Islamic slaughter | WarSclerotic | Page 56

Posted tagged ‘Islamic slaughter’

The ‘Islamophobia’ Scam Returns

March 6, 2015

The ‘Islamophobia’ Scam Returns, Front Page Magazine, Robert Spencer, March 6, 2015

(I hadn’t been aware that the scam had gone away. — DM)

LEISURE USA

[A]s far as the hard-Left Center for American Progress (CAP) is concerned, people aren’t suspicious of Muslims and Islam because of jihad terror and Islamic supremacism, but because of “the efforts of a small cadre of funders and misinformation experts” which were “amplified by an echo chamber of the religious right, conservative media, grassroots organizations, and politicians who sought to introduce a fringe perspective on American Muslims into the public discourse.”

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

In recent weeks, the terror group calling itself the Islamic State (aka ISIS and ISIL) has beheaded journalists and social workers, burned a pilot alive, and forced hundreds of captive women into sex slavery – all while citing Islamic texts to justify their actions and appeal for new recruits. A Muslim in the latest Islamic State beheading video cited two Qur’an verses (8:12 and 47:4) to refute “those who say [beheading] is cruel.” In New York Wednesday, a Muslim was found guilty of plotting to bomb the New York subway system. The previous day in London, a woman from Nigeria pleaded for asylum, as she faces certain death if she returns to her homeland: an Islamic court has sentenced her to die for being a lesbian.

All this and a great deal more like it – a daily horror show of jihad attacks and plots, boasts of coming catastrophic attacks in the West, declarations of imminent conquest, and more, all carried out by people claiming to represent the truest and purest form of Islam – is why, according to a poll released last summer, only twenty-seven percent of Americans have a favorable view of Muslims. Yet as far as the hard-Left Center for American Progress (CAP) is concerned, people aren’t suspicious of Muslims and Islam because of jihad terror and Islamic supremacism, but because of “the efforts of a small cadre of funders and misinformation experts” which were “amplified by an echo chamber of the religious right, conservative media, grassroots organizations, and politicians who sought to introduce a fringe perspective on American Muslims into the public discourse.”

This claim appears in the CAP’s new edition of its “Islamophobia” report, “Fear, Inc. 2.0: The Islamophobia Network’s Efforts to Manufacture Hate in America,” by Matthew Duss, Yasmine Taeb, Ken Gude, and Ken Sofer. It might seem to be peculiarly tone-deaf of the CAP to release this report while the Islamic State is horrifying the world and attacks by lone jihadis (and regular threats that more are on the way) are becoming more frequent in the West, but that is most likely why they felt they had to release it now: with reality threatening to break through their fog of disinformation, they have to pour on more dry ice.

It wasn’t accidental that Hitler’s Reich had an entire Ministry of Propaganda: lying to the public is a major job, as the cleverest of propaganda constructs is always threatened by the simple facts. CAP is trying to compel non-Muslims to disregard what they see every day — Muslims committing violence against non-Muslims and justifying it by referring to Islamic texts — and instead embrace a fictional construct: Islam is the religion of peace and tolerance. This takes a relentless barrage of propaganda, and “Fear, Inc. 2.0” is just the latest in a steady stream from CAP and its allies, which are exponentially wealthier and better-funded than the groups CAP vilifies in this report.

“Fear, Inc. 2.0” is filled with assertions that white is black, and that your lying eyes are deceiving you. We’re told that I myself am “the primary driver in promoting the myth that peaceful Islam is nonexistent and that violent extremism is inherent within traditional Islam.” CAP doesn’t offer any evidence for this being a “myth” – it doesn’t have to, as its Leftist constituency takes that as self-evident.

But CAP flatters me, as it flatters all of us named in “Fear, Inc. 2.0,” simply by suggesting that we have such persuasive power that we can create a nationwide climate of hate and fear against Muslims. I cannot accept their proffered honor of being the “primary driver in promoting the myth that peaceful Islam is nonexistent.” Innumerable others have noted the same reality, including Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee, Assistant Professor on the Faculty of Shari’ah and Law of the International Islamic University in Islamabad. In his 1994 book The Methodology of Ijtihad, he quotes the twelfth century Maliki jurist Ibn Rushd: “Muslim jurists agreed that the purpose of fighting with the People of the Book…is one of two things: it is either their conversion to Islam or the payment of jizyah.” Nyazee concludes: “This leaves no doubt that the primary goal of the Muslim community, in the eyes of its jurists, is to spread the word of Allah through jihad, and the option of poll-tax [jizya] is to be exercised only after subjugation” of non-Muslims.

But neither Nyazee nor Ibn Rushd are prominent enough to claim the role of “primary driver in promoting the myth that peaceful Islam is nonexistent.” How about the Ayatollah Khomeini, who said: “There are hundreds of other [Qur’anic] psalms and Hadiths [sayings of the Prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all this mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.” Better yet, how about Muhammad himself, who is depicted in a hadith saying: “I have been commanded to fight against people, till they testify to the fact that there is no god but Allah, and believe in me (that) I am the messenger (from the Lord) and in all that I have brought.” (Bukhari 1.31).

Another “don’t believe your lying eyes” moment in “Fear, Inc. 2.0” occurs when the report charges the David Horowitz Freedom Center with “promoting the myth that Muslim extremists infiltrated an array of political organizations on both the left and the right.” How about the White House? In December 2012, while the Muslim Brotherhood was still in power in Egypt, the Egyptian magazine Rose El-Youssef boasted that Brotherhood infiltrators in the Obama Administration had changed American policy “from a position hostile to Islamic groups and organizations in the world to the largest and most important supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

It may have been an empty boast, but that would be hard to prove in light of Barack Obama’s foreign policy. Similarly, the CAP report claims (quoting Nathan Brown, a George Washington University professor) that the notorious captured internal Muslim Brotherhood document detailing U.S. Muslim groups’ strategy to work toward “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within, and sabotaging its miserable house” was “the daydream of one enthusiast.” Brown doesn’t explain why a copy of this “daydream” turned up in the offices of the Holy Land Foundation (once the largest Islamic charity in the United States, shut down for funding Hamas) years after it was first written, but an even more telling indication that Brown and CAP are the enthusiasts doing the daydreaming when they dismiss this report is the fact that the Council on American-Islamic Relations and other Muslim groups work indefatigably to oppose virtually every counter-terror measure that has ever been proposed or implemented. Stigmatizing defense against the jihad threat as “bigotry” isn’t trying to “sabotage its miserable house”? Pull my other leg.

I hope the next CAP report will focus on how the “Islamophobes” are so devastatingly effective that they have even been able to infiltrate mosques and Islamic schools, so as to convince young Muslims that the Islamic State is authentically Islamic and has a claim on their loyalties: over 20,000 foreign Muslims have now traveled from all over the world to join the Islamic State, indicating either that imams and other Muslim authorities are singularly failing to communicate to all too many young Muslims the true, peaceful Islam that CAP will charge you with “hatred” and “bigotry” for not believing exists, or that the “Islamophobes” have a reach far greater than Matthew Duss, Yasmine Taeb, Ken Gude, and Ken Sofer ever imagined even in their worst fever dreams.

I also hope that new CAP report will address motive. Nowhere does “Fear, Inc. 2.0” explain why these fiendish “Islamophobes” would care to devote their lives to spreading hatred and fear of a noble, oppressed minority group. Apparently they want us to believe that it’s for the money, but since CAP’s budget is so very much larger than those of all the “Islamophobic” groups combined, if money is all it’s about then the “Islamophobes” would be well-advised to run up the white flag and pick up a copy of How to Get Rich By Betraying One’s Friends and Principles, by David Brock. So is it racism? Then where are the supposedly well-organized, well-heeled groups of smear and fear merchants who are dedicating their time to vilifying Hindus, or Buddhists, or Mormons, or Hard-Shell Baptists?

The effect, intended or not, of the CAP report and others like it is clear enough. When CAP and its cohorts smear those who speak out against jihad and Islamic supremacism as “bigots” and “hatemongers,” they intimidate others into backtracking, apologizing, and looking the other way when they should instead be pressing the Muslim community to address the jihad problem realistically and back up its pro-forma condemnations of terrorism with honest work against the Islamic teachings that jihadists use to justify terror.

The perfect world for the likes of Matthew Duss, Yasmine Taeb, Ken Gude, Ken Sofer and other Islamophobia-mongers would be one in which no one speaks up against jihad violence and Islamic supremacism: they have never, ever seen a counter-jihadist for whom they had any positive words. This would render the U.S. and the West in general mute and hence defenseless before the advancing jihad. As the blood and chaos spreads, will Duss and his cohorts stand up and take a bow?

Categories: Caliphate, Center for American Progress, Foreign policy, Free world, Human rights, Ideology, Iran, Iran scam, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamism, Islamophobia, Khamenei, Moral equivalence, Nazis, Obama, Sharia law, Terrorism
Tags: Caliphate, Center for American Progress, Foreign Policy, Free world, human rights, Ideology, Iran, Iran Scam, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamism, Islamophobia, Khamenei, Moral equivalence, Nazis, Sharia law, Terrorism

Comments: 2 Comments

Bad Ideas Breed Bad Foreign Policy

March 4, 2015

Bad Ideas Breed Bad Foreign Policy, Front Page Magazine, Bruce Thornton, March 4, 2015

201113jobs

The triumph of secularization has disarmed us in the fight against modern jihadism. No matter how often jihadists evoke the religious foundations of their actions, no matter how many Koranic verses and Hadith they quote, we cannot imagine a people for whom the spiritual realm is more real than the material world. We cannot imagine a life permeated with the divine and directed by submission––what “Islam” literally means––to Allah and the model of Mohammed. We ignore, as Bernard Lewis has written, the fact that “in most Islamic countries, religion remains a major political factor,” for “most Muslim countries are still profoundly Muslim, in a way and a sense that most Christian countries are no longer Christian.” Hence the worldwide Muslim support for shari’a law and its codified sexism, intolerance, and penal cruelty.

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

Barack Obama’s foreign policy will go down in U.S. history as one of the most dangerously inept ever. Created by equal amounts of ignorance, arrogance, and partisan politics, the president’s policies have left behind a world in which rivals and enemies are on the march, while allies and friends are endangered and alienated. He deserves the opprobrium with which future history should load him.

But focusing on individuals and their personal flaws can prevent us from seeing the larger bad ideas that transcend any one person or party. We justly remember British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain as the architect of the 1938 Munich conference that paved the way for Hitler’s aggression. And indeed, Chamberlain’s flaws of character––most important a vanity about his personal powers of persuasion that blinded him to Hitler’s brilliant diplomatic misdirection about his true intentions––contributed to that debacle. But we should also remember the delirious public joy that greeted Chamberlain when he returned to England, and the global acclaim he received for avoiding war with Germany. Millions of people thought Chamberlain had heroically succeeded because many shared the assumptions and ideas that drove his decisions.

So too today, Obama’s vanity and self-regard have from the beginning led to dangerous foreign policy decisions. His belief that he was a global “transformational” and “world-historical” figure drove him to court inveterate enemies like Iran, the Taliban, and the Muslim Brothers, who he mistakenly believed would be seduced by his brilliance and sympathy for their grievances. His fatuous Cairo speech in 2009 and his numerous groveling letters to Iran honcho Ayatollah Khamenei were predicated on Obama’s notion that as a person “of color,” who had spent a few childhood years in a Muslim country and was ashamed of America’s global sins, he had an instant rapport with hard, cruel men who despise the West as “Crusaders,” godless infidels to be conquered, converted, or killed. Indeed, Obama’s delusional self-estimation recalls Chamberlain’s comments to his cabinet that in the negotiations over Czechoslovakia “Hitler was speaking the truth,” and that “he had established some degree of personal influence over Herr Hitler.” Herr Hitler, in fact, considered Chamberlain “a little worm.”

But beyond these failures of character and self-knowledge, larger cultural ideas have contributed to this country’s mistakes in dealing with a resurgent Islamic jihad. Most important has been the triumph of secularism in the West, the marginalization of religion in our politics and culture. Anyone who believes the received wisdom that the U.S. is a religious country should ignore the polling data on churchgoing and look instead at our public culture. Sordid sexual content in movies, television shows, and popular music; 58 million abortions since 1973; the legitimization of same-sex marriage; the incessant demonization of any participation of religion in schools or politics––all bespeak a culture in which religion has been reduced to a private life-style choice and comforting holiday rituals, as Obama suggested when he reduced the First Amendment’s protection of religion to the “freedom to worship.” Anyone who does take Christianity or Judaism more seriously than that is considered, to quote Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, “shamans or witch doctors from savage tribes whom one humors until one can dress them in trousers and send them to school.”

More important, the animus against faith has contributed to the fashionable self-loathing and dislike of their home country on the part of many progressives and leftists, who have implicated Christianity in the crimes of capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism. Hence Obama’s bringing up and distorting the history of the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition in a speech about religious violence. Meanwhile, a noble-savage multiculturalism masquerading as tolerance for the oppressed “other” considers Islam an exotic “religion of peace,” despite its 14 centuries of slaughter, invasion, pillage, slaving, occupation, and colonization. Those tolerant Muslims of Granada in 1066 killed as many Jews in one day as the Spanish Inquisition did in its 3 centuries of existence.

The triumph of secularization has disarmed us in the fight against modern jihadism. No matter how often jihadists evoke the religious foundations of their actions, no matter how many Koranic verses and Hadith they quote, we cannot imagine a people for whom the spiritual realm is more real than the material world. We cannot imagine a life permeated with the divine and directed by submission––what “Islam” literally means––to Allah and the model of Mohammed. We ignore, as Bernard Lewis has written, the fact that “in most Islamic countries, religion remains a major political factor,” for “most Muslim countries are still profoundly Muslim, in a way and a sense that most Christian countries are no longer Christian.” Hence the worldwide Muslim support for shari’a law and its codified sexism, intolerance, and penal cruelty.

Given this failure of imagination, we have misunderstood jihadism ever since it burst onto the global scene in 1979 with the Iranian Revolution, when our foreign policy establishment ignored or dismissed its religious roots. Thirty-five years later, Obama continues the same mistake, refusing to identify ISIS as an expression of Islamic doctrine, or to use the adjective “Islamic” to describe the numerous jihadist movements active today, or to recognize the apocalyptic messianism and genocidal aims of the Iranian mullahcracy. This blindness reflects widespread delusions like the long mischaracterization of Islam as the “religion of peace,” the reinterpretation of jihad to mean a self-improving “inner struggle,” or the historical fantasies of Islamic “tolerance” in Ottoman Turkey or Andalusian Spain.

Behind this Orwellian rhetoric lies the assumption that all religions are basically the same and preach the same doctrines of “love thy neighbor” and “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” This reduction of religion to Hallmark-card sentimentalism is yet another instance of the refusal to take spirituality seriously, and to acknowledge that all spiritual aims are not the same or compatible. How much easier it is to indulge a flabby ecumenicalism and dismiss the jihadists as “evil” or “barbaric,” as though we are dealing with psychopathic serial killers rather than fervent believers in a worldwide faith with doctrines and practices dating back to the 7^th century.

Finally, the dismissal of spiritual causes leads us to focus on material ones, which in turn creates the preposterous analyses of jihadism as a reflection of material conditions or psychological dysfunctions created by them. Hence this administration recently has talked about “root causes” like “lack of opportunity for jobs” (State Department spokesman Marie Harf); the need for “peaceful democratic change” and “economic growth and devoting more resources on education, including for girls and women” (Barack Obama); “alienation, poverty, thrill-seeking, and other factors” (John Kerry); and “the perceived effect of U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world” (Rashad Hussain, recently named Obama’s Special Envoy and Coordinator for Strategic Counter-terrorism Communications), to name a few.

Yet even some Christian and observant Jewish conservatives have ignored the power of spiritual imperatives and religious differences, particularly in their focus on democracy promotion as the cure for jihadist terror. George W. Bush, in his 2002 National Security Strategy, focused U.S. foreign policy on promoting a “single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise,” for “these values of freedom are right and true for every person, every society.” These dubious ideals became strategic aims during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And for all he styles himself the anti-Bush, Barack Obama has made the same claims, as in his 2012 remarks at the U.N. “Freedom and self-determination,” he said, “are not unique to one culture. These are not simply American values or Western values—they are universal values.”

But no matter how potentially true these claims may be, to those pious Muslims who consider themselves the “slaves of Allah,” freedom and democracy as we understand them are incompatible with shari’a law, and “national success” will be achieved by restoring Islam to its original purity, and following the “model” that empowered Allah’s warriors to create a global empire stretching from the Atlantic to China. If we take seriously Islam’s spiritual aims––the necessity of obeying Allah’s precepts in order to create for Muslims a totalizing political-social order of justice, piety, and equality, and to ensure an eternity of bliss in paradise––then we will see that our notions of earthly freedom, leisure, confessional tolerance, and prosperity are to millions of Muslims mere temptations to abandon their faith and risk their eternal souls. And we will understand that waging jihad against those responsible for those temptations, especially a rich and powerful infidel West, is the communal duty of the Islamic ummah, and death in that battle the key to paradise.

Trapped in our own secularist and materialist assumptions, we mistake the nature of the enemy and thus create policies––most important the appeasement of Iran through negotiations and concessions that will end with the world’s foremost terrorist state in possession of nuclear weapons––doomed to fail and damage our security and interests. But Barack Obama will not be the only father of that failure.

Categories: Christianity, Foreign policy, Iran, Iran scam, Islam, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Jihad, Jobs for jihadists, Judiasm, Moral equivalence, Obama, Religion, Secularism, Terrorism
Tags: Christianity, Foreign Policy, Iran, Iran Scam, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Jihad, Jobs for jihadists, Judiasm, Moral equivalence, Religion, Secularism, Terrorism

Comments: 1 Comment

State Department Tweets Speech by Cleric Who Blames Unrest on Global Zionist Conspiracy

March 3, 2015

State Department Tweets Speech by Cleric Who Blames Unrest on Global Zionist Conspiracy

Cleric: Unrest due to ‘new global colonialism allied to world Zionism’

BY: Adam Kredo Follow @Kredo0
March 3, 2015 5:00 am

via State Department Tweets Speech by Cleric Who Blames Unrest on Global Zionist Conspiracy | Washington Free Beacon.

The State Department’s counterterrorism office is facing pushback after promoting recent remarks by a Muslim cleric who blamed regional unrest in the Middle East on what he called a “conspiracy” by a “new global colonialism allied to world Zionism.”

The State Department’s official anti-terrorism Twitter account last week tweeted out remarks made by a leading Muslim cleric who, during a speech in Mecca, linked terrorism by the Islamic State (IS) to a plot by supporters of Israel around the world.

Al-Azhar Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb, a leading voice in Sunni Islam, made the comments during a counter-terrorism rally held in the Muslim holy city last week, according to AFP.

Al-Tayeb “blamed unrest in the region on a conspiracy by what he called ‘new global colonialism allied to world Zionism,’” according to the AFP report, which was linked to by the State Department’s Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC).

Al-Tayeb went on to say that the “plot has exploited ‘confessional tension’ in conflict-hit Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Libya,” according to the report.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei communicated the same view as al-Tayeb on Monday, when he tweeted that all of the Western world’s problems “stem from Zionist domination over governments.”

Al-Tayeb also said in his remarks that educational reform in Arab countries could help stem the spread of terrorism, a point that was mentioned in isolation by the State Department in its tweet related to the speech.

A top Sunni Muslim cleric said education reform needed to stem the spread of extremism http://t.co/9HUuHdnQHx pic.twitter.com/3TM4JKLTkc

— Think AgainTurn Away (@ThinkAgain_DOS) February 26, 2015

A similar sentiment was expressed by State Department Deputy Spokeswoman Marie Harf, who came under fire from critics for suggesting that Islamic State terrorists could be lured away from the jihadi group with better paying job opportunities.

Multiple State Department officials did not respond to requests for comment on al-Tayeb’s comments about Zionism and the reasons why the CSCC tweeted the article referring to the speech.

The State Department’s counter-terror organs have faced criticism in recent months for linking to and endorsing controversial clerics, as well as materials that have called jihad “noble.”

The State Department’s Counter Terror Bureau (CT) was forced to apologize in May for promoting a controversial cleric who runs a group that backed Hamas and endorsed a fatwa authorizing the murder of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

That cleric, Sheik Abdallah Bin Bayyah, is the vice president of a Muslim scholarly organization that was founded by a Muslim Brotherhood leader who called “for the death of Jews and Americans.”

CT apologized multiple times for giving publicity to the cleric and deleted a tweet that related to him.

CSCC came under fire several months later for promoting a controversial anti-terror handbook that called jihad “noble” and urged law enforcement agencies to stop using the term “Islamic extremism.”

“Do not refer to terrorists as ‘jihadis,’” the manual states. “This only emboldens them and gives them a legitimate status in the eyes of the vulnerable. Terrorism is not jihad. Jihad is a noble concept in Islam.”

CSCC at the time claimed that it “was simply sharing information about a new product related to counterterrorism” in linking to the manual.

Patrick Poole, a national security reporter and terrorism expert who has long tracked the State Department’s public struggles to promote Muslim leaders it views as more moderate, said that the episodes on Twitter suggest a delicate balancing act.

“I think many of us can appreciate the wishful thinking that the State Department is engaged in here,” Poole said. “But this isn’t a standard case of double-speak, where they get caught between one of these guys saying one thing for Western audiences and then turning around and saying the opposite when talking to his own people. Here we have Sheik Tayeb’s quote about ‘global colonialism allied to world Zionism’ in the very same article that they tweeted out. It’s as if they didn’t read past the first few graphs.”

“Then you look at Tayeb’s statement immediately after the burning of the Jordanian pilot [by IS], and he invokes the Koranic punishments of crucifixion or beheading for burning the pilot alive,” Poole added. “Would the ISIS killing of the pilot have passed muster if they had used another mode of execution?”

“It seems the State Department can’t get beyond a BuzzFeed listicle view of what’s actually happening in the Middle East,” he said.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Anti Semitism, Iran, Iran Scam, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Israel, Jihad, Middle East War, Muslim Brotherhood, Terrorism, USA

Comments: Be the first to comment

Netanyahu tries to head off Iran’s machinations after Obama empowers Tehran as favored Mid East ally

March 2, 2015

Netanyahu tries to head off Iran’s machinations after Obama empowers Tehran as favored Mid East ally, DEBKAfile, March 1, 2015

Iran's Shite crescent

Netanyahu’s political rivals, while slamming him day by day, turn their gaze away from the encroaching Iranian forces taking up forward positions in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, where they are busy fashioning a Shiite Crescent that encircles Sunni Arab states as well as Israel.

It must be obvious that to bolster its rising status as the leading regional power, Iran must be reach the nuclear threshold – at the very least – if not nuclear armaments proper, or else how will Tehran be able to expand its territorial holdings and defend its lebensraum.

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

Almost the last words Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu heard Sunday, March 1, as he took off for Washington to address Congress on Iran, was in effect “Don’t do it!” They came from a group of 180 senior ex-IDF military officers. After the personal abuse is weeded out of their message, what remains is that Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of the US Congress Tuesday, March 3, was not worth making because it would damage relations with the US.

Maj. Gen. Amiram Levin, former Northern Command chief and ex-Deputy Director of the Mossad, put it this way: “Bibi, you are making an error in navigation; the target is Tehran not Washington.” He went on to say: “[Instead] of working hand in hand with the president,,, you go there and poke a finger in his eye.”

DEBKAfile’s analysts maintain that the navigation error is the general’s. Before shooting his slings and arrows at the Israeli prime minister’s office, he should long ago have taken note of President Barack Obama’s Middle East record in relation to Israel’s during his six years in the White House.

It took time to catch on to Obama’s two-faced policy towards Israel because it was handled with subtlety.

On the one hand, he made sure Israel was well supplied with all its material security needs. This enabled him to boast that no US president or administration before him had done as much to safeguard Israel’s security.

But behind this façade, Obama made sure that Israel’s security stayed firmly in the technical-material-financial realm and never crossed the line into a strategic relationship.

That was because he needed to keep his hands free for the objective of transferring the role of foremost US ally in the Middle East from Israel to Iran, a process that took into account the ayatollahs’ nuclear aspirations.

This process unfolding over recent years has left Israel face to face with a nakedly hostile Iran empowered by the United States.

Tehran is not letting its oft-repeated threat to wipe Israel off the map hang fire until its nuclear aspirations are assured of consummation under the negotiations continuing later this week in the Swiss town of Montreux between US Secretary John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minsiter Mohammed Javad Zarif. In the meantime, without President Obama lifting a finger in defense of “Israel’s security,” Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps officers are drawing Israel into a military stranglehold on the ground.

Netanyahu’s political rivals, while slamming him day by day, turn their gaze away from the encroaching Iranian forces taking up forward positions in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, where they are busy fashioning a Shiite Crescent that encircles Sunni Arab states as well as Israel.

It must be obvious that to bolster its rising status as the leading regional power, Iran must be reach the nuclear threshold – at the very least – if not nuclear armaments proper, or else how will Tehran be able to expand its territorial holdings and defend its lebensraum.

This is not something that Barack Obama or his National Security Adviser Susan Rice are prepared to admit. They are not about to confirm intelligence reports, which expose the military collaboration between the Obama administration and Iran’s supreme leader Aytatollah Ali Khamenei as being piped through the office of Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Washington denies that there is any such collaboration – or any suggestion that the White House had reviewed recommendations and assessments of an option for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Al Qods Brigades to take over the ground war on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as American contractors.

Al Qods chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani is frequently spotted these days flitting between Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut, while his intelligence and liaison officers file reports to the Obama administration, through the Iraqi prime minister’s office, on their forthcoming military steps and wait for Washington’s approval.

America understandably lacks the will to have its ground forces embroiled in another Middle East war. Washington is therefore not about to turn away a regional power offering to undertake this task – even though it may be unleasing a bloody conflagration between Shiite and Sunni Muslims that would be hard to extinguish

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the rest of the Gulf are as dismayed as Israel by Obama’s regional strategy, which, stripped of its diplomatic veneer, boils down to a straight trade: The US will allow Iran to reach the status of a pre-nuclear power and regional hegemon, while Tehran, in return, will send its officers and ground troops to fight in Iraq, Syria and even Afghanistan.

The 180 ex-IDF officers and Israel’s opposition leaders, Yitzhak Herzog and Tzipi Livni, were right when they argued that Israel’s bond with the US presidency is too valuable to jeopardize. But it is the Obama White House which is trifling with that bond – not Netanyahu, whose mission in Washington is no more than a tardy attempt to check Iran’s malignant machinations which go forward without restraint.

Categories: Elections in Israel, Foreign policy, Free world, Funding terrorism, Iran, Iran scam, Iraq, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Israel, Israeli elections, Kerry, Netanyahu, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Shiite crescent, Syria, Terrorism, Terrorists, U.S. Congress
Tags: Elections in Israel, Foreign Policy, Free world, Funding terrorism, Iran, Iran Scam, Iraq, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Israel, Israeli elections, Netanyahu, Nukes, Shiite crescent, Syria, Terrorism, Terrorists, U.S. Congress

Comments: 3 Comments

Bring Back the Bush Doctrine—with One Addition

March 1, 2015

Bring Back the Bush Doctrine—with One Addition, National Review Online, Andrew C. McCarthy, February 28, 2015

Our enemies are not driven by American foreign policy, our friendship with Israel, our detention of jihadists at Gitmo, or the supposed “arrogance” our current president likes to apologize for. Those are all pretexts for aggression.

Our enemies are driven by an ideology, Islamic supremacism, that is rooted in a classical interpretation of sharia — Islamic law. Islamic supremacism is rabidly anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-Semitic. It rejects the fundamental premise of our liberty: that people are free to govern themselves, rather than be ruled by a totalitarian legal code that suffocates liberty and brutally discriminates against non-Muslims and apostates. And sharia is an actual war on women — denying them equal rights under the law, subjecting them to unthinkable abuse, and reducing them in many ways to chattel.

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

There is a path to victory in the fight against radical Islam, and our next president should embrace it.

What should be our strategy against ISIS? We ask the question without ever considering Iran. What concessions about centrifuges and spent fuel should we demand to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power? We ask the question never linking the mullahs’ weapons ambitions with its sponsorship of the global jihad . . . the only reason we dread a nuclear Iran. What should be the national-defense strategy of the United States against radical Islam, the most immediate and thoroughgoing security and cultural threat we face today?

I had the good fortune to be asked to participate in a CPAC panel Friday on defending America against rogue states. With 2016 hopefuls crowding the halls, it got me to thinking: What should we hope to hear from Republicans who want to be the party’s standard-bearer?

It is often said that we lack a strategy for defeating our enemies. Actually, we have had a strategy for 14 years, ever since the fleeting moment of clarity right after the 9/11 attacks.

That strategy is called the Bush Doctrine, and it remains the only one that has any chance of working . . . at least if we add a small but crucial addendum — one that should have been obvious enough back in 2001, and that hard lessons of history have now made inescapable.

The Bush Doctrine has become the source of copious rebuke. On the left, that’s because of that four-letter word (hint: It’s not “Doctrine”). On the right, there have been plenty of catcalls, too. The reaction, however, has been against what the Bush Doctrine evolved into, not against the Bush Doctrine as it was first announced.

The unadorned Bush Doctrine had two straightforward parts. First, because violent jihadists launch attacks against the United States when they have safe havens from which to plot and train, we must hunt down those terrorists wherever on earth they operate. Second, the nations of the world must be put to a choice: You are with us or you are with the terrorists. Period — no middle ground. If you are with the terrorists, you will be regarded, as they are regarded, as an enemy of the United States.

Before we get to that aforementioned addendum, it is important to remember why the Bush Doctrine was so necessary. For the nine years before it, we were living with the Clinton Doctrine.

That is the doctrine President Obama came to office promising to move us back to — and has he ever. It is the doctrine under which the enemy strikes us with bombs and weaponized jumbo jets, and we respond with subpoenas and indictments. It is the doctrine under which our enemies say, “allahu akbar! Death to America!” and we respond, “Gee, you know America has been arrogant. We can see why you’re so upset.”

The Clinton Doctrine — the one the Democrats will be running on in 2016, perhaps with its namesake leading the way — is the one that gave us a series of ever more audacious attacks through the 1990s: the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; a plot to bomb New York City landmarks such as the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels; a plot to blow American airliners out of the sky over the Pacific; the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, in which Iran and al-Qaeda teamed up to kill 19 American airmen; the 1998 bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed over 200 innocent people; detonating a bomb next to our destroyer, the U.S.S. Cole, in October 2000, killing 17 members of the U.S. Navy; and finally, the 9/11 atrocities, killing nearly 3,000 of our citizens.

And what has gradually restoring the Clinton Doctrine gotten us? While President Obama pleads for a deal that will inevitably make Iran a nuclear power, the mullahs continue to back anti-American terrorists and conduct military exercises in which they practice blowing up American ships. The Iraq so many Americans gave their lives for is now an extension of Iran. Afghanistan is being returned to the Taliban, which the president empowers by releasing its commanders. Libya is now a failed state where jihadists murder Americans with impunity and frolic in the former American embassy. Al-Qaeda is expanding through northern Africa, now a bigger, more potent threat than it was on the eve of 9/11. And yet it may pale compared with its breakaway faction, the Islamic State, which now controls more territory than Great Britain, as it decapitates, incinerates, and rapes its way to a global caliphate.

But Obama tells us there’s good news: Yemen is a success . . . or at least it was until it was recently overrun by an Iran-backed militia — oops. Well, we have indicted exactly one of the scores of terrorists who attacked our embassy at Benghazi. He got his Miranda warnings, of course, and he’ll be getting his civilian trial any month now. Hopefully, we’ll do better than Obama’s civilian trial of Ahmed Ghailani, the bomber of our embassies who was acquitted on 284 out of 285 counts.

Is it any wonder we’re losing?

Largely, it is because we’re worried about the wrong things — like whether we can sweep the enemy off its feet with enough Islamophilic, blame-America-first rhetoric. In reality, our enemies could not care less whether we — the infidel West — think their literalist, scripturally based belief system is a “perversion” of Islam. Radical Islam hears only one message from America: strength or weakness. The Clinton Doctrine is weakness cubed.

The Bush Doctrine, by contrast, is the path to victory — if we get that one addendum right.

It is this: Our enemies are not driven by American foreign policy, our friendship with Israel, our detention of jihadists at Gitmo, or the supposed “arrogance” our current president likes to apologize for. Those are all pretexts for aggression.

Our enemies are driven by an ideology, Islamic supremacism, that is rooted in a classical interpretation of sharia — Islamic law. Islamic supremacism is rabidly anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-Semitic. It rejects the fundamental premise of our liberty: that people are free to govern themselves, rather than be ruled by a totalitarian legal code that suffocates liberty and brutally discriminates against non-Muslims and apostates. And sharia is an actual war on women — denying them equal rights under the law, subjecting them to unthinkable abuse, and reducing them in many ways to chattel.

In the “you are with us or you are with the terrorists” view of national security, any Muslim nation, organization, or individual that adheres to Islamic supremacism is on the wrong side. Failing to come to terms with that brute fact is where the Bush Doctrine went awry.

Sharia and Western democracy cannot coexist. They are antithetical to each other. So insists Sheikh Yussuf Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood jurist who is the world’s most influential Islamic scholar. It may be the only thing we should agree with him about.

The Bush Doctrine was allowed to evolve from an American national-security strategy to an illusion that our national security would be strengthened by promoting a chimera — sharia democracy. We put the lives of our best young men and women in harm’s way in the service of a dubious experiment: that we could build stable Islamic democracies that would be reliable American allies against jihadist terror.

Perhaps the worst thing about this experiment is not its inevitable failure. It is the sapping of America’s will that it has caused. Defeating our jihadist enemies is going to require a will to win, because the enemy’s will is strong — the jihadists truly believe Allah has already helped them vanquish the Soviet empire, and that we are next.

The American people vigorously support military operations that are essential to our defense. They support a vigorous war to defeat violent jihadists and their support networks. They understand that we cannot cede our enemies safe havens and nuclear weapons.

They do not support the notion that promoting our national security obliges us to move into hostile Islamic countries for a decade or three to civilize them. That’s not our job. Worse, when Americans become convinced that Washington — ever more remote from the public — thinks it is our job, they will not support military action, even action that is vital to protecting our nation. They will not trust the government to defeat our enemies without becoming entangled in Islam’s endless internal strife.

Understanding Islamic supremacism so we can distinguish allies from those hostile to us will restore the Bush Doctrine. And let’s not be cowed by the critics: Nothing I’ve said means endless war, or that we have to invade or occupy every country. But it does mean we should be using all our assets — not just military but intelligence, law-enforcement, financial, and diplomatic — to undermine regimes that support sharia supremacism. Cutting off that jihadist life-line is the path to victory — just as maintaining a strong military that is allowed to show it means business, that is not hamstrung by irresponsible rules of engagement, is the best way to ensure we won’t have to use it too often.

In Iran, where sharia is the law of the land, they persecute non-Muslims and apostates just like ISIS does. In Saudi Arabia, where sharia is the law of the land, they behead their prisoners just like ISIS does. A candidate who cannot tell liberty’s friends from liberty’s enemies is not fit to be commander-in-chief.

Categories: Bush doctrine, Caliphate, Clinton, Foreign policy, Funding terrorism, Human rights, Iran, Iran scam, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamism, Islamophobia, Israel, Moral equivalence, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Sharia law, Terrorism, Terrorists, Violent extremism
Tags: Bush doctrine, Caliphate, Clinton, Foreign Policy, Funding terrorism, human rights, Iran, Iran Scam, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamism, Islamophobia, Israel, Moral equivalence, Nukes, Sharia law, Terrorism, Terrorists, Violent extremism

Comments: Be the first to comment

Humor: Obama to preempt all programming to address Climate change: March 3

February 28, 2015

Obama to preempt all programming to address Climate change: March 3, Dan Miller’s Blog, The Most Reverend Mohamed Allah-scimitar, February 28, 2015

(The views expressed in this article are mine and those of my (imaginary) guest author, the Most Reverend Mohamed Allah-Scimitar. They do not necessarily reflect the views of Warsclerotic or any of its other editors.– DM)

This is a guest post by my (imaginary) guest author, the Most Reverend Mohamed Allah-scimitar, President Obama’s chief adviser on Islamic relations with Christians and Jews.

The Most Revereddd Mohamed Allah-scimitar

The Most Revereddd Mohamed Allah-scimitar

**********************
The worst crisis ever to face The Obama Nation — man-caused ~~global warming~~ climate change — continues to immobilize the country. It does so contemptuously despite the decades-long warming trend recognized by all reputable scientists. Therefore, President Obama will use the emergency broadcast system to preempt all other programming, including the internet, to address the nation on March 3.

Hell Niagara Falls freezes over

~~Hell~~ Niagara Falls freezes over

Violent right-wing Christian and Jewish extremist Islamophobes have contended that, by virtue of its timing, President Obama’s address is intended to preempt media coverage of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s remarks to the Congress on the alleged “existential threat” of a nuclear deal with Iran.

However, White House press secretary Josh Earnest vigorously denied their racist and therefore specious claims. He pointed out that Obama is extraordinarily busy fulfilling His duties as the President of all of His people. He has, therefore, made — and continues to make — historic efforts to help potential non-Islamic Islamic State recruits find jobs and hence to feel good about themselves. Do we want more of this non-Islamic violence? No? Then you should not watch Netanyahu’s address, even if you could.

President Obama also owes it to His people to continue His Herculean efforts to prevent the Republican Congress from destroying His country by passing legislation which He has to waste time vetoing, thereby attempting to impede His noble efforts to give His people — American citizens and American citizens in waiting — everything they need and want by executive ~~decree~~ action.

Unfortunately, the only time He has available coincides, unexpectedly, with PM Netanyahu’s frivolous speech — which nobody in his right mind would watch anyway because Netanyahu is an untrustworthy nattering nabob of negativism and a war criminal to boot.

Moreover, as explained by Robert Kagan in a February 27th Washington Post article, there is no need for anyone to hear Netanyahu’s meddlesome nonsense:

Do we really need the Israeli prime minister to appear before Congress to explain the dangers and pitfalls of certain prospective deals on Iran’s nuclear weapons programs? Would we not know otherwise? Have the U.S. critics of those prospective deals lost their voice? Are they shy about expressing their concerns? Are they inarticulate or incompetent? Do they lack the wherewithal to get their message out?

Not exactly. Every day a new report or analysis warns of the consequences of various concessions that the Obama administration may or may not be making. Some think tanks in Washington devote themselves almost entirely to the subject of Iran’s nuclear program. Congress has held numerous hearings on the subject. Every week, perhaps every day, high-ranking members of the House and Senate, from both parties, lay out the dangers they see. The Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and others publish countless stories on the talks in which experts weigh in to express their doubts. If all the articles, statements and analyses produced in the United States on this subject could be traded for centrifuges, the Iranian nuclear program would be eliminated in a week.

. . . .

Given all this, can it really be the case that the American people will not know what to think about any prospective Iran deal until one man, and only one man, gets up to speak in one venue, and only one venue, and does so in the first week of March, and only in that week? That is what those who insist it is vital that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speak before a joint meeting of Congress next week would have us believe. [Emphasis added.]

President Obama is greatly, and perfectly understandably, distressed that Netanyahu will offer nothing new in support of His legacy achievement of world peace in His time and that his address will therefore force Him to create insuperable problems for Israel. Indeed, He has already asked Iran, under the auspices of the United Nations, to mediate a binding peace agreement among Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. President Obama did not want to do it, because He loves Israel just as He would His only begotten son if He had one. However, in the circumstances Netanyahu has created, He has has no alternative. Only a vile Islamophobic Jew-hater like Netanyahu would destroy his own country by opposing President Obama’s grand plan for world peace.

As the world’s second greatest authority — second only to Obama — on Islam and its profoundly helpful relations with Jews and Christians everywhere, I call upon everyone in Israel and elsewhere to ignore whatever nonsense the soon-to-be-former Prime Minister of that ~~insignificant~~ beautiful little country may try to spew.

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

Editor’s comment:

All citizens of the World with half a brain — and even less — should pay heed to The Most Reverend Mohamed Allah-scimitar’s profound words and trust only Dear Leader Obama. He, and only He, can and will do all that needs to be done to keep them warm, safe and content. Should they place unwarranted trust elsewhere, their Dear Leader may well be unable to achieve ~~world peace~~ whirled peas in His time.

Categories: Caliphate, Christians, Executions, Foreign policy, Humor, Internet, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Islamism, Islamophobia, Israel, Israel, Palestinians, Israeli elections, Jews, Jobs for jihadists, Kerry, Leftists, Media, Netanyahu, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Terrorists, Two state solution, U.S. Congress
Tags: Caliphate, Christians, Executions, Foreign Policy, Humor, Internet, Iran, Iran Scam, Iranian nukes, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Islamophobia, Israel, Israel and Palestinians, Israeli elections, Jews, Jobs for jihadists, Leftists, Media, Netanyahu, Nukes, Terrorists, Two state solution, U.S. Congress

Comments: Be the first to comment

Muslims Trump All Other Minorities Because of the Victim Value Index

February 27, 2015

Muslims Trump All Other Minorities Because of the Victim Value Index, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, February 27, 2015

(The Islamic State is not valued like Hamas because, as all good Obamabots know, the Islamic State is “not Islamic” and merely engages in random, senseless violence. Perhaps if “real” Jews, Christians and other victims of “real” Islamic and other violence (the Holocaust, for example) were, and had in the past been, more violent they would have higher rankings on the Victim Value Index. Much of the world is insane.– DM)

terrorism-2-450x337

SJW code assumes that the angrier you are, the more oppressed you are. (Unless you’re a straight white male who isn’t pretending to be a woman and isn’t angry on behalf of an oppressed minority group.) But your anger is only useful if it serves the left.

The angriest groups, the ones with the newest rawest edge make the cut. A propensity for violence helps.

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

James Kirchick has written an extensive piece on the Victimhood Olympics replete with examples and references. He notes that…

Trans beats gay and Muslim beats black. As someone who writes frequently on the topic of homosexuality, I have learned the hard way what happens to those who challenge the orthodoxy of transgender activists…

This is because in the progressive imagination, the perceived plight of Muslims now trumps the sufferings of all other groups. It is this conceit that goes the furthest in explaining President Obama’s remark to Vox earlier this month that the murder of four Jews at a kosher supermarket in Paris last month was “random,”…

But he fails to explain what the basis for this hierarchy is. Why do Muslims trump Jews and why do trannies trump gay men?

There is a clear Victim Value Index. It’s not random. It has a definitive basis. That basis is the value of a victim identity to the left.

The first thing to understand is the dirty little secret of the Victim Value Index. While loud vocal assertions of suffering are very important, the substance of such suffering is unimportant when moving up the ladder of the Victim Value Index…

Actual suffering doesn’t matter. Neither does historical justice. Both of those are easy to make up, and in a dogma-ridden environment no one will look past the politically correct line anyway.

The Victim Value Index is calculated based on one overriding factor: Disruptiveness. Those who are most disruptive go to the head of the line.

This is the most obvious thing that people have noted about the Social Justice Warrior twitter mobs. They’re angry. They’re disruptive. This is also their virtue.

SJW code assumes that the angrier you are, the more oppressed you are. (Unless you’re a straight white male who isn’t pretending to be a woman and isn’t angry on behalf of an oppressed minority group.) But your anger is only useful if it serves the left.

The angriest groups, the ones with the newest rawest edge make the cut. A propensity for violence helps. Ergo, Muslims win.

Progressivism is a revolution in slow motion, and revolutions need revolutionaries. Disruption is more than just grievance, it’s violence. Those who are willing to ruthlessly attack the status quo clearing the ground for revolution are the ones who go to the head of the line and the dais of honor on top. A little murder and mayhem, and progressives will trot out “moderate” versions of the murderers and mayhemists, usually linked to them, and offer to represent them and tamp down the violence in exchange for meeting their demands.

September 11 and its aftermath is why Muslims have gone to the top of the Victim Value Index. The left may swear up and down that they are interested in Muslim civil rights, but if the Muslims were Sikhs, they would merit a place somewhere in the back. Before Muslims began prominently blowing things up in the United States, the left barely paid any attention to them. Once they did, they began outweighing every other group in the country because killing 3,000 people is the gold standard of revolutionary mayhem.

The Victim Value Index places the most disruptive groups at the front, the somewhat disruptive groups in the middle and the least disruptive groups at the back. The status of groups within the Index can change with their behavior. Muslims used to be shelved in the back with Asians, Indians and Jews. The War on Terror dramatically upgraded their status. The other groups are stuck there because they are relatively successful and aren’t rioting or blowing things up.

Latinos are still somewhere in the middle. Native Americans are in the back along with most unclassified minorities. Homosexuals are somewhere near the front, but behind African-Americans. Their status tends to drift wildly depending on current events, but they cannot overtake African-Americans or fall behind Latinos. Not unless some drastic events take place that change their status. Women are, and have always been, in the back.

The hierarchy can and does change. If Muslim violence were to suddenly disappear, the left’s interest in them in the US would go away. That’s a simple fact. The left values violent groups over non-violent ones. In the social media era, that can be virtual violence, cyberbullying and social media mobs. All that counts as activism and the left is keen to recruit activists for its cause.

Categories: Culture, Executions, Free world, Holocaust, Human rights, Ideology, Insanity, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Multiculturalism, Muslims, Victims
Tags: Culture, Executions, Free world, Holocaust, human rights, Ideology, Insanity, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Multiculturalism, Muslims, Victims

Comments: 1 Comment

From The Mediterranean to the Golan, Iran Builds Active Front And Direct Military Presence

February 23, 2015

From The Mediterranean to the Golan, Iran Builds Active Front And Direct Military Presence On Israel’s Border To Deter Israel And Further Ideology Of Eliminating The Zionist Regime

By: Y. Carmon and Y. Yehoshua*

February 16, 2015

via From The Mediterranean to the Golan, Iran Builds Active Front And Direct Military Presence On Israel’s Border To Deter Israel And Further Ideology Of Eliminating The Zionist Regime.

Israel faces a fateful crisis. As much as it feared the Iranian nuclear program, it never imagined that Iran would be standing on its border even before its nuclear agreement with the Americans was complete. The Iranian threat to Israel is no longer theoretical, nor does it have anything to do with Israel’s deterrent of using its nuclear weapons, which cannot be used considering the international power balance. The threat has become direct, practical and conventional.”[1]

Introduction

In recent years, Iran has based its deployment in Syria on the establishment of a new Hizbullah Syria organization along the lines of Hizbullah Lebanon, as well as on the direct presence of Iranian forces in Syria, particularly in the Golan Heights.

Iran’s deployment in Syria, and particularly the presence of its forces in the Golan Heights, at first only as command posts and a limited number of special forces, reveals a trend of Iranian activity in the region that is direct, not only by proxy as it has been to date. According to the Iranian plan, the command posts are meant to operate “130,000 trained Iranian Basij fighters waiting to enter Syria,” as is evident from May 2014 statements by Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) senior official Hossein Hamedani, that were censored and removed immediately after publication in Iran.[2]

Statements expressing intent to establish a front of anti-Israel activity in the Golan were heard from Iranian and Syrian officials as early as 2013, and have been implemented openly and in practice in the past two years (see MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5307, Assad And His Allies Threaten To Open A Front In Golan Heights, May 21, 2013). During this time, there were also a few terror operations as well as operations to collect intelligence information in the Golan, which Israel claims were carried out by Hizbullah and Iranian elements; for example, there have been rocket fire, roadside bombs, drones launched, and weapons transferred to Hizbullah. Israel for its part has carried out pinpoint counter-operations inside Syrian territory, such as bombing missile deliveries and attacking senior Iranian officials in Syria, for example, the January 2015 assassination of Gen. Mohammad Ali Allahdadi and other IRGC soldiers who have not been publicly identified, alongside several Hizbullah operatives, and the February 2013 assassination of top IRGC official Hassan Shateri, which Iran claims was carried out by Israel.[3]

Iran’s direct deployment in the Golan creates a single battle front against Israel from Rosh HaNikra to Quneitra.[4] It also constitutes a violation of the status quo of the Golan Heights front, which has been quiet since the Separation of Forces Agreement of 1974,[5] and comes on top of Hizbullah’s violations of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701.[6] Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Mu’allem said in an interview on Iran’s Al-Alam TV channel that “there is resistance in the Golan that is acting against Jabhat Al-Nusra and against the Israeli plans.”[7] Lebanese analyst Anis Naqash, who is close to Hizbullah, also said that “there is indeed resistance in the Golan.” According to him, there have been several actions against Israel by the Golan resistance, which he called popular Syrian resistance, and Israel has not acknowledged this so as to not reveal its helplessness. Regarding the violation of Resolution 1701 he said: “From the onset there was confusion about it. We – the resistance camp – violated Resolution 1701 from the moment they began implementing it.”[8]

Furthermore, Iran’s deployment on the border has implications for the chances of a war breaking out in the region and for the character of such a war. This, because it increases the possibility that any local eruption could quickly develop into a regional conflict, since Iran now commands the theater that stretches from Iran and Iraq through Syria and Lebanon and the Mediterranean.[9] It should be noted that Hizbullah’s January 28, 2015 retaliatory attack against Israel’s January 18 attack in itself did not develop into a broader conflict only because Israel refrained from responding to it. A senior Iranian spokesman assessed that this was due to Israel’s “intense fear of the outbreak of an all-out war.”[10]

Iran’s aim in deploying in the Golan Heights is not only to deter Israel from acting against its nuclear program, defend Syria as part of the resistance axis, and establish an active front for anti-Israel terror attacks in the Golan and even liberate the Israeli Golan. It also meshes with the Iranian regime’s ideological perception of Israel as an entity that must be eliminated, as is evident in statements by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. According to this perception, the West Bank must be armed, as the Gaza Strip was, in advance of eliminating the state of Israel.

It should be noted that in addition to its deployment for the purpose of eliminating the state of Israel, Iran is building capabilities and ways of operating against Israel and against Jewish/Israeli targets worldwide; these are occasionally put into action.[11]

Iran’s front on Israel’s northern border, in addition to its involvement in other arenas in the region, creates tremendous pressure on its dwindling resources and exhausts it, intensifying its dependence on regional forces. But the export of Iran’s Islamic Revolution always contributes directly to the survival of the Iranian regime. This is because the mobilization of Iranian national forces and Iranian youth in the ideological framework of struggle outside Iran inoculates Iran’s dictatorial regime against internal uprising and rebellion against it.

I. Regional Background: Under Guise Of Fighting Sunni Jihadi Organizations, Iran Deploys On Israel’s Border

In recent years Iran has taken advantage of the fact that the theater between Iraq and the Mediterranean – that is, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon – has become a veritable no man’s land like Afghanistan, and has tightened its grip there and built up its deployment vis-a-vis Israel. Following the abandonment of the Syrian theater by the West, primarily the U.S., and the absence of any operation to decide the conflict following the Syrian uprising, Syria has become an arena of regional and global conflict. Participating in this conflict are fighters in the global jihad, such as Jabhat Al-Nusra and the Islamic State (ISIS), which have the support of Sunni elements, and on the other side Iran and its satellites, such as Hizbullah Lebanon and Hizbullah Syria, as well as the Iraqi militia Asa’ib ‘Ahl Al-Haqq and “the Fatimiyyoun Brigade” of Afghan Shi’ites.[12]

The West’s nonintervention in Syria has spawned not only Iran’s infiltration into that country but also its infiltration into two additional theaters where it has tightened its grip. First, the non-intervention has brought about the undermining of the situation in Lebanon, where in addition to the influx of millions of refugees and the collapse of the political system, the country has become an arena of conflict between Iran and the Sunni jihadis. Likewise, it has brought about the complete undermining of the situation in Iraq, where ISIS – which first established itself in Syria – has invaded the Sunni region and has consolidated its status there. The Iraqi army has collapsed, leading to the emergence on the ground of pro-Iran militias and of troops of the IRGC’s Qods Force, which is headed by Qassem Soleimani.[13]

Thus, Iran has created for itself a single theater of operation stretching from Iran to the Mediterranean, as Iranian officials describe it. For example, Yahya Rahim Safavi, former IRGC commander and security affairs advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, boasted in May 2014: “Our strategic depth reaches to the Mediterranean, and above Israel’s head.”[14] In recent similar statements, Ali Saeedi, Khamenei’s representative in the IRGC, said: “The borders of Islamic Iran have expanded [all the way] to the shores of the Mediterranean, and the countries of the region are supported by Iran.” He said further that “we must prepare the ground for the globalization of the Islamic Revolution.”[15] In another speech, he said: “In the past, our borders were Haji Omran [on the Iran-Iraq border], while today our borders are the shore of the Mediterranean and Bab El-Mandeb [in Yemen].”[16] IRGC commander Mohammad Ali Jafari said: “Today, the borders of Islamic Iran and [its Islamic] Revolution have expanded, and we are not defending our country from its own borders but are standing fast and fighting together with our Shi’ite and Sunni brothers against the front of the arrogance [i.e. the West, headed by the U.S.] many kilometers from Iran’s borders.”[17]

In deploying directly on Israel’s border, Iran has effectively become a country neighboring Israel, despite being geographically distant, while Syria and Lebanon have become components in a broader Iran-led regional resistance entity bordering Israel.

II. Building A Single Conflict Front With Israel From Rosh HaNikra To Quneitra

Implementing the statements it has made over the past two years, Iran has created a single conflict front with Israel stretching from Rosh HaNikra to Quneitra, where it and its satellites, Hizbullah Lebanon and Hizbullah Syria, operate freely against Israel in violation of UN Resolution 1701 and while changing the status quo that has existed between Israel and Syria since the Separation of Forces Agreement of 1974.

As part of this implementation, the Syrian Golan has become an Iranian theater of operation as well. This strategic Iranian presence in the Golan was at first clandestine, under the auspices of “defending the resistance axis” and in the name of “the war on Sunni terrorism,” but later became public, and was accompanied by open threats to target Israel from the Syrian border. Thus, for example, in response to a May 2013 Israeli airstrike in the Damascus area targeting Fateh-110 long-range missiles being transferred from Iran to Hizbullah, spokesmen in Iran, Syria, and Hizbullah issued statements regarding the need for resistance in the Golan.[18] At a May 7, 2013 meeting with Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad announced, “The Golan will become a front of resistance.”[19] Iranian Army chief of staff Hassan Firouzabadi also revealed that “according to Assad’s strategic decision, a popular resistance based on the Hizbullah template is being established across Syria.”[20]

In their statements, the top leaders of the resistance axis stress that, in addition to forming an active front in the Syrian Golan vis-a-vis Israel, the axis means to actually “liberate the Syrian Golan” from Israeli control. The deputy of the Iranian chief of staff, Mas’oud Jazeyeri, promised that the region would see many changes, “some of which will pass through the Golan,” and added that “the liberation of the Golan is not impossible.”[21] Hizbullah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah announced, for his part, that his organization would aid the Syrian resistance “in order to liberate the Syrian Golan.”[22] Nahed Hattar wrote in the Lebanese Al-Akhbar that “ending the Syria war [i.e., expelling the jihad organizations from it] is meaningless without wresting the Golan from Israeli hands.”[23]

In the framework of this plan for creating a single front from Rosh HaNikra to Quneitra, Hizbullah Lebanon is ignoring the Lebanon-Syria border and is operating freely in Syria, particularly in the Golan, despite criticism in Lebanon.[24] Nasrallah’s January 30, 2015 speech, delivered two days after Hizbullah’s counterattack following Israel’s January 18 attack in Quneitra, amounted to an acknowledgement of a reality in which “there is no recognition of division into arenas” and the resistance is entitled to confront the enemy “wherever it wants and however it wants.” Moreover, in this speech Nasrallah described the death of Hizbullah and IRGC operatives in Israel’s operation as “the mingling of Lebanese blood with Iranian blood on Syrian soil” and stated that this reflected the fact that there is “one cause, one destiny, and one battle.”[25] He also declared in his speech that “the rules of engagement” with Israel had now changed, referring to the rules set out in UN Resolution 1701; as a matter of fact, Hizbullah is indeed violating this resolution in various ways, including with its presence south of Lebanon’s Litani River, alongside the presence of IRGC forces.

III. Elements Of The New Iranian Deployment In Syria: Hizbullah Syria And A Direct Iranian Presence On Israel’s Border

The building of the new Iranian front has two elements: a) establishing a Hizbullah Syria based on the Hizbullah Lebanon model, and b) Iranian forces’ direct involvement in the Golan.

A. Hizbullah Syria – Another Resistance Arm Against Israel

The new Hizbullah Syria is also being established as part of an extensive strategic view and in preparation for the coming conflict with Israel. Senior IRGC official Hossein Hamedani said in a May 2014 speech that “Syria has become a decisive geopolitical region in the regional power balance” and that Iran has established “a second Hizbullah – popular militias in 14 Syrian governorates with 70,000 members, from Syria’s Shi’ites, Sunnis, and Alawites.”[26]

Likewise, an April 21, 2014 analysis published by the moderate conservative Iranian website Farda stated, “The establishment of a Hizbullah Syria, as a bud of resistance, will not only impact the Syrian crisis but will also serve as a mighty arm of the resistance that will give the Zionists nightmares. The Zionist regime, which was previously concerned with the threats along the Lebanese border, must now prepare itself for the new situation. As ongoing events show, the resistance front is uniting from day to day, and the situation for the Zionists and their supporters is worsening.”[27]

Also, Mohammad Reza Naqdi, commander of the Basij paramilitary force, explained: “Hizbullah emerged after the 1982 war in Lebanon. The Palestinian resistance was born after the attacks against Palestine. And today in Syria we are witnessing the establishment of a military force, following the aggression and plots against Syria.” He added, “The resistance force will liberate Jerusalem.”[28]

B. Direct Iranian Activity In The Golan And Lebanon

In the past, Iran preferred to manage the conflict with Israel exclusively through its proxies and allies – Assad and Hizbullah. However, there has recently been open physical presence of IRGC and Qods Force soldiers in Syria, specifically in the Syrian Golan. As mentioned above, Hossein Hamedani, former IRGC commander in the Tehran province, even stated in a speech that “there are 130,000 trained Iranian Basij fighters waiting to enter Syria.”[29]

Arab media also published reports that Iranian forces have been present in the Golan since May 2013. The reports included details provided by Syrian oppositionist circles regarding important bases in the Golan where IRGC forces were present: bases in the Tal Al-Sha’ar area and Tal Al-Ahmar, the Division 90 headquarters, an espionage base near Mazari’ Al-Amal, and a camp in Al-Shuhada.[30]

Testimony also appeared regarding significant IRGC presence on the Israeli-Lebanese border, including on a Twitter account close to the IRGC which posted photos indicating that “the IRGC soldiers of the Islamic revolution are on the border of [Lebanon and] occupied Palestine.”[31] In this context it should be mentioned that, back in January 2012, there was outrage in Lebanon following statements by the commander of the IRGC’s Qods Force, General Qassem Soleimani, who said that “Iran has a presence in South Lebanon and Iraq” and that “these regions are under the influence of the activity and philosophy of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”[32]

The physical presence of senior IRGC generals in the Golan and South Lebanon also indicates the importance of this arena in Iran’s eyes. Examples are presence of Iranian General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi in the Golan, which was exposed after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike in January 2015, and of Iranian General and IRGC commander in Lebanon Hassan Shateri, who was killed in February 2014 in an attack on a military convoy from Damascus to Beirut.[33] This, alongside reports that General Qassem Soleimani was present in Syria in general and in the Quneitra and Dar’a areas in particular.[34]

IV. Calls In Palestinian Resistance Movements To Join Northern Front

Palestinian resistance movements such as Hamas also expressed willingness to join the northern front against Israel by activating Palestinians living in refugee camps there.

Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Zahar called to enable the establishment of military groups belonging to the Al-Qassam Brigades – Hamas’s military wing – in Lebanese and Syrian refugee camps in order “to resist the enemy from northern Palestine.”[35] At the same time, there have been increasing reports recently on renewed Hamas contacts with Iran and Hizbullah, after a period of tension between them due to Hamas’s support for the Syrian revolution.[36]

Abu Ahmad Fouad, deputy secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), supported Al-Zahar’s call and said that the establishment of these militias “should take place as part of a general framework of resistance movements, including the Lebanese Hizbullah.” He told the Al-Mayadeen TV channel: “We believe what Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said regarding uniting the fronts against the Israeli occupation, and there are ongoing meetings to develop the Palestinian resistance operation and coordinate it with the Lebanese resistance.”[37]

‘Imad Zaqout, news director for Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV, even admitted for the first time that the ‘Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades have already operated groups in neighboring countries, and that the rocket fire from Lebanon into Israel during the 2014 conflict in Gaza had been ordered by the Brigades. He added: “Hamas thought and planned for every future war with the Zionist enemy to be a total one. Meaning that it would include every inch of land in Palestine and inflict large-scale damage on the enemy.”[38]

V. The Iranian Front In The Golan – Implementing Iranian Ideological Perception Regarding Need To Eliminate Israel

Constructing a united front from Rosh HaNikra to Quneitra meshes with Iran’s comprehensive strategy to eliminate Israel. Iranian regime heads have repeatedly stated their commitment to this goal over the years, from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to other regime and military leaders.[39]

To bring only a handful of examples, in a July 23, 2014 speech, Khamenei said that “the only solution is to destroy the Zionist regime.”[40] Furthermore, Mehdi Taeb, head of Khamenei’s “Ammar Headquarters” think tank and the brother of IRGC intelligence chief Hossein Taeb, said in a November 12, 2014 speech in Qom that “Iran’s sword is currently stuck in the throat of the accursed Israeli regime, and according to the instructions of the founder of the Islamic Republic [Ayatollah Ruhollah] Khomeini, we must remove this oppressive regime from the world map… The Imam Khomeini saw the Basij [as a force] that would destroy the Zionist regime, and today, thanks to divine grace, Iran has besieged Israel with those same popular forces.”[41] Similar statements were repeatedly made by IRGC officials as well. On August 27, 2014, IRGC Deputy Commander Hossein Salami said: “Destroying the Zionist regime is a very simple matter… [It] will take place gradually. It is a matter of divine faith, [it is] more than a mere wish for us.”[42] On November 26, 2014, Basij Commander Mohammad Reza Naqdi said: “The Iranian nation and Basij members are determined to hold victory prayers led by their Imam [Khamenei] at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”[43] The next day, IRGC navy official Ali Razmjou said that the Zionist regime “will be eliminated from the world map in the near future thanks to the resistance of Basij and Hizbullah members throughout the world.”[44]

VI. Developing The Palestinian Front By Arming West Bank, Israeli Arabs

To comprehensively implement this Iranian strategy to eliminate Israel, in addition to its activity in Syria and the Golan, the Iranian regime has increasingly expressed its intent to arm the West Bank, and even the Israeli Arabs, as it has armed the Gaza Strip.[45] Khamenei called on several occasions to arm the West Bank. In a July 23, 2014 speech, he said: “Allah willing, the day will come when this regime is destroyed. [But] so long as this false regime is on its feet – what is the solution? The solution is total armed resistance against this regime. This is the solution… Therefore, it is my belief that the West Bank should be armed just like Gaza.”[46] A July 26, 2015 post on Khamenei’s Facebook page said: “The West Bank should be armed like Gaza.”[47]

Other officials also referred to the arming of the West Bank as part of a strategic policy of the Iranian regime. The deputy chair of the Majlis National Security Committee, Mansour Haghighatpour, said: “One of our goals is to arm the West Bank, because it is the best measure for fighting the Zionist regime.”[48] Ahmad Vahidi, who was defense minister under Ahmadinejad and commander of the IRGC Qods Force, said that “arming the West Bank is a strategic policy of the Leader [Khamenei], whose implementation will transform the Palestine arena,” and even called to arm the territories that were conquered in 1948, in addition to the West Bank. [49] Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said in a rally honoring the Hizbullah members killed in the Quneitra attack, held on January 27, 2015 at the Hizbullah representation in Tehran: “We will utilize every available capability in order to arm the West Bank… The policy of the Islamic Republic regime is to arm the West Bank and strengthen the resistance axis and the forces of Hizbullah in order to fight the usurping and occupying Zionist regime.”[50]

In an August 29, 2014 message of congratulations to the Palestinian people at the close of the 2014 Gaza conflict, IRGC commander Jafari expressed Iran’s support of the Gaza resistance, while mentioning the hope for the elimination of the Zionist regime. He said: “We shall stand fast with you to the end. Continue to raise the banner of jihad in the path of God, for your honor and the honor of all Muslims is linked to this holy jihad. And know that, with Allah’s help, eliminating this crumbling and bloodthirsty Zionist regime will be the greatest achievement on this divine path, and the final victory is not so far away.”[51]

VII. The Battle In The Dar’a Region – Completing The Siege Around Israel

It should be mentioned that the Syrian army, Hizbullah and Iranian forces recently launched a large-scale joint attack on the southern front to expel the rebels from the Dar’a region. During this campaign, titled “The Quneitra Martyrs Battle,” the Syrian regime admitted openly for the first time that Iranian forces were fighting in Syria alongside Assad’s forces. In addition, Gen. Qassem Soleimani visited the region, and Hizbullah and IRGC flags were flown there.[52]

This joint effort to wrest control of the southern Syria front from the hands of the rebels is regarded by Syria, Iran and Hizbullah as part of their struggle against Israel and its allies. A victory in this region will bring the Iranian forces closer to the Jordanian border in the south and the Israeli border in the west, will prepare the ground for defeating the opposition forces in the Quneitra area, and will enable the creation of a territorial continuum of resistance axis forces stretching from Dar’a through Damascus and Quneitra to Lebanon.

A Syrian army commander admitted on Syrian TV that the operation in the Dar’a region was being carried out “in collaboration with the resistance axis – Hizbullah and Iran.” He added that the goal of the army’s actions in the Dar’a and Quneitra area was “to ensure calm on the borders with the neighboring countries [Israel and Jordan] and disrupt the security zone they are attempting to establish.”[53]

The Al-Hadath News website, which is close to the Syrian regime, also exposed Iran’s involvement in the fighting, and even posted a photo of Gen. Qassem Soleimani in the area. It reported: “Iran, which had been taking part in the fighting in Syria by means of military advisors within the Syrian army, recently decided to join the military conflict officially and openly.” According to the site, Soleimani arrived in the area “to supervise and follow the campaign in southern Syria, and take part in directing it,” and his presence there lends the campaign “a clear geopolitical military character” that means that “the resistance is calling the shots in southern Syria.” The site added that the first goal of this attack was to defeat the armed opposition forces in Dar’a in advance of defeating them in Quneitra, which would be “a blow to the Zionist enemy.” This, in addition to preventing them from advancing towards Damascus. The site stated further that “southern Syria is clearly no longer involved in an inter-Syrian conflict, or a conflict between Syrians and takfiri forces [i.e., the jihad groups], but rather in a conflict between the resistance axis [comprising] Iran, Syria and Hizbullah on the one hand and the Israel-Jordan-U.S. alliance on the other.”[54]

Ibrahim Al-Amin, board chairman of the Lebanese Al-Akhbar daily, which is close to Hizbullah, wrote on this matter on February 11 that the top leadership of the resistance axis has decided “to create new political, military and security facts [on the ground] along the border between Jordan and occupied Palestine.”[55]

VIII. The Implications Of Iran And Its Proxies Surrounding Israel

Iran’s presence in the Golan, as well as in Lebanon and on the Mediterranean, creates a situation where any local conflict can rapidly escalate into a comprehensive regional war with direct Iranian involvement. Though Nasrallah stressed in his speech in late January 2015 that Hizbullah had completed its punitive measures for the killing of its six operatives in Quneitra, and that it is not interested in war, Iran continues to threaten further attacks, and may arrange further eruptions in the region or outside it by employing Hizbullah cells in various parts of the world.[56] In addition, articles in the Lebanese press spoke of the possible outbreak of a regional war.[57]

As long as Hizbullah operates from Lebanon, Israel is able to deter it, since Israel’s response to an attack from Lebanon employing the full force of Hizbullah’s missile arsenal (comprising over 100,000 missiles) will be the destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructures, a scenario that deters Hizbullah. However, if Hizbullah is activated from outside Lebanon, Israel will not be able to respond in the same manner.

As for Iran, it does not regard itself as deterred by Israel, now that it has built a single, comprehensive front against Israel stretching from the Mediterranean to southern Syria. It also has the capability of activating Hizbullah, despite the heavy price this organization will pay.

In fact, the Syrian front in general, and especially in the Golan, has become Iran’s favored theatre of operations, since acting there diminishes the chance of a war within its own borders. In this context, Khamenei’s advisor Ali Ahmad Velayati said on February 8, 2013 that “Iran has planned its defensive positions outside its own borders, and has linked its fate to the fate of the Islamic countries; this is why it will support those such as [Syrian President] Bashar Al-Assad to the end…”[58] Mehdi Taeb, the head of Khamenei’s “Ammar Headquarters” think tank, said in one of his speeches: “The loss of Syria will lead to the loss of Tehran itself.”[59]

Moreover, Iran’s presence on the Israeli border limits Israel’s ability to use military measures against Iran’s nuclear program. This, since Iran is building up its response capabilities in the region, to complement its long-range missiles. In the past, it was Hizbullah Lebanon that deterred Israel, to some extent, from acting militarily against Iran’s nuclear program. Today this deterrence is significantly strengthened by the advent of Hizbullah Syria and the direct presence of Iranian forces in the Golan.

According to Mehdi Taeb, the centrality of Hizbullah to Iran’s deterrence vis-a-vis Israel was already demonstrated in the 2006 Lebanon war. In a 2013 speech, he said that Iran never had to attack Israel’s nuclear warheads because “we completely locked up [Israel] with Hizbullah. During the 2006 Lebanon war, the Zionist regime tried to break this lock [i.e. Hizbullah], but after 33 days [of fighting], it gave up, and left [Lebanon].”[60]

Al-Akhbar columnist Nahed Al-Hattar also addressed the implications of Iran’s deployment on Israel’s border. He said that, while Israel is unable to use its nuclear capabilities due to international considerations, Iran has created a “practical, direct and conventional” threat against it: “Israel faces a fateful crisis. As much as it feared the Iranian nuclear program, it never imagined that Iran would be standing on its border even before its nuclear agreement with the Americans was complete. The Iranian threat to Israel is no longer theoretical, nor does it have anything to do with Israel’s deterrent of using its nuclear weapons, which cannot be used considering the international power balance. The threat has become direct, practical and conventional.”[61]

*Y. Carmon is President and Founder of MEMRI; Y. Yehoshua is Vice President for Research and Director of MEMRI Israel.

Endnotes:

[1] From a February 13, 2015 article by columnist Nahed Al-Hattar in the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar.

[2] Fars (Iran), April 5, 2014. See also MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5848, Iranian Media Reports Deleted Following Publication (1): Senior IRGC Official Speaking On Iran’s Military Involvement In Syria Says Iran Has Established ‘Second Hizbullah’ There, September 25, 2014.

[3] In the last two years, numerous security incidents have occurred on Israel’s northern border. The incidents include the launch of a drone from South Lebanon in April 2013, which, according to Israeli estimates, was carried out by IRGC members; rocket fire towards the Hermon outpost in May 2013; a roadside bomb near the Israeli-Lebanese border in August 2013; roadside bombs on the Israeli-Syrian border in March and October 2014; anti-tank missile fire from Syria towards an Israeli vehicle in June 2014; a drone infiltrating Israel from Quneitra in August 2014; and rocket fire on the Golan in January 2015. This, alongside Israeli attacks on weapons shipments such as a shipment of SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles to Hizbullah in Syria in January 2013, an attack on a truck convoy carrying missiles and a launcher in February 2014, and an attack on a warehouse storing Russian-made missiles that were on their way from Syria to Lebanon in December 2014.

[4] The notion of a single front from the Rosh HaNikra to Quneitra (i.e., from the Mediterranean to the Golan) was expressed repeatedly in the Lebanese press. See for example a January 19, 2015 article in the daily Al-Safir, an article by Firas Al-Shoufi from the same date in Al-Akhbar, and Nahed Hattar’s January 21, 2015 article in Al-Akhbar. The head of Al-Akhbar‘s board of directors, Ibrahim Al-Amin, expressed a similar notion in the daily as early as May 27, 2013.

[5] This violation of a decades-long status quo is so grave that, in a late January 2015 interview with Foreign Affairs magazine, Bashar Al-Assad persisted in denying that it was happening, claiming, “Never has an operation against Israel happened through the Golan Heights since the cease-fire in 1974. It has never happened. So for Israel to allege that there was a plan for an operation—that’s a far cry from reality, just an excuse, because they wanted to assassinate somebody from Hizbullah.” Foreign Affairs (U.S.), January 25, 2015.

[6] On Hizbullah’s violations of Resolution 1701, see MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5857, “Daily Close To Hizbullah: In Violation Of UNSCR 1701, Hizbullah Has Resumed Operations South Of The Litani River,” October 13, 2014.

[7] Al-Alam TV (Iran), February 2, 2015.

[8] LDC (Lebanon), January 29, 2015.

[9] Many columnists close to Hizbullah and Iran addressed the scenario of an imminent all-out war with Israel. For example, columnist Wafiq Qanso described Hizbullah’s considerations prior to reacting to the Israeli attack as follows: “The time, place, and manner of a reaction is subject to the examination of the leadership of the resistance.” He said that such an examination takes into account several elements, including “the reality in the region and the possibility of a counter-reaction [by Israel] and a slide into extensive war.” Al-Akhbar (Lebanon), January 21, 2015. Lebanese analyst ‘Ali Haidar wrote: “It is now clear that direct Israeli military intervention will trigger a parallel regional intervention on an [even] larger and more dangerous scale, leading to a scenario of regional escalation.” Al-Akhbar (Lebanon), February 13, 2015. Iranian analyst Hassan Hanizadeh, who is close to Iranian regime circles, wrote: “The current confrontation is a prelude to a comprehensive war that will not be confined to South Lebanon, and may even spread south of Quneitra.” Fars, Iran, January 28, 2015. Al-Akhbar’s Ibrahim Al-Amin wrote, “The possibility of an all-out conflict breaking out that will leave no border between Lebanon and Syria is valid and in effect.” Al-Akhbar, Lebanon, May 27, 2013.

[10] Brigadier Yadollah Javani, an advisor to Khamenei’s representative in the IRGC, said in a February 15, 2015 interview on Iran’s Al-Alam TV: “Nasrallah announced they [Hizbullah] would respond to the [January 18] attack, and we saw how this response was carried out. The beauty of it is that the Zionists, for their part, did not respond at all. The reason is their intense fear of the outbreak of an all-out war.”

[11] Recently, many Iran and Hizbullah cells across the world planning attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets were discovered. For example, Uruguay in early January 2015 expelled a top diplomat at the Iranian Embassy in Montevideo on suspicion of his involvement in placing a bomb near the Israeli Embassy in the city; see: English.alarabiya.net, February 6, 2015. Likewise, in April 2014, two Hizbullah operatives planning an attack against Israeli tourists were arrested in Thailand; see: English.alarabiya.net, April 18, 2014. In May 2013, Nigerian security forces uncovered a Hizbullah terror cell that planned to carry out attacks against Israeli targets in the country and in other parts of West Africa. In February 2013, Nigerian security forces uncovered a terror squad operated by the IRGC’s Qods Force that was planning attacks against Chabad House and against offices of the Israeli Zim shipping lines in the city of Lagos. See: Haaretz, IBA, May 30, 2013.

[12] Reports on Iranian forces participating in the fighting in Syria appeared in Iran as early as 2013. See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 1040, “Despite Denials By Iranian Regime, Statements By Majlis Member And Reports In Iran Indicate Involvement Of Iranian Troops In Syria Fighting,” December 4, 2013.

Recently, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported, citing Ahmad Ramadan, a member of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, that Iran was airlifting Shi’ite warriors, especially Iraqis and Afghans, to Latakia, Syria, where they are trained by the IRGC before being dispatched to Dar’a. Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, London, February 13, 2015.

[13] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5877, Iranian Campaign Touts IRGC Qods Force Commander Qassem Soleimani As ‘Savior Of Iraq’; Soleimani: Iran Has Thousands Of Organizations Like Hizbullah; I Pray To Die A Martyr, November 10, 2014.

[14] Mehr (Iran), February 5, 2015.

[15] Tasnim (Iran), February 11, 2015.

[16] Tasnim (Iran), February 4, 2015.

[17] Mehr (Iran), January 30, 2015.

[18] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5848, Iranian Media Reports Deleted Following Publication (1): Senior IRGC Official Speaking On Iran’s Military Involvement In Syria Says Iran Has Established ‘Second Hizbullah’ There, September 25, 2014.

[19] Al-Quds Al-Arabi (London), Almayadeen.net, May 7, 2013.

[20] ISNA (Iran), May 11, 2013.

[21] The statements were made in an interview on Hizbullah’s Al-Manar TV. Irinn.ir, May 17, 2013.

[22] Al-Safir (Lebanon), May 10, 2013.

[23] Al-Akhbar (Lebanon), February 13, 2015.

[24] Recently, former Lebanese prime minister Sa’d Al-Hariri, chairman of the Al-Mustaqbal faction, expressed harsh criticism of Hizbullah’s involvement in Syria. In a speech marking the 10^th anniversary of the assassination of his father, Rafiq Al-Hariri, he said: “[In the past] we said to Hizbullah: entering the Syrian war is lunacy in itself. It has brought the terrorist insanity into our country. Today we say to it that connecting the Golan with the South [of Lebanon] is also lunacy, and another reason for us to say to it: Get out of Syria. Stop importing Syrian conflagrations into our country, first a terrorist conflagration, then a conflagration from the Golan, and tomorrow who knows where [the conflagration] will come from.” See Youtube.com/watch?v=G90oHQpD-AU#t=174, February 14, 2015.

On earlier criticism inside Lebanon on Hizbullah’s involvement in Syria, see MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 980, Lebanon Openly Enters Fighting In Syria, June 13, 2013. The Lebanese press close to Hizbullah has since May 2013 mentioned numerous times the notion of abolishing the Lebanon-Syria border and the expansion of the resistance front from Lebanon to Syria in the framework of all-out conflict with Israel. For example, Ibrahim Al-Amin wrote in Al-Akhbar: “Everyone must act based on the expansion in practice of [Israel’s] northern front, [which now stretches from Lebanon to Syria]. In the near future, we may see the border with Lebanon remaining calm, while the most active front will be on the Palestine-Syria border [in the Golan]… We are simply facing a new level of unity between the resistance in Lebanon and [that in] Syria… such that the possibility of an all-out conflict breaking out that will leave no border between Lebanon and Syria is valid and in effect.” Al-Akhbar, Lebanon, May 27, 2013. Columnist Nahed Hattar wrote in Al-Akhbar recently that the Golan was “a pan-Arab arena shared by the Lebanese, the Syrian, the Jordanian, and the Iraqi [people]. From today onwards, there is no longer room for partial resistance and for partial national plans.” Al-Akhbar, Lebanon, January 23, 2015. See also MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 1138, Following Killing Of Hizbullah Operative Jihad Mughniyah, New Information Comes To Light Regarding Hizbullah, Iranian Activity In Syrian Golan On Israeli Border, January 28, 2015.

[25] Al-Safir (Lebanon), January 31, 2015. The previous day, similar statements were made by IRGC commander Jafari: “Iran and Hizbullah are one, and everywhere the blood of our martyrs on the front is spilled together, and our response will be the same.” Fars, Iran, January 30, 2015.

[26] Fars (Iran), May 4, 2014. See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5848, Iranian Media Reports Deleted Following Publication (1): Senior IRGC Official Speaking On Iran’s Military Involvement In Syria Says Iran Has Established ‘Second Hizbullah’ There, September 25, 2014.

[27] Farda (Iran), April 21, 2014.

[28] Al-Manar TV (Lebanon), May 10, 2013.

[29] Fars (Iran), May 4, 2014.

[30] See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis Series Report No. 1138, Following Killing Of Hizbullah Operative Jihad Mughniyah, New Information Comes To Light Regarding Hizbullah, Iranian Activity In Syrian Golan On Israeli Border, January 28, 2015.

[31] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5915, Iranian Army Twitter Account, Iranian Army-Affiliated Blog Report: IRGC Troops At Lebanon-Israel Border, December 26, 2014.

[32] ISNA (Iran), January 18, 2012. The Lebanese government requested clarifications on these statements, which resulted in denials by the Iranian foreign ministry. See Fars (Iran), January 25, 2012.

[33] Al-Gumhouriyya (Egypt), Alarabiya.net, February 15, 2014.

[34] The Syrian opposition reported that Soleimani was spotted in Quneitra. Al-Nahar (Lebanon), January 19, 2015. Another report indicated that, on January 11, 2015, “Qassem Soleimani visited Damascus on his way to Beirut, where he met with the resistance leadership.” Al-Akhbar (Lebanon), January 21, 2015. There were also reports, accompanied with photos, that Soleimani recently visited the Dar’a region. Alhadathnews.net, February 10, 2015.

[35] Almanar.com, February 4, 2015.

[36] Al-Akhbar (Lebanon), January 10, 2015, October 23, 2014.

[37] Alwatanvoice.com, February 6, 2015.

[38] Alwatanvoice.com, February 6, 2015.

[39] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5906, Iranian Regime Escalates Threats To Annihilate Israel, December 17, 2014.

[40] See MEMRI TV Clip 4366, Iran’s Leader Khamenei: Armed Struggle Should Continue until Israel Is Destroyed by a Referendum, July 23, 2014.

[41] Snn.ir, November 12, 2014.

[42] Fars (Iran), August 27, 2014.

[43] Fars (Iran), November 26, 2014.

[44] IRNA (Iran), November 27, 2014.

[45] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5906, Iranian Regime Escalates Threats To Annihilate Israel, December 17, 2014.

[46] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 4366, “Iran’s Leader Khamenei: Armed Struggle Should Continue until Israel Is Destroyed by a Referendum,” July 23, 2014.

[47] See Special Dispatch No. 5808, “Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei Calls For The Annihilation Of Israel,” July 28, 2014.

[48] Fars (Iran), November 27, 2014.

[49] Tasnim (Iