Rashad Hussain

Rashad Hussain
United States Special Envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and US Special Envoy for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications
Assumed office
February 13, 2010
President Barack Obama
Preceded by Sada Cumber
Personal details
Alma mater University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Harvard University
Yale University
Religion Islam

Rashad Hussain is an American attorney who has served as US Special Envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the second largest intergovernmental body after the UN, with 57 member states,[1] and as US Special Envoy for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications. Hussain, a Muslim of Indian heritage, has also served in the White House Counsel's Office and on the National Security Council as a political appointee of the Obama Administration. He has also worked in the Department of Justice as a trial attorney and as a criminal prosecutor. In his role as OIC Envoy, Hussain has advised the Administration on policy issues related to the Muslim world.[2] He has traveled to numerous countries and international conferences, and has met with foreign leaders[3] and Muslims around the world.[4] His position, "a kind of ambassador at large to Muslim countries, was created by President George W. Bush."[5] Hussain's appointment as Special Envoy for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications was announced by President Obama at the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism.[6] The Washington Post reported that Hussain was brought on to begin to build partnerships with international NGOs and other governments to counter terrorist propaganda.[7] Hussain outlined an approach [8] for "supporting NGOs who are countering ISIL’s narrative and helping other countries to establish their own counter-ISIL messaging centers" [8] and highlighting ISIS's damage to local populations, "emphasizing accounts of [ISIS] defectors, and documenting its losses on the battlefield — without recirculating its gruesome images or matching its snide tone." [7]

Background

Hussain was born in Wyoming and was raised in Plano, Texas, the son of Indian-born U.S. citizens. His father, Mohammad Hussain, was a mining engineer. His mother Ruqaiya, and his older sister Lubna are medical doctors, and his younger brother, Saad is a medical student.[9]

Hussain is a graduate of Greenhill School in Dallas, Texas. While at Greenhill, Hussain was a member of the school's nationally recognized policy-debate team, partnering with Josh Goldberg to win the Texas state debate championship and a number of national competitions.[10]

Hussain completed a bachelor’s degree in two years, in both philosophy and political science, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. His philosophy thesis was titled "Assessing the Theistic Implications of Big Bang Cosmological Theory." He holds an MPA from the John F. Kennedy School of Government and a Masters degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies, both from Harvard University, and a J.D. from Yale Law School. At Yale, he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.[11]

After college, but before entering law school, he worked as a legislative aide for the House Judiciary Committee, where he reviewed the USA Patriot Act and other bills.[12] He was a 2003 Fellow of the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans.[12] Following law school, Hussain served as a law clerk for Damon J. Keith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Deputy Associate Counsel

In January 2009, Hussain was named deputy associate counsel to President Barack Obama. Previously, he has served as a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice[13] and as Associate Counsel to the Obama Presidential Transition Team.

The Washington Post reported that, "After the 2008 election, Hussain was recruited to the White House Counsel's office by Greg Craig and Cassandra Butts, a fellow Tar Heel and Obama's former Harvard Law classmate. He has worked there on national security and new media issues, and helped inform the administration's Muslim outreach efforts.[2]

Mr. Hussain also "began advising the president on issues related to Islam after joining the White House counsel’s office in January 2009."[14] Ben Rhodes, Obama's chief foreign policy speechwriter and Deputy National Security Advisor, sought Hussain's counsel as he drafted the president's Cairo address."[10] Hussain also joined the President and the staff that traveled to Egypt for the speech at Cairo University in 2009.[15]

US Special Envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation

On February 13, 2010, President Obama appointed Hussain as the United States Special Envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.[16] Upon appointing Hussain, Obama said:

I’m proud to announce today that I am appointing my Special Envoy to the OIC—Rashad Hussain. As an accomplished lawyer and a close and trusted member of my White House staff, Rashad has played a key role in developing the partnerships I called for in Cairo, and as a Hafiz of the Quran, he is a respected member of the American Muslim community, and I thank him for carrying forward this important work.[1][17]

The Religion News Service said that rather than noting that Hussain has memorized the Qu'ran, "Muslims abroad are more likely to take note of his White House credentials, and access to the Oval Office, as he seeks partnerships in education, health, science and technology."

Rashad Hussain with President Yudhoyono of Indonesia

It also noted that Hussain "briefed Obama before his first interview as president--with Al Arabiya,contributed to Obama's two major speeches to Muslims--in Ankara, Turkey and Cairo, traveled to the Middle East with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and, closer to home, helped organize a Ramadan dinner at the White House that replaced the usual crowd of ambassadors with young American Muslims." [2]

Former Afghan President Karzai greets Rashad Hussain in Kabul in 2012

During his travel to OIC member countries, Hussain has held meetings with a number of leaders,[3] including President Karzai of Afghanistan,[18] President Gul of Turkey,[19] King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, Prime Minister Najib of Malaysia, President Zardari of Pakistan, Prime Minister Aziz of Mauritania, President Sall of Senegal, Vice President Sambo of Nigeria, and OIC Secretary General Ihsanoglu.[20] Hussain has also attended the OIC Heads of State Summit in Egypt and in Mecca, Saudi Arabia is 2012, where he met with a number of leaders, including a pre-dawn Ramadan meal with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and held other meetings with President Gul of Turkey and President Karzai of Afghanistan. They discussed a number of issues, including Syria, the democratic transitions in the Middle East and North Africa, and U.S. engagement with Muslim communities around the world.[20]

Hussain with students in India

During Hussain's tenure, the US and OIC have increased cooperation in health and development, including OIC-USAID cooperation on humanitarian aid,[21] and have expanded partnerships in entrepreneurship, and science and technology.[22] The OIC has been increasingly active in condemning violent extremism,[23] including attacks on religious minorities,[24] and the kidnapping of school girls by Boko Haram in Nigeria.[25] The US worked with the OIC to eliminate the OIC's previous heavily criticized "defamation of religion" resolution at the UN and replace it with a resolution that removes the "defamation" concept and seeks to counter intolerance without restricting speech in a manner inconsistent with US law.[26][27] The OIC has also taken a larger role in international affairs - it was among the first to call for a no-fly zone in Libya[28] and has been heavily critical of Bashar al-Asad's regime, removing Syria from the OIC in 2012.[29]

US Special Envoy for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications

In June 2015, Hussain outlined a strategy for creating partnerships and messaging centers around the world to counter terrorist propaganda. He called for the US to highlight terrorists' damage to Muslim and other populations, the stories of "defectors," ISIS's battlefield losses, and living conditions in ISIS territories.[8] He also called for "Muslim-hosted and run messaging initiatives to take a leading role" in expanding "counter-messaging and positive narratives." [8] Hussain helped establish messaging centers to counter terrorist messaging in the UAE,[30] Nigeria,[31] Malayisa,[32] and with the OIC in Saudia Arabia.[33]

Hussain co-authored a paper, "Reformulating the Battle of Ideas: Understanding the Role of Islam in Counterterrorism Policy" for the Brookings Institution. It sharply rejects those who commit terrorist acts in the name of religion, including those who seek to use Islamic justifications for such actions.[34]

In a speech to a meeting of Foreign Ministers from 56 Muslim-majority countries, Hussain stated, "It is our duty to eradicate this ideology completely and blaming the foreign policy of any country is not the answer. No policy grievance justifies the slaughter of innocent people."[35] He has also held discussions on the topic of violent extremism with government and civil society in trips to countries such as Afghanistan,[36] Pakistan,[37] and Yemen.[38]

In addressing extremism, Hussain has also argued that Muslim communities must improve secular and religious education for boys and girls, increase access to opportunity through job creation, address the sense of political disenfranchisement in Muslim communities, and improve deradicalization programming.[39] In a panel hosted by Peter Bergen on online radicalization in 2013, Hussain described the extremists' online approach as combining a message of religious obligation to defend Muslim causes with emotional international images in a way that attempts to provide a sense of purpose to disaffected youth.[40] He encouraged Muslim communities to create online media content that acknowledges perceived grievances, but uses imagery and religious content to make clear that terrorists are actually killing Muslims, damaging Muslim causes, and violating Islam, not defending it.[8]

Efforts on Protecting Religious Minorities and Combating Anti-Semitism

Hussain has worked on efforts to improve the protection of Christians, Jews, and other religious minorities living in Muslim-majority countries.[41] He has also sought to combat anti-Semitism by denouncing Holocaust denial and the publication of anti-Semitic materials in the Muslim world. In an op-ed on addressing anti-Semitism in the Muslim world, he condemned the broadcast of an anti-Semitic film aired in some Muslim-majority countries, arguing that Jews and Christians face discrimination and violence in these countries and that "Efforts must be made to ensure that textbooks and television programming in the Muslim world are free from the types of dehumanizing ideas and images that breed intolerance and hate."[42] Speaking to Foreign Ministers of Muslim countries at the OIC Ministerial in Guinea in 2013, he also criticized "restrictions on places of worship, including churches and synagogues" as "unacceptable."[22] He has also condemned blasphemy laws on other restrictions on speech that are used to persecute religious minorities,[43] including Coptic Christians in Egypt, where he visited with an American Coptic leader in 2012.[44] Hussain has also traveled to a number of countries to address issues facing Muslim communities, including the Central African Republic,[45] China, India, and a number of European nations.

In May 2013, Hussain and the US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism traveled with imams from around the world to Holocaust sites in Auschwitz-Birkenau as part of Hussain's "efforts to combat Holocaust denial and to address discrimination against religious minorities."[46] He also took a similar trip with American imams to Holocaust sites in 2010.[47] Hussain has been outspoken against anti-Semitism during his other travel.[48]

ADL President Abraham Foxman noted that Hussain's condemnation of "anti-Semitism in the Muslim and Arab world is significant" and that "influential figures, particularly political and religious leaders in the Muslim and Arab world, should emulate Ambassador Hussain's example."[49] In January 2013, Mr. Hussain received the Distinguished Honor Award which is given for "exceptionally outstanding service to the agencies of the U.S. Government resulting in achievements of marked national or international significance."[50]

Comments on Sami Al-Arian

As a law student in 2004, Rashad Hussain made critical comments regarding procedural issues in the prosecution of Sami Al-Arian.[51] Al-Arian, a South Florida Professor and activist who was invited to the White House in the Bush and Clinton Administrations, was acquitted on 8 counts but pled guilty to conspiracy to help Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, after a jury deadlocked on the remaining nine counts. A commentator at the Council on Foreign Relations stated that the debate about Hussain's comments "led to a larger question of whether the United States should engage the Organization of Islamic Conference diplomatically."[52]

