was short-lived. President Reagan's best friend, Judge William Clark, who became Director of the National Security Council, wanted Crane, as the first Muslim American ambassador, to pursue two-track diplomacy by developing relations with the various Islamist movements in the Middle East. The new Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, whose entire career was promoted by Henry Kissinger, wanted none of this.
Since then, Dr. Crane has worked full-time as a Muslim activist in America. He started as Director of Da'wa at the Islamic Center on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C. In 1985 he joined the International Institute of Islamic Thought as its Director of Publications, and then helped to found the American Muslim Council, serving as Director of its Legal Division from 1992 to 1994. From 1994 until the present time he has headed his own research center, located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Washington, D.C. Since 1996 he has also been a board member of the United Association for Studies and Research and Managing Editor of its Middle East Affairs Journal.
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