Originally aired during the lead-up to the 2004 Presidential Election, this Mosaic Special Report examines how the war in Iraq was effecting the course of that election.  Leading up to the election polls showed that for the first time in more than twenty years, voters considered U.S. foreign policy to be the most important factor in November. What was once a referendum on jobs and health care has now become, to a great extent, a question for voters of “Who can keep us safer?”  How is each candidate shifting in response to the Iraq war and terrorism? Can the Arab media alter these elections by providing open airways to terrorists?  And what about the shadow players, Al Qaeda and the Iraqi insurgents -- how would a major strike against Americans change the course of our presidency? 

To answer these questions, Link TV brought together top journalists with on-the-ground experience in the Middle East to analyze news reports from Arabic language news stations — from Al Jazeera Television to the Hezbollah-backed Al Manar TV — to show viewers how 300 million viewers in the Middle East were watching and reacting to the U.S. presidential elections. Moderated by journalist Wendy Hanamura.

This program originally aired in the months before the 2004 U.S. federal election. 

GUESTS:

Hafez Al-Mirazi, Washington bureau chief for Al Jazeera Television & host of the weekly show From Washington, highlighting U.S. positions for Arab audiences.

Mark Danner, staff writer for The New Yorker, Professor of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley.  He also writes extensively about Iraq for The New York Review of Books.

Jamal Dajani, Director of Middle Eastern Programming for Link TV and producer of the daily news show, Mosaic: World News from the Middle East.

Ralph Nader, 2004 presidential candidate.