Works

References

  1. 1 2 "Obama picks special envoy to world Muslim group". CNN. February 13, 2010.
  2. 1 2 3 Burke, Daniel (March 10, 2010). "Meet President Obama's Spiritual Cabinet". Religion News Service. Retrieved February 5, 2014.
  3. 1 2 "Photos from Special Envoy Hussain's Travels". December 26, 2014.
  4. ↑ Cooper, Helene (February 13, 2010). "U.S. Envoy is to Be Link to Muslims". New York Times. Retrieved February 5, 2010.
  5. ↑ "Rashad Hussain - The New York Times". New York Times. April 19, 2010. Retrieved April 19, 2010.
  6. ↑ "Remarks by the President at the Summit on Countering Violent Extremism". www.whitehouse.gov. February 25, 2015. Retrieved Feb 25, 2015.
  7. 1 2 "In a Propaganda War Against ISIS, the U.S. Tried to Play by the Enemy's Rules". Washington Post. May 8, 2015.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 "A Strategy for Countering Terrorist Propaganda in the Digital Age". June 12, 2015.
  9. ↑ "Another Yemeni-American appointed to Obama's legal team". Rediff. January 31, 2009. Retrieved February 14, 2010.
  10. 1 2 Wilson, Scott (February 28, 2010). "Rashad Hussain, a Muslim and new U.S. envoy, is bridge between two worlds". Washington Post. Retrieved February 14, 2010.
  11. ↑ "President Obama Announces Key Additions to the Office of the White House Counsel". The White House. January 28, 2010. Retrieved February 5, 2010.
  12. 1 2 "Spring 2003 Fellows: Rashad Hussain". Retrieved February 14, 2010.
  13. ↑ "Obama names U.S. envoy to Muslim world body". Reuters. February 13, 2010. Retrieved February 5, 2010.
  14. ↑ Elliott, Andrea (April 10, 2010). "White House Quietly Courts Muslims in U.S.". New York Times. Retrieved April 19, 2010.
  15. ↑ Parsons, Christi (August 2, 2009). "The Crafting of Obama's Cairo Speech". L.A. Times. Retrieved December 19, 2010.
  16. ↑ "Obama Taps Envoy to Islamic Group to Improve Ties (Update2)". Business Week. February 13, 2010. Retrieved February 5, 2010.
  17. ↑ "President Obama Addresses the U.S.-Islamic World Forum". The White House Blog. Retrieved February 14, 2010.
  18. ↑ "Special Envoy Hussain Concludes Trip to Afghanistan". Retrieved May 15, 2014.
  19. ↑ "Won't Give Up Bid for Middle East Peace". Retrieved May 15, 2014.
  20. 1 2 Special Envoy Hussain’s Meetings at the OIC Heads of State Summit in Mecca, U.S. Department of State announcement, August 15, 2012.
  21. ↑ "USAID AND OIC SIGN HISTORIC COOPERATION IN AGREEMENT AT WHITE HOUSE TO STRENGTHEN HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE". March 15, 2012.
  22. 1 2 "Remarks of Special Envoy Rashad Hussain to the Council of the OIC Foreign Ministers Conakry, Guinea – December 10, 2013" (PDF). December 10, 2013.
  23. ↑ "Remarks for Ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo, Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, At a Security Council Open Debate on Cooperation between the United Nations and Regional and Subregional Organizations in Maintaining International Peace and Security, October 28, 2013". October 28, 2013.
  24. ↑ "Ihsanoglu Condemns Attacks on Churches in Egypt". March 9, 2011.
  25. ↑ "Islamic officials condemn kidnapping of Nigerian schoolgirls". May 8, 2014.
  26. ↑ "UN Human Rights Council Moves Away From Dangerous Defamation of Religion Concept". March 25, 2011.
  27. ↑ "Islamic bloc drops 12-year U.N. drive to ban defamation of religion". March 24, 2011.
  28. ↑ "OIC chief backs no-fly zone over Libya". March 8, 2011.
  29. ↑ "Syria dropped from world Islamic body". August 16, 2012.
  30. ↑ Schreck, Adam (July 8, 2015). "US and UAE Launch Online Messaging Center". AP. Retrieved January 10, 2015.
  31. ↑ "Govt to open communication center in effort to counter Boko Haram". Sun Online. October 20, 2015. Retrieved January 10, 2015.
  32. ↑ "Malaysia will set up regional center to counter ISIS". Straits Times. October 10, 2015. Retrieved January 10, 2015.
  33. ↑ "How the-worlds-second-largest-global-organization-plans-to-win-the-war-of-ideas-against-isis". Business Insider. November 17, 2015. Retrieved January 10, 2015.
  34. ↑ "Reformulating the Battle of Ideas: Understanding the Role of Islam in Counterterrorism Policy" (PDF). Brookings Institution. February 13, 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 5, 2011. Retrieved February 15, 2010.
  35. ↑ "Remarks Of Rashad Hussain, U.S. Special Envoy At The Oic 37th Session Of The OIC Council Of Foreign Ministers". 2010 Press Releases. Embassy of the United States Dushanbe. May 20, 2010. Retrieved May 21, 2010.
  36. ↑ "NPR: Afghan Goal: Toning Down the Radical Preachers". Retrieved May 15, 2014.
  37. ↑ "U.S. Special Envoy to the OIC Discusses Interfaith Issues and Religious Tolerance during Islamabad Visit". Retrieved May 15, 2014.
  38. ↑ "Special Envoy Hussain's Travel to Yemen". Retrieved May 15, 2014.
  39. ↑ "Online Radicalization: Myths and Realities". May 28, 2013.
  40. ↑ "Id.". May 28, 2013.
  41. ↑ "Remarks Of Rashad Hussain, Protecting the Rights of Christians and Religious Minorities in the Muslim World". November 30, 2012. Retrieved December 15, 2012.
  42. ↑ "Countering Anti-Semitism in the Month of Ramadan". July 17, 2013. Retrieved May 20, 2013.
  43. ↑ "Why the United States Cannot Agree to Disagree on Blasphemy laws" (PDF). Boston University International Law Journal. 2014.
  44. ↑ "President Obama’s Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Visits Cairo". August 8, 2013.
  45. ↑ "U.S. Delegation Supports Peace and Interreligious Cooperation in the Central African Republic". April 9, 2014. Retrieved May 20, 2014.
  46. ↑ "Special Envoy Hussain Travels to Holocaust Sites in Poland". May 21, 2013. Retrieved June 22, 2013.
  47. ↑ "Visit to Auschwitz and Dachau". September 16, 2010. Retrieved April 25, 2012.
  48. ↑ "Obama’s Islamic conference envoy pushes back on anti-American tirade". August 4, 2010. Retrieved December 15, 2012.
  49. ↑ "Why the U.S. Slammed an Arab TV Series and why the World Should Take Heed". July 19, 2013. Retrieved July 20, 2013.
  50. ↑ "United States Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference". April 25, 2012. Retrieved April 25, 2012.
  51. ↑ Bream, Shannon (February 16, 2010). "Obama's Islamic Envoy Quoted Defending Man Charged With Aiding Terrorists". Fox News. Retrieved February 22, 2010.
  52. ↑ Johnston, Toni (June 29, 2010). "The Organization of the Islamic Conference". Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved July 2, 2010.

External links

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