Tremendous pressures cancel Quran burning plan

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Under tremendous pressure from U.S. officials all the way up to President Barack Obama, a Florida pastor on Thursday called off a Quran burning he’d scheduled for Saturday – the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks – that had drawn international condemnation. The Rev. Terry Jones announced the change of plans to a media circus outside his Dove Outreach World Center in Gainesville shortly after Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called the pastor to make a direct appeal. Gates told Jones that burning Qurans would inflame Muslim sentiment and endanger U.S. troops abroad. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said that Gates had weighed concerns that making such a call could encourage copycats who want attention, but felt that “if that phone call could save the life of one man or woman in uniform, that call was worth placing.” Gates’ call was a highly unusual outreach to a civilian that showed how concerned the Obama administration had become about the potential ramifications of such an insult to Islam. It also reflected the triumph of national security concerns over freedom of expression. Only weeks earlier, Obama spoke out to protect plans for an Islamic cultural center two blocks from the World Trade Center site in New York, arguing that the nation’s First Amendment principles were paramount to the sensitivities of Sept. 11 victims’ families. Jones’ right to burn a Quran as a matter of free expression didn’t get the same backing. Jones also spent part of the day talking to a South Florida imam, and he indicated to reporters that his decision to scrap the burning of Muslims’ holy book was tied to his understanding that the Islamic cultural center would be scrapped or relocated. Earlier, Obama signaled his own concerns to Jones. He called the planned Quran burnings “destructive” and a “stunt,” and said the idea was “completely contrary to our values” of religious freedom and tolerance. In Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told the U.S. ambassador and the top American general there that the U.S. must do all it can to prevent the Quran burning. During a meeting with Ambassador James Jeffrey and Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, al-Maliki said that burning the Qurans could become a pretext for attacks on Americans. Al-Maliki rejected the idea that the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks were representative of Muslims in general. SH (I) 1