Last month, President Obama announced the appointment of Rashad Hussain as ambassador to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. By video, Obama told attendees at something called the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar, that Hussain was not just “an accomplished lawyer and trusted member of my White House staff,” but also a “hafi” — a Muslim who has memorized the entire Koran.

That reminded me: George Shultz, when he served as secretary of state under President Reagan, would routinely bring new ambassadors into his office where he kept a large globe. “Show me the country you’ll be representing,” he would say. Most of the time, the diplomat would give the globe a spin, abruptly halting its motion to indicate Botswana, Bhutan, Brunei, or whatever country he’d be calling home for the next few years. Shultz would shake his head. “No,” he would say. “You’ll be representing the United States of America. Never forget that.”

The controversy over the appointment of Hussain, 31, has centered on comments he made regarding the trial of Sami al-Arian, a University of South Florida professor: He called it a “politically motivated persecution.” Al-Arian had been accused of aiding the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. He eventually pleaded guilty to conspiracy.

Hussain has told reporters that he condemns terrorism “unequivocally in all its forms.” He said that he has written a great deal about terrorism and that that he’d gladly put those writings up against “one sentence from 2004 that I believe was taken out of context.”

So let’s put that controversy aside and consider what deserves at least equal scrutiny: the Organization of the Islamic Conference itself. The OIC is the most powerful global entity that most Americans have never heard of. It claims a “membership of 57 states spread over four continents,” making it the largest intergovernmental organization after the U.N. — where, in recent years, it has arguably become the most powerful player. Among the questions we should be asking: Does it make sense for the U.S. to have an ambassador to the OIC — or any coalition of governments based on religious solidarity? If it does, what message should that envoy convey?

There is not much on terrorism aside from a statement by Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the OIC’s current secretary general, instructing that it “would be an unfortunate error in judgment in believing that Islam is linked to terror; that it is intolerant of other religious beliefs, that its values and practices are not democratic; that it favors oppression of freedom of expression and undermining human rights.” It is perhaps relevant to note that the OIC has its headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia — a nation that grants few rights to women and no rights to non-Muslims, and egregiously discriminates against its Shi’a Muslim minority.

Ihsanoglu does not grapple with such facts. Rather, he asserts: “Islamophobia is a manifestation of racial discrimination.” Islam is a race? A glance at the OIC’s website is revealing. In recent days, it has included a communiqué protesting Switzerland’s ban on minarets, another on what it calls “Israeli Aggressions,” a condemnation of the “reprint of the controversial drawing of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) by Swedish artist Lars Vilks . . . as reaction to an alleged plot to murder the cartoonist,” and quite a bit on “Islamophobia.”

There is not much on terrorism aside from a statement by Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the OIC’s current secretary general, instructing that it “would be an unfortunate error in judgment in believing that Islam is linked to terror; that it is intolerant of other religious beliefs, that its values and practices are not democratic; that it favors oppression of freedom of expression and undermining human rights.”

It is perhaps relevant to note that the OIC has its headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia — a nation that grants few rights to women and no rights to non-Muslims, and egregiously discriminates against its Shi’a Muslim minority. Ihsanoglu does not grapple with such facts. Rather, he asserts: “Islamophobia is a manifestation of racial discrimination.” Islam is a race? 1 2 Next > An article by Clifford May in the National Review