Archive for the ‘Egypt’ category

« WarSclerotic home page
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Islamic State at Israel’s Gate

June 12, 2015

Islamic State at Israel’s Gate, Front Page Magazine, , June 12, 2015

(According to Israel National News, 

Late on Thursday night “color red” rocket sirens were sounded in the southern coastal city of Ashkelon, as well as throughout the Ashkelon Coast regional council.

At least one rocket was identified as having been fired from Gaza, but IDF officials said it is believed the rocket exploded inside Gaza. No rockets were found in Israeli territory.

— DM)

ISIS-in-Gaza-404x350

All this is happening while the Obama administration, by the president’s own admission, has no clear strategy to defeat ISIS. At the same time, President Obama’s “strategy” to deal with Iran is to make concession after concession in order to secure any nuclear deal he can, including the possibility of providing Iran with relief from sanctions that were imposed for non-nuclear related reasons such as Iran’s support for terrorist activities

In short, Israel is facing Iran-backed Hamas from the south, Iran-backed Hezbollah from the north, and an expanding Islamic State presence north and south of Israel and within Israel itself. And that is before Iran gets its hands on a nuclear bomb and the Islamic State has enough radioactive material to build its own weapons of mass destruction.

*****************

Jihadists affiliated with the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) are carrying on the rocket war against Israeli civilians from where Hamas left off. Following several rocket attacks in the last several weeks for which the Islamic State has taken credit, rockets launched from Gaza Thursday night exploded in the Ashkelon area.

Israel is still holding Hamas responsible for the attacks as the governing authority in Gaza.

“The IDF understands that Hamas wants quiet and is making an effort to prevent the shooting, but the State of Israel still sees Hamas as responsible for what happens in Gaza,” said Sami Turgeman, head of IDF’s Southern Command.

The Israeli military responded with measured attacks on Hamas facilities, while at the same time trying to avoid setting off a wider war at this time.  But Israel’s hand is being forced by the Islamic State, which is evidently working assiduously to supplant Hamas as the authoritative Islamic power in Gaza. The Gaza branch calls itself the Sheikh Omar Hadid Brigade. It is cooperating with another ISIS-affiliated group operating in the Sinai Peninsula, which calls itself Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis.

According to a June 8th report by Debkafile, “Islamic State operatives in the Gaza Strip have been helping themselves to Hamas rockets in recent weeks after furtively penetrating the factory teams operating the group’s production and assembly lines… The jihadis then secretly passed the stolen rockets to their squads for launching against Israel.”

On June 7th Debkafile noted in more general terms Hamas’s loss of control in Gaza in the face of Islamic State infiltration: “The terror infrastructure Hamas built over many years in Sinai has been taken over by ISIS, and its control of the Gaza Strip is slipping, as yet more radical and violent organizations eat away at its authority and seize control of the rocket offensive against Israel.”

Thus, even as Hamas remains committed to the destruction of Israel and is trying to re-build its arms stockpiles with Iran’s help, it is engaged simultaneously in its own battles with the Islamic State. Hamas has arrested some ISIS supporters and bulldozed a Sunni mosque believed to have been used by ISIS affiliated jihadists, while Hamas’s own facilities have come under attack by ISIS affiliated jihadists. Hamas also claimed in a message to Israeli authorities, routed through an Egyptian intermediary, that jihadists affiliated with the Islamic State were deliberately trying to spark a renewed war between Israel and Hamas.

The Islamic State is also trying to position itself to challenge Israel from the north. Israeli TV Channel 2 reported last week that the Islamic State is moving forces in the direction of the Golan Heights and the Israeli border.

Moreover, ISIS is developing an increasing presence within Israel itself. Recruits, influenced by ISIS’s slick social media promotions, are attracted to ISIS’s self-declared purer Islamic ideology. Hamas is apparently too “moderate” for these jihadists’ tastes.

“Dozens of Israeli Arabs and Palestinians have travelled to Syria and Iraq to join insurgent groups.” Israel’s Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency said in a statement released last January 4th. Israel had announced that it managed to crack one Islamic State cell on its soil and arrested its alleged members. An Israeli security official described the cell as “just the tip of the iceberg.”

Last July, the Islamic State previewed its intentions in a statement that it issued regarding jihad against Israel:

As for the massacres taking place in Gaza against the Muslim men, women and children, then the Islamic State will do everything within its means to continue striking down every apostate who stands as an obstacle on its paths towards Palestine. It is only [a] matter of time and patience before it (Islamic State) reaches Palestine to fight the barbaric Jews and kill those of them hiding behind the gharqad trees – the trees of the Jews.

Arutz Sheva reported that a spokesperson for the Islamic State, Nidal Nuseiri, urged patience as the Islamic State wanted first to consolidate its control over Arab Muslim lands, but “reaffirmed that conquering ‘Bayt el-Maqdis’ (Jerusalem) and destroying the State of Israel is central to the group’s jihad.” Thanks to President Obama’s dithering, the Islamic State is well on its way to achieving such consolidation in Iraq and Syria, while spreading to Libya.

At least three questions arise from the emergence of ISIS as a direct threat to Israel. Will Israeli military and security forces, either on their own or in concert with Jordan and Egypt, take on ISIS directly, including going after ISIS’s command and control centers with far more firepower than the Obama administration has used thus far?

To what extent will Israel be willing to outsource military operations against ISIS affiliates in Gaza to Hamas, much as it has outsourced some security operations to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank? Major-General Turgeman tried to cast Hamas as the lesser of two evils, since, he claimed, “Israel and Hamas have shared interests, including in the current situation, which is quiet and calm and growth and prosperity.” Hamas “does not want global jihad,” he added. This is a truly incredible assertion coming from an Israeli military leader about a group willing to put its own citizens and their homes in harm’s way in order to launch their own thousands of rockets against Israel. What happened to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s concise description of Hamas and the Islamic State as “branches of the same poisonous tree?” This just further demonstrates how completely insane the Middle East has become.

Finally, how successful will Iran be in exploiting the chaotic situation in Gaza, positioning itself as it has in Iraq as an enemy of ISIS, while further bolstering Hamas to Israel’s detriment?

All this is happening while the Obama administration, by the president’s own admission, has no clear strategy to defeat ISIS. At the same time, President Obama’s “strategy” to deal with Iran is to make concession after concession in order to secure any nuclear deal he can, including the possibility of providing Iran with relief from sanctions that were imposed for non-nuclear related reasons such as Iran’s support for terrorist activities.

In short, Israel is facing Iran-backed Hamas from the south, Iran-backed Hezbollah from the north, and an expanding Islamic State presence north and south of Israel and within Israel itself. And that is before Iran gets its hands on a nuclear bomb and the Islamic State has enough radioactive material to build its own weapons of mass destruction.

Categories: Egypt, Foreign policy, Gaza, Golan, Hamas, Iran scam, Islamic State, Israel, Jordan, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama, P5+1, Rocket attack, Sanctions, West Bank
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Directive 11: Obama’s Secret Islamist Plan

June 8, 2015

Directive 11: Obama’s Secret Islamist Plan, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, June 8, 2015

Obama-450x240

What little we know about the resulting classified 18-page report is that it used euphemisms to call for aiding Islamist takeovers in parts of the Middle East. Four countries were targeted. Of those four, we only know for certain that Egypt and Yemen were on the list. But we do know for certain the outcome.

Obama’s insistence that human rights be made a core national security interest paved the way for political and military interventions on behalf of Islamists. Obama had never been interested in human rights; his record of pandering to the world’s worst genocide plotters and perpetrators from Iran to Turkey to Sudan made that clear. When he said “human rights”, Obama really meant “Islamist power.”

********************

Behind the rise of ISIS, the Libyan Civil War, the unrest in Egypt, Yemen and across the region may be a single classified document.

That document is Presidential Study Directive 11.

You can download Presidential Study Directive 10 on “Preventing Mass Atrocities” from the White House website, but as of yet no one has been able to properly pry number 11 out of Obama Inc.

Presidential Study Directive 10, in which Obama asked for non-military options for stopping genocide, proved to be a miserable failure. The Atrocities Prevention Board’s only use was as a fig leaf for a policy that had caused the atrocities. And the cause of those atrocities is buried inside Directive 11.

With Obama’s typical use of technicalities to avoid transparency, Directive 11 was used to guide policy in the Middle East without being officially submitted. It is possible that it will never be submitted. And yet the Directive 11 group was described as “just finishing its work” when the Arab Spring began.

That is certainly one way of looking at it.

Directive 11 brought together activists and operatives at multiple agencies to come up with a “tailored” approach for regime change in each country. The goal was to “manage” the political transitions. It tossed aside American national security interests by insisting that Islamist regimes would be equally committed to fighting terrorism and cooperating with Israel. Its greatest gymnastic feat may have been arguing that the best way to achieve political stability in the region was through regime change.

What little we know about the resulting classified 18-page report is that it used euphemisms to call for aiding Islamist takeovers in parts of the Middle East. Four countries were targeted. Of those four, we only know for certain that Egypt and Yemen were on the list. But we do know for certain the outcome.

Egypt fell to the Muslim Brotherhood, which collaborated with Al Qaeda, Hamas and Iran, before being undone by a counterrevolution. Yemen is currently controlled by Iran’s Houthi terrorists and Al Qaeda.

According to a New York Times story, Obama’s Directive 11 agenda appeared to resemble Che or Castro as he “pressed his advisers to study popular uprisings in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia to determine which ones worked and which did not.”

The story also noted that he “is drawn to Indonesia, where he spent several years as a child, which ousted its longtime leader, Suharto, in 1998.”

The coup against Mubarak with its coordination of liberals, Islamists and the military did strongly resemble what happened in Indonesia. The most ominous similarity may be that the Muslim mobs in Indonesia targeted the Chinese, many of whom are Christians, while the Muslim mobs in Egypt targeted Coptic Christians.

Both were talented groups that were disproportionately successful because they lacked the traditional Islamic hostility to education, integrity and achievement. Islamist demagogues had succeeded in associating them with the regime and promoted attacks on them as part of the anti-regime protests.

Chinese stores were looted and thousands of Chinese women were raped by rampaging Muslims. Just as in Egypt, the protesters and their media allies spread the claim that these atrocities committed by Muslim protesters were the work of the regime’s secret police. That remains the official story today.

Suharto’s fall paved the way for the rise of the Prosperous Justice Party, which was founded a few months after his resignation and has become one of the largest parties in the Indonesian parliament. PJP was set up by the Muslim Brotherhood’s local arm in Indonesia.

His successor, Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie, was more explicitly Islamist than Suharto and his Association of Muslim Intellectuals (ICMI) conducted a campaign against Christians, Hindus and Buddhists. It helped purge non-Muslims from government while Islamizing the government and Indonesia’s key institutions.

Habibie had been the Chairman of ICMI and ICMI’s Islamists played a key role in moving Suharto out and moving him in. It was obvious why Obama would have considered the Islamization of Indonesia and the purge of Christians under the guise of democratic political change to be a fine example for Egypt.

While we don’t know the full contents of Directive 11 and unless a new administration decides to open the vaults of the old regime, we may never know. But we do know a good deal about the results.

In its own way, PSD-10 tells us something about PSD-11.

Obama’s insistence that human rights be made a core national security interest paved the way for political and military interventions on behalf of Islamists. Obama had never been interested in human rights; his record of pandering to the world’s worst genocide plotters and perpetrators from Iran to Turkey to Sudan made that clear. When he said “human rights”, Obama really meant “Islamist power”.

That was why Obama refused to intervene when the Muslim Brotherhood conducted real genocide in Sudan, but did interfere in Libya on behalf of the Brotherhood using a phony claim of genocide.

Positioning Samantha Power in the Office of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights at the National Security Council was part of the process that made over the NSC from national security to servicing a progressive wish list of Islamist terrorist groups that were to be transformed into national governments.

Power, along with Gayle Smith and Dennis Ross, led the Directive 11 project.

Secret proceedings were used to spawn regime change infrastructure. Some of these tools had official names, such as “The Office of The Special Coordinator For Middle East Transitions” which currently reports directly to former ambassador Anne Patterson who told Coptic Christians not to protest against Morsi. After being driven out of the country by angry mobs over her support for the Muslim Brotherhood tyranny, she was promoted to Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs.

“The Office” is still focused on “outreach to emergent political, economic and social forces in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya” even though counterrevolutions have pushed out Islamists in Egypt and Tunisia, while Libya is in the middle of a bloody civil war in which an alliance of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda controls the nation’s capital.

But even as Morsi’s abuses of power were driving outraged Egyptians into the streets, Gayle Smith, one of the three leaders of Directive 11, reached out to the “International Union of Muslim Scholars”, a Muslim Brotherhood group that supported terrorism against American soldiers in Iraq and which was now looking for American support for its Islamist terrorist brigades in the Syrian Civil War.

The men and women responsible for Directive 11 were making it clear that they had learned nothing.

Directive 11 ended up giving us the Islamic State through its Arab Spring. PSD-11’s twisted claim that regional stability could only be achieved through Islamist regime change tore apart the region and turned it into a playground for terrorists. ISIS is simply the biggest and toughest of the terror groups that were able to thrive in the environment of violent civil wars created by Obama’s Directive 11.

During the Arab Spring protests, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit had told Hillary Clinton that his government could not hand over power to the Muslim Brotherhood. “My daughter gets to go out at night. And, God damn it, I’m not going to turn this country over to people who will turn back the clock on her rights.”

But that was exactly what Hillary Clinton and Obama were after. And they got it. Countless women were raped in Egypt. Beyond Egypt, Hillary and Obama’s policy saw Yazidi women actually sold into slavery.

Directive 11 codified the left’s dirty alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood into our foreign policy. Its support for Islamist takeovers paved the way for riots and civil wars culminating in the violence that birthed ISIS and covered the region in blood.

And it remains secret to this day.

Categories: Christians, Egypt, Foreign policy, Houthi, Human rights, Indonesia, Iran, Iran in Yemen, Iranian proxies, Iraq, Islamic slaughter, Islamic supremacy, Jews, Libya, Middle East, Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama, Obama's America, Secularism, Terrorists, Turkey, Yemen
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 2 Comments

Egypt Says NY Times Promoting Muslim Brotherhood Agitprop

June 3, 2015

Egypt Says NY Times Promoting Muslim Brotherhood Agitprop, The Clarion Project, Ryan Mauro, June 3, 2015

(Obama has spread and relied upon much the same meme as the NY Times and Washington Post. — DM)

New-York-Times-Building-IP_1The New York Times building in New York City

If the New York Times values objective reporting, then it must mention the Brotherhood’s calls to violence in its coverage as well as the many other instances of violence that the group has been involved in.

*********************

The Egyptian ambassador to the U.S. has written a public letter toThe New York Times protesting “its unquestioning adoption of Moslem Brotherhood’s propaganda” and false characterization of the Islamist group as non-violent.

Ambassador Mohamed Tawfik’s letter was written around the same time that the Egyptian embassy released three videos of calls to violence made on Muslim Brotherhood television networks based in Turkey.

The networks’ coverage promoted explicit calls for killing Egyptian police officers and attacking foreign companies and embassies. A threat was also made to carry out regional attacks against the interests of countries who support the Egyptian government.

Egypt is infuriated at the Times as well as the Washington Post for repeatedly asserting that the Brotherhood is non-violent. In response to the Times suggestion that the Egyptian government’s prosecution of the Brotherhood is pushing it towards terrorism, the Egyptian ambassador writes:

This statement demonstrates, at best, a complete misunderstanding of the roots of radicalism. At worst, it amounts to a justification for violent extremism. Today, terrorists in Egypt are part of a network of extremists who are bound by a singular distorted ideology, and by a shared goal of taking our region back hundreds of years. They are inspired by the radical teachings of the former Moslem Brotherhood leader Sayyid Kutb [Qutb]. Terrorists in Egypt share the same evil goals as terrorists in Iraq, Syria and Libya.

Indeed, Ambassador Tawfik is correct that the New York Times separates Islamists from terrorists and extremists. The Times editorial condemns “relentless and sweeping crackdown on Islamists, under the baseless contention that they are inherently dangerous.”

The New York Times described sentencing to death of former President Morsi and 100 other Brotherhood members as “deplorable.” It describes the Brotherhood as having renounced violence in the 1970s.

However, Morsi and the defendants were sentenced for his involvement in prison breaks in 2011 that freed 20,000 inmates, including Morsi himself. The Egyptian government says the attacks were well-orchestrated and involved participation by the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Hezbollah.

Tawfik chastises the Times for failing to mention that the prison break was a violent operation that resulted in the deaths of prison guards and inmates and freed members of Hamas and Hezbollah.

The Egyptian ambassador also excoriated the Washington Post in February for “toeing the Muslim Brotherhood line” and advised it to be more balance in order to “save whatever is left of your credibility in the Arab world.”

Egyptian President El-Sisi came into power after the popularly-supported military intervention in July 2013 overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood government. The move had the support of a broad spectrum of Egyptian society with public endorsements from secular-democratic activists, the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar University and the leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

The overthrow came after Morsi (whose election itself was marred bycharges of voter fraud) seized far-sweeping powers for himself, essentially negating any semblance of a democratic government.

El-Sisi is often characterized as an anti-democratic strongman; a depiction that his government is now challenging.

He argues that these strongman tactics are necessary because a democratic transition cannot be completed without stability, economic development and a confrontation with Islamism (also known as Political Islam). He asks the West to understand that there is a “civilizational gap between us and you” and it will take time to modernize.

A study commissioned by the Egyptian government criticized its heavy-handedness but concluded that banning Islamist parties is required for the country’s stability and democratic development. It recommended a program to separate politics and religion.

The Egyptian government sees the Islamic State (ISIS) as a natural outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood. Its website warns that the Muslim Brotherhood has a network of fronts in America that are disguised as civil society organizations.

El-Sisi called for a reformation in Islamic interpretation in January 2014 and made a dramatic call on the Islamic religious establishment to address problematic teachings this January that received widespread media coverage. He has explicitly said that Egypt should be “a civil state, not an Islamic one” and defined the ideology of the enemy as Political Islam in an interview on FOX News Channel.

El-Sisi is also confronting Islamist terrorism internationally, in addition to its fight against Islamic State in the Sinai Peninsula. His government is an enemy of Hamas and is as minimally anti-Israel as can be expected of an Arab leader.

Egypt has conducted airstrikes on ISIS in Libya and is materially supporting the Libyan government in its civil war against Islamist forces. Egypt and Libya are complaining about a lack of American backing. A new Egyptian-backed offensive is said to be in the works.

El-Sisi is assembling an Arab rapid-reaction force of 40-50,000 troops that can quickly be deployed to fight Islamic State and other terrorists. Egypt is also taking part in the Arab military intervention against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

El-Sisi also made a historic visit to a Coptic Christian church during mass on Christmas Eve. He challenged the Egyptian honor culture when he apologized to a woman who was raped in Tahrir Square.

Major American media outlets have fallen for the falsehood that the Muslim Brotherhood is non-violent. It is true that the Egyptian government is often criticized for its human rights record, but coverage of those accusations should not automatically exempt the Brotherhood and other Islamists from blame.

If the New York Times values objective reporting, then it must mention the Brotherhood’s calls to violence in its coverage as well as the many other instances of violence that the group has been involved in.

Categories: Egypt, Foreign policy, Hamas, Ideology, Islam, Islamism, Islamophobia, Israel, Middle East, Muslim Brotherhood, Reform Islam, Terrorism
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Videos Call for Violence

June 2, 2015

Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Videos Call for Violence, The Clarion Project, Ryan Mauro, June 2, 2015

Egypt-Muslim-Brotherhood-Supporters-Flags-IPMuslim Brotherhood supporters in Egypt (Photo: © Reuters)

Egypt has released three videos of Muslim Brotherhood television networks in Turkey advocating violence against the Egyptian police, foreigners, embassies and interests in the region connected to countries that support President El-Sisi.

On Thursday, the Brotherhood’s English-language website announced a decision for revolution “with all its means and mechanisms” against the Egyptian government. The announcement references a declaration signed by 150 Islamic scholars that is less ambiguous in calling for jihad, also published in English.

The first video is from the Muslim Brotherhood’s Rabaa TV network launched in Turkey in 2013. The Egyptian government says the host in the video is a member of the Al-Gama’a Al-Islamiyya terrorist group.

The host is seen reading a statement from the “Revolutionary Youth Coalition;” a group that is almost certainly a Brotherhood front established to give itself plausible deniability while inciting and orchestrating terrorism. The vague terminology is an attempt to give its cause greater legitimacy by appearing more inclusive and broad-based.

The Brotherhood station reads the statement that demands the departure of all foreign Arabs, foreign Africans, embassy personnel, foreign companies and tourists by the end of (last) February. All governments must end their support for the Egyptian government “or else all of their interests in countries of the Middle East will be exposed to severe assaults or will be put in situations that nobody wants.”

The threat warns that henceforth there will be “no concessions or mercy.”

The second video is dated February 24 and is from a satellite network named Misr Alaan that the Egyptian government says was founded by the Brotherhood last year. The Arab press says it was launched from Turkey with Brotherhood sponsorship.  The network’s staff said its purpose is to reach a broader audience than the other Islamist channels in Turkey.

The video comes with an English translation that shows the host of a show explicitly urging the murder of Egyptian police and unspecified revolutionaries to rout the Egyptian soldiers who aid the police in the confrontation. His instructions are clear: “Kill them.”

“I say to the wives of all officers and the sons of all officers: Please be aware, your husbands will be dead. Your children will be orphans,” the host says while adding the sons of police officers may be kidnapped and claiming that the revolutionaries have the home addresses of the police.

The third video, also from Misr Alaan, shows a statement being read by a spokesman calling in from the “Revolutionary Punishment Movement,” continuing the pattern of using new, non-descriptive titles.

The speaker is asked about his group and he only says that it is a youth movement involved in the revolutions since the beginning, referring to the ousting of Egyptian President Mubarak. He condemns the arrests of female members of the group and declares there will be “reciprocal treatment.”

The speaker calls for the kidnapping and killing of Egyptian security personnel by the “lions” of this revolution. He then gives out the names of specific police officers to target without any interruption from the host.

On Thursday, May 28, the Brotherhood’s English-language website carried a statement by spokesperson Mohamed Montaser announcing “a final decision, after consulting its popular base, that the revolutionary option with all its means and mechanisms is its strategic choice from which there will be no retreat.”

The announcement appears to be a response to a reported rift within the Brotherhood between the older and more pragmatic leadership and the more militant youth advocating violence and disruption to society. It reiterates the legitimacy of the Brotherhood leadership and claims that it is inclusive of the youth.

The statement does not explicitly discuss the topic of violence but it certainly does not make the case for non-violence. It gives every reason for an Islamist to believe that violent jihad against the Egyptian government is now permissible.

The intention to inspire violence is detectable in how the Brotherhood references a declaration signed by 150 scholars that declares the Egyptian government to be an “enemy of Allah” waging “war against Islam.” The listed offenses qualify it as a target for violent jihad.

“It is an Islamic duty of the whole Muslim Ummah, rulers and peoples alike, to resist this regime and to seek to break it using all legitimate means in order to safeguard the fundamentals of the Ummah and to maintain the higher objectives of Islam,” it says.

The declaration most clearly instigates violence in points 4 and 6 regarding retribution for acts against the Brotherhood and for forcibly freeing prisoners:

“4. Rulers, judges, officers, soldiers, muftis, media persons, politicians and any other party proven beyond any doubt to be involved in the crimes of violating honor, bloodshed and illegal killing, even if through inciting such acts, are considered, from Islamic perspective, murderers to whom all rulings related to the crime of murder are applicable. They must receive qisas (retribution punishment) within the Islamic Law limits.”

“6. The nation must do its best to free any person, especially women, detained as a result of opposing the coup and demanding respect of the nation’s will and freedom. No effort should be spared to release them using the means approved by Islam.”

The Brotherhood is aware of what it’s calling for. If it didn’t want violent jihad, it would add a disclaimer about the declaration only authorizing non-violence. Instead, there’s only a mention of civil disobedience as a tactic without any kind of rejection of violence in point 13:

“13. We demand all forces opposing the coup and all free people, inside and outside Egypt, to combine efforts in resistance of this criminal regimes and to use all appropriate means such as civil disobedience and any other tool to purge the country of the coup’s tyranny and crimes and to stand up for the martyrs’ cause.”

The declaration is especially significant because brings the Brotherhood a step closer towards officially supporting violence in Egypt; a direction it’s been moving towards in its Arabic content.

In January, the Brotherhood announced a “new phase…where we recall the meanings of jihad and prepare ourselves, our wives, our sons, our daughters, and whoever marched on our path to a long, uncompromising jihad, and during this stage we ask for martyrdom.”

