BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: The Islamic world was also at the center of other controversies this week -- whether the U.S. should cut off economic aid to the new Hamas-led government in the Palestinian territories, and whether the U.S. should let a company in the United Arab Emirates manage six American ports.

We want to talk about all this with Ibrahim Hooper, the spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Welcome. Let's begin in Iraq and the sectarian violence there. It seems to be spinning almost out of control. What do you think?

IBRAHIM HOOPER (Communications Director and Spokesman, Council on American-Islamic Relations): Yeah, I think it really is spinning out of control. I don't see any good solutions there. I think everybody's going to their own corner in terms of ethnicity and religion, and I don't know what the role of America is right now. If it goes to full-blown civil war, what does America do? Do we sit on the sidelines and let people kill each other? Do we intervene and make it worse, possibly? It's a very bad situation, [and it] brings up the fact we shouldn't be in there in the first place.

ABERNETHY: You're a convert to Islam, an American-born convert, and you keep in touch with America's Islamic community as well as with the country as a whole and opinion there. What do you think, and what do Muslims in America think, about what this country should do about what's going on there?

Mr. HOOPER: Well, I think in the American Muslim community there's a consensus that we should get out as quick as possible. And I think that's a growing consensus in the American public as a whole.

ABERNETHY: What's going on among American Muslims now? You feel that the country --the rest of the country -- is understanding, more understanding, or more hostile? What do you feel?

Mr. HOOPER: Well, it's a mixed bag really. We have a situation -- and we do polling on these kinds of things, on attitudes towards Islam, and what we're finding is that there's a hard core -- perhaps up to 20 percent of Americans -- who have real hostility towards Islam. There's a good middle ground that's more or less neutral, and there's another end that's somewhat sympathetic. So I think we need to reach out to that middle ground.

ABERNETHY: Is the anti-Muslim attitude in this country increasing?

Mr. HOOPER: I -- unfortunately I think it is, or at least becoming more vocal. It's more accepted now to attack Islam as an intrinsically violent faith, and that's a disturbing phenomenon, and that's what we would hope leaders -- religious leaders, political leaders --would speak out against.

ABERNETHY: Is that what you think is going on and is reflected in the big flap about the ports, port management?

Mr. HOOPER: I think Islamophobia and anti-Arab feeling [are] underlying that whole issue. I don't think it would be possible to exploit that issue for political gain without that underlying bias.

ABERNETHY: But what do you say to an American who says, "Look, two of the 9/11 hijackers came from Dubai. There's been smuggling going on through there of nuclear materials. Inevitably, if they're managing an American port, there's a greater likelihood that something or someone could get into this country that would be dangerous."