Any doubt as to whether the Brotherhood meant violence is put to rest by what follows:

“Imam al-Banna [the founder of the Brotherhood] prepared the jihad brigades that he sent to Palestine to kill the Zionist usurpers and the second [Supreme] Guide Hassan al-Hudaybi reconstructed the ‘secret apparatus’ to bleed the British occupiers.”

The call to violence in Arabic was shortly followed by one in English titled, “Egypt Muslim Brotherhood Reiterates Commitment to Non-Violence.”  The contradiction is reflective of a long-standing patternwhere the Brotherhood speaks more diplomatically in English and more “jihadist” in Arabic. Contrary to assertions that the Brotherhood officially abandoned violence, the group has consistently endorsed and engaged in violent jihad since its supposed “moderation.”

The newly-released videos are just a sample of the proof that the Brotherhood’s “moderate” persona is a contrived mirage.

Categories: Egypt, Islamism, Israel, Middle East, Muslim Brotherhood, Terrorism, Turkey
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

ISIS arrives in Gaza: Supporters of the “Islamic State of Jerusalem” sighted on Israeli border

June 1, 2015

ISIS arrives in Gaza: Supporters of the “Islamic State of Jerusalem” sighted on Israeli border, DEBKAfile, June 1, 2015

ISIS-Gaza_5.15ISIS lands in Gaza

Followers of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant were spotted for the first time in the Gaza Strip this week, DEBKAfile’s military sources report. Their arrival on Israel’s border was confirmed as a division-strength IDF force launched its large-scale “Turning Point 2015” exercise for repelling Islamist cross-border incursions. The Islamist group which has established a substantial anti-Hamas presence in the Gaza Strip is Ansar al Dawa al-Islamia, renamed “Supporters of the Islamic State of Jerusalem.”

Israeli, Egyptian and Hamas’ military sources are all concerned to make light of this development. When asked, they say that the group’s nature and scope have not yet been evaluated. Western and Middle East governments took the same tack two years ago, when ISIS first embarked on its calamitous course in Syria.

DEBKAfile’s military sources point to eight signs of the ISIS presence in the Gaza Strip:

1. In the last 48 hours, Hamas security authorities have suddenly set up scores of roadblocks across the Strip, including Gaza City.

2. They acted after senior Hamas security officer Sabah Siam was murdered Saturday, May 30, by a gang of five gunmen sporting ISIS insignia.

Hamas tried pretending that the officer died in a bomb planted in his vehicle by a local rival faction.  But the attack was too public to be concealed. The ISIS gunmen burst into a shop owned by the officer’s family in the center of Gaza City while he was visiting. They cut him down in front of his relatives and dozens of passersby, none of whom made any move to stop them as they made off in two vehicles.

The terrorists later issued a communiqué saying: “Sabah Siam was liquidated because he was a partner in a war declared against religion and against Muslims working for the heretical government in the Gaza Strip.”
In a declaration of war, ISIS warned the Palestinian Hamas to “end its war against religion in Gaza or face the consequences.”

3. Israeli and Egyptian security services, most likely in conjunction with Hamas, set up a tight ring of bodyguards to protect German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier against possible assassins when he visited Gaza Monday, June 1.  He insisted on going through with his visit in the face of the internecine Islamist fighting which had erupted in the Palestinian-ruled territory.

4.  On the day of the visit, Ansar al Dawa al-Islamia posted a social media notice calling on Gazans to discontinue their cooperation with the “heretical Hamas regime.”

5.  The same group also claimed responsibility for a string of bombings outside Hamas headquarters and offices in Gaza during the month of May.

6.  On May 8, the ISIS Sinai branch Ansar Bait Maqdis shelled the Hamas facility in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.

7.   On May 28, ISIS-Sinai threatened to “target Eilat Port in the coming days,” as a joint project with the ISIS wing in the Gaza Strip, which would also attack Hamas’s military arm, Ezz e-din Al-Qassam, and take control of the Gaza Strip.

8.  DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources report that Ansar al Dawa is preparing to declare the Gaza Strip a province of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Categories: Egypt, Gaza, IDF, Islamic State, Israel, Middle East, Terrorism
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Op-Ed: Every Day is “Opposite Day” with President Barack Obama

May 26, 2015

Op-Ed: Every Day is “Opposite Day” with President Barack Obama, Israel National News, Mark Langfan, May 26, 2015

In sum, either Obama is, at best, a Middle-east policy ignoramus or, at worst, an Iranian stooge. If Obama rolled dice to make his Middle-East decisions, he’d have a better average than his current total Middle-East failure on every issue.  So, chances are he is not intending his Middle-East policies to bring peace, but instead planning them to bring war and sow the violence, death and destruction that they have predictably brought.

**********************

Obama has done exactly the opposite of what should be done in the Middle East for his entire term. Israel had better ignore his advice.

Following Obama’s speeches is like watchingSesame Street’s “Opposite Day”, the Sesame Street episode where everything is “opposite.”  ‘Up’ is ‘down,’ ‘left’ is ‘right,’ and so on and so forth.  It’s like Berra saying “It’s deja vu all over again.”

With Obama, for the past seven years, every day is “Opposite Day.”  Everything he says sounds upside-down and backwards, and is proven, in the short-term, to be just that.  Instead of being chastened by reality, Obama blithely still talks-the-talk like he’s reading off the Holy Grail.

Take Obama’s latest upside-down and backwards ‘Opposite-Day’ statement: “I continue to believe a two-state solution is absolutely vital for not only peace between Israelis and Palestinians, but for the long-term security of Israel as a democratic and Jewish state.”  Given Obama’s 0%batting average on Middle-East strategy, it safe to conclude that keeping the “West Bank” is vital for Israel’s security.

For starters, what Middle East policy has Obama gotten right in the last seven years?  Obama’s total retreat from Iraq that empowered Iranian-puppet al Maliki to castrate the Western Iraqi Sunnis that mutated into ISIS?  Obama’s bombing of Qaddafi, and setting North Africa into a ball of flames?  Obama’s toppling of Mubarak and coronation of the Muslim Brotherhood Sunni Islamic State of Egypt?  Obama’s green-lighting Iran to set Shiite Arab against Sunni Arab as he anoints Iran as a nuclear-threshold state, and gives $50 billion to further fund its Islamic “resistance” revolution?  Obama’s total protection of the genocidal Assad as he gasses Sunni Muslims to death?

Obama has made the wrong policy decision on every Middle Eastern issue, yet still speaks as if he’s the Middle-east guru.

The truth is Israel’s retention of the “West Bank” is vital not only for the peace and security of Israel, but also, most importantly, for the moderate Arabs who bathe in the warmth of Israel’s security envelope.  If Israel left the “West Bank”, forget about the resulting Hamastan that once concerned us, because the result would be an  ISIStan. Hamas will soon start asking Israel for protection from ISIS as that organization is beginning to attack it in Gaza.  And after Assad falls, and the Sunnis start really paying Hezbollah back for its genocide against the Syrian Sunnis, the Shiites of South Lebanon will have only one protector: Israel.

Was Israel’s retreat from Gaza good for Egypt?  No, it created a cancer that sent its Iranian-funded Islamic-bedlam to the Sinai, and then to Egypt-proper.  Israel’s “peace-process” regarding Gaza has enabled Hamas to turn the Palestinians of Gaza into cannon-fodder for the world press, and the World Court.  With Gaza’s failed-test-case, Obama’s claim that Israel repeat the same withdrawal from Judea and Samaria almost seems to present evidence of a malevolent intent to eradicate peace and security for Israel, and the moderate Arabs who are now protected by Israel.

And let us not forget Jordan.  Wouldn’t Jordan “love” an ISIStan state to its west?  The analogy is simple, a Hamastan Gaza is to Egypt what an ISIStan “West Bank” would be to Jordan—a formula for Jordan’s total disintegration.  As it is, Jordan’s King Abdullah is facing ISIS to the north and to the south. Jordan can be easily overrun, it hardly needs additional pressure along its western border, now protected by Israel.

In sum, either Obama is, at best, a Middle-east policy ignoramus or, at worst, an Iranian stooge. If Obama rolled dice to make his Middle-East decisions, he’d have a better average than his current total Middle-East failure on every issue.  So, chances are he is not intending his Middle-East policies to bring peace, but instead planning them to bring war and sow the violence, death and destruction that they have predictably brought.

If Obama says “up,” think “down;” and if he advises retreat from Judea and Samaria, Israel had better stay exactly where it is.

Categories: Egypt, Foreign policy, Gaza, Ideology, Iran, Iranian proxies, Israel, Jordan, Middle East, Morsi, Obama, Palestinians, Peace process, Sisi, Syria, Two state solution
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Muslim world reacts to Obama’s latest speech

May 26, 2015

Muslim world reacts to Obama’s latest speech – IPhoneConservative, MEMRI TV via IPhoneConservative via You Tube, May 20, 2015

(Another update: Now the video is up at Front Page Magazine, with a caveat about Poe’s law.

Poe’s law is an internet adage which states that, without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, parodies of extremism are indistinguishable from sincere expressions of extremism.[1][2] Poe’s Law implies that parody will often be mistaken for sincere belief, and sincere beliefs for parody.[3]

– DM)

(UPDATE, May 27th: the subtitles were edited by IPhoneConservative. In a comment beneath the video, posted on May 26th, it was stated:

I must admit I find it fascinating that so many people commenting here are voicing their outrage at my editing of the subtitles in this clip from MEMRI. For those that don’t know who they are………..they are an invaluable site that documents and translates much of what goes on in Middle East media. This clip was from their site. Every day they post videos with leading Islamic figures and personalities making hideous statements about Jews and Christians. About killing gays and beating women. I wonder how many of those outraged by my use of the clip in this way are equally outraged by the real sentiments expressed on these program’s? Not enough I would guess.

– DM)

***********************

(Offensive? Yes. Well worth watching? Yes.– DM)

Categories: Arab nations, Department of Defense, Egypt, Foreign policy, Ideology, Insanity, Islamic State, Middle East, Morsi, Muslims, Obama, Political correctness, U.S. Military
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 7 Comments

Strategic Failures, the US and the Fall of Ramadi

May 21, 2015

Strategic Failures, the US and the Fall of Ramadi, Clarion Project, Ryan Mauro, May 21, 2015

Islamic-State-Victory-Parade-HPIslamic State fighters celebrate their take over of Ramadi with a victory ‘parade.’ (Photo: Islamic State social media)

The U.S. must correct its strategy by sidelining Iranian-backed militias and terrorists, leveraging influence with the Iraqi government and significantly increasing assistance to the Anbar tribes, Kurds, Iraqi government and to the persecuted Christian minority that is forming its own self-defense force.

Recent history has shown that the Iraqi government will choose the U.S. over Iran if compelled.

********************

The Islamic State (ISIS) has captured Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s Anbar Province, reportedly “terrifying” Iraqi officials who now foresee a “tsunami of international terror.” It is an important achievement for the terrorist group aimed at pre-empting a potential Sunni tribal uprising.

The Sunni tribes in Anbar Province were critical to the success of the 2007 “surge” that ousted the Islamic State’s predecessor, Al-Qaeda in Iraq. The deterioration in the relationship between these tribes and the central Iraqi government was likewise critical to the terrorists’ comeback in Iraq.

The Islamic State remembered these lessons and acted quickly as the Iraqi government began training tribal fighters and the U.S. defense budget allotted $179 million to Kurdish and Sunni tribal forces. The U.S. forgot these lessons and has long rejected Sunni and Kurdish pleas for direct aid to fight the Islamic State.

The Obama Administration is now planning to change course and directly arm and train the Iraqi Sunni tribes after the fall of Ramadi. The White House previously chose to work only through the central Iraqi government that has given the Kurds and Sunnis inadequate support.

A delegation of 11 Sunni tribal leaders, including Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, the President of the Anbar Awakening Council, flew to the U.S. on January 18 to plead for direct assistance. Former President George W. Bush called Abu Risha and listened to his complaints for 20 minutes and offered to help. Administration officials were less willing. One tribal official said, “I wouldn’t call it the ‘cold shoulder,’ but it certainly was a cool one.”

The Obama Administration told them that it would only work through the elected central government. Its viewpoint was that working with forces outside the government’s authority undermines the Iraqi leadership and threatens the country’s unity.

That standpoint ignores what was learned after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Nothing threatens Iraq’s unity and the government’s authority more than instability. Direct U.S. aid to the Sunni tribes helped save Iraq from disintegration into sectarian enclaves ruled by terrorists and militias.

The Islamic State struck Ramadi during a sandstorm that delayed American air support. Former U.S. Central Command advisor Ali Khedery says that a Kurdish member of parliament informed him that 6,000 Iraqi Security Forces fled when faced with a mere 150 Islamic State fighters. About 500 Iraqi security personnel and civilians died in two days. The Iraqi officials spoke straight forwardly and  admitted that the current strategy is failing.

The Pentagon says it has finished training about 7,000 Iraqi Security Forces and another 3-4,000 are in the process of training, but training won’t solve the problem of collapsing Iraqi forces. The U.S. trained the Iraqis from 2003 until the withdrawal in 2011. The strategy of waiting for the Iraqi security forces to become strong enough to stabilize the country is the same strategy that failed before the surge.

Iraqi personnel flee because they don’t want to die for a lost cause or to fight for a replacement worse than the Islamic State.

The Iraqi Security Forces face a fundamental disadvantage when battling the Islamic State: They want to live and their enemies want to die. This disadvantage is further compounded by a lack of confidence. If given the choice to die fighting in a losing battle or to flee and perhaps regroup later with better chances of victory, they will choose the latter.

An Anbar official placed the blame on the Iraqi government, telling CNN, “If 10% of the government’s promises had been implemented, Ramadi would still in our hands and the Islamic State wouldn’t dare to be anywhere near the city.”

Iraqi Sunnis are faced with a terrible choice. The Iranian-backed Shiite militias are often nicknamed “Shiite ISIS” because their crimes are comparable to ISIS but are less known by the West because they aren’t broadcasted. However, the Anbar Provincial Council is officially welcoming them now out of desperation and perhaps an awareness that their opposition will be ignored anyway.

The Shiite militias should be expected to mistreat the local Sunnis the second after the Islamic State is expelled or even during the fighting. Tribal support is far from unanimous. The son of the largest tribe’s leader is in the U.S. asking for support right now and bluntly warned that sending the Shiite militias into Anbar Province “will cause a civil war.”

The New York Times has noticed the change in American attitude towards the Shiite militias. Pentagon spokesperson Col. Steve Warren said, “As long as they’re controlled by the central Iraqi government, there’s a place for them.” Yet, only two months ago, Central Command Commander General Austin said, “I will not—and I hope we will never—coordinate or cooperate with Shiite militias.”

The U.S. must correct its strategy by sidelining Iranian-backed militias and terrorists, leveraging influence with the Iraqi government and significantly increasing assistance to the Anbar tribes, Kurds, Iraqi government and to the persecuted Christian minority that is forming its own self-defense force.

Recent history has shown that the Iraqi government will choose the U.S. over Iran if compelled.

In March, the U.S. withheld support to Iraqi forces fighting the Islamic State in Tikrit because of the involvement of Iranian-backed militias and the Revolutionary Guards Corps. The Iranian proxies stalled and could move no further, displaying the value of U.S. air support. The Iraqis chose America and the Iranians were removed from the battle. U.S. aid delivered the victory that the Iranians could not.

The Iraqis had been asking for U.S. for more help including possibly advisors on the ground since October 2013. By March 2014, the Iraqis were asking for airstrikes on the Islamic State. The Islamic State blitz into Iraq began in June.

The Iraqi ambassador complained that the U.S. had denied requests for help including Apache helicopter sales, thereby putting Iraq “in an uncomfortable position in seeking support from whoever is available on the ground.” He emphasized that the “U.S. is our strategic partner of choice.”

Iran opposed the return of U.S. soldiers on the ground in Iraq as advisors. The Iranian-backed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatened to attack the advisors and two other Iranian-backed militias alsoforcefully opposed U.S. involvement. The Iraqi government went ahead anyway.

Even now, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is in Russia and talking to China and Iran about delivering arms that the U.S. refuses to provide.

The U.S. needs to give the Iraqi government a clear choice: Iran or us.

The Iraqi government should be put on notice. If it is willing to restrain the Shiite militias and work with us to disband them, then we will provide all necessary aid. We will help negotiate with the Sunni tribes so their local forces operate within a national framework.

If the Iraqi government chooses Iran, then we will cut our aid and redirect it towards our Sunni, Kurdish and Christian partners while maintaining contact with friendly Shiites. We will not act as the air force for Iranian proxies. If necessary, we will talk about a role for the forthcoming Arab force led by Egypt to replace yours.

It is positive news that the Obama Administration is reversing its stance and will directly help the Sunni tribes, but the anti- Islamic State strategy requires an anti-Iran strategy.

Categories: Airstrikes, Baghdad, Department of Defense, Egypt, Foreign policy, Human rights, Iran, Iranian proxies, Islamic State, Kurdish fighters, Kurds, Obama, Peshmerga, Ramadi, Shiite, Sunni
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Arab military chiefs approve Egyptian-led intervention in Libya

May 19, 2015

Arab military chiefs approve Egyptian-led intervention in Libya, DEBKAfile, May 19, 2015

(Obama will be displeased. — DM)

Arab military chiefs held an unpublicized meeting in Cairo Monday to confirm coordinated plans for Egyptian-led regional intervention into the eastern Libya region of Cyrenaica to drive out the armed extremists, who have kept the country locked in chaos since Muammar Qaddafi’s ouster, and install a stable government in the region;s capital of Benghazi. The meeting was attended by the chiefs of staff of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Sudan and the Libyan Tobruk government. Talks are ongoing with France and Libya to take part in the operation. Both have a direct interest in putting a stop to the ungoverned flow of African refugee migrants to Europe through Libya, which is being used by Islamic State terrorists to infiltrate Europe. France will be asked for logistic support and special forces for the Libyan operation and Italy to provide naval support. Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi is seeking  early military action cut down the fast-expanding ISIS threat to his country, the region and southern Europe.

Categories: Arab nations, Egypt, Foreign policy, Gulf states, Middle East, Obama, Saudi Arabia, Sisi
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

President Strangelove or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb

May 14, 2015

President Strangelove or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb, Jerusalem Post, David Turner, May 14,2015

Concerned about Soviet intentions in the region the Truman administration entered into the U. S.-Saudi Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement (MDA) in 1951. The Agreement provided the foundation for what would emerge as an American commitment to provide a defense umbrella for the region to protect American interests in the Middle East. American assurances to states in the region seemed intact until the GW Bush Administration invasion of Iraq. Trapped in a war it completely misjudged and soon realized it could not win the administration sought an accommodation with Iran to control Shi’ite militias battling the Americans.

The Bush policy of “accommodation” with Iran became the Obama policy of “appeasement” towards the Islamic Republic. Thus began a six-year-long quest to intended to encourage that country’s recalcitrant and hegemony ambitious leaders to abandon its nuclear weapons program. With the imminent 30 June deadline for signing an Agreement quickly approaching the president invited the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states headed by Saudi Arabia to Camp David promising a mutual defense agreement assuring the Arab states of American protection in the event Iran proved a threat to the region. In addition to “assurances, the Saudis insisted on a signed and “formal alliance structure with the United States guaranteeingU.S. support against potential Iranian aggression.”

In advance of the conference the White House announced that President Obama would meet with the Saudi king the day beforeCamp David. But at the last minute, “[d]ispleased with Washington’s dealings with Iran, with an emerging deal over its nuclear program and with US security proposals to Gulf Arab nations,” King Salman announced he would not meet with President Obama and would not attend the Camp Davidconference. In the end only two of six Gulf nations decided to attend with heads of state.

The king’s last-minute cancellation, his turn-down of a meeting with the leader of the Free World was described as “a calculated snub for the president’s policies on Iran and the Middle East.” It was revealed that Kerry, in his meeting with the Saudis the week earlier, told the king that Obama was not prepared to finalize according to the king’s timetable any agreement that might result at Camp David.

And then there was the fact that a mutual defense agreement with the Saudis, the 1951 MDA, already existed already assuring the Saudis protection under America’s nuclear umbrella. Mistrust of American intentions and assurances by America’s “allies” built up over the previous twelve years was palpable.

Bush and the Region

“Even before the inauguration [and, of course, the pretext of 9/11], Cheney asked outgoing Secretary of Defense William Cohen to provide Bush with a briefing focused on Iraq… [Bush appointee] Defense Secretary Rumsfeld saw, “September 11, 2001, as a potential “opportunity.””

Symptomatic of hubris resulting from power minus coherent policy President Bush ignored both Arab and Israeli warnings of Foreseen Consequences certain to follow should the administration follow through with its threat to invade Iraq.

“With his latest remarks, [Saudi, later king] Prince Abdullah joined the chorus of Arab complaints about the Bush administration’s talk of taking military action to oust Saddam Hussein and put an end to his programs to develop weapons of mass destruction. At virtually every stop in the Arab world, Mr. Cheney has been told that an American military strike would destabilize the region.”

And, according to Lawrence Wilkerson, a member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, “[t]he Israelis were telling usIraq is not the enemy – Iran is the enemy.” Wilkerson said that the Israeli reaction to invading Iraq in early 2002 was, “If you are going to destabilize the balance of power, do it against the main enemy.”

Bush and the Bomb

“Cut off the head of the snake,” the Saudi ambassador toWashington, Adel al-Jubeir, quotes the king as saying during a meeting with General David Petraeus in April 2008.

In a speech to the Knesset in 2008 to observe Israel’s 60thanniversary Bush told the Knesset, “America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions. Permitting the world’s leading sponsor of terror to possess the world’s deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations.” Nowhere in his speech did Bush hint at his long held view that America was not prepared to enter another Middle East war, that there never was a military option with which to threaten Iran’s nuclear weapons program. No accident then that Bush chose war-averse Robert Gates as his defense secretary; and that Gates in turn chose war-averse Admiral “Mike” Mullen as head the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The dovish defense pair would for years be the president’s PR mouthpiece warning against even the threat of force to halt Iran’s nuclear program. The Gates/Mullen oft-repeated warning of “unforeseen consequences” became, over the years a common, almost mantra-like warning against any action against Iran.

No surprise then that the openly dovish, newly-elected President Obama invited Gates to remain on as his defense department head, “a show of bipartisan continuity in a time of war that will be the first time a Pentagon chief has been carried over from a president of a different party.”

Obama and the Region

By way of destabilizing the region Obama has not yet equaled the fallout of Bush’s invasion of Iraq. If Bush gifted Iraq to Iran, set the stage for the “Arab Spring,” Obama did not come in second for lack of trying. The new president followed Bush by targeting his own tyrant, Muamar Qadafi and transformingLibya, as did Bush in Iraq, a political wreck bordering on a failed state.  Libya today is ruled al-Queda, Islamic State and other terror organizations with two governments powerless to assert control. Bordering Egypt Libya today supplies both the Sinai Salafist insurgency and the terror enclave of Gaza with weapons. And as Bush ignored Israeli and Arab warnings regarding the impact of invading Iraq, Obama chose to those same Arab-Israeli warnings regarding his intention to depose America’s principal Arab ally, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. In a single mindless move the U.S. followed up its Iraq disaster with Egypt. And followed the collapse of Egypt’s secular regime, insult to injury Obama endorsed as “democratic government” the same Muslim Brotherhood with a decades-long terror campaign against the government; the group behind the assassination of Anwar Sadat for having sought peace with Israel: the Muslim Brotherhood whose child, al-Quaeda, had flown airliners into New York’s World Trade Center! The list of Bush and Obama Administration policy failures seems to know no limits: Iraq redo, Bahrain,Yemen and the bloodbath of Syria. Lacking capacity to learn from ideology-based failures, it continually repeats its “unintended consequences.”

Obama and the Bomb

If Bush set the pattern for accommodation then the tactic at least had some “justification” as Iran’s IRGC was funding, arming and even leading the Shi’ite insurgency against Iraq’s American invaders. Not provoking Iran might have the result of limiting American casualties. But for Obama, recipient in advance of the Nobel Peace Prize for promising regarding “world peace”; for Obama to provide Iran, a state sponsor of Islamist terrorism a world forum to show up American weakness and enhance Iranian prestige; for Obama whose commitment on entering office was to promote nuclear non-proliferation: for Obama to provide Iran all the time necessary to achieve threshold nuclear armament status and, failing to contain Iran the consequence would be a nuclear arms race in the lands of the Arab Spring… Saudi Arabia,Turkey and Egypt are already moving to parity with Iran whileJordan and several Gulf states are at varying stages of planning.   

Obama, who promised nuclear non-proliferation, has turned out to be godfather to a nuclear arms race in the least stable, most militant region of the world!

Categories: Arab nations, Bush doctrine, Department of Defense, Egypt, Foreign policy, Freedom, Gulf states, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Iraq, Islamism, Israel, Khamenei, Libya, Middle East, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Shiite, Sunni, Syria, Terrorism
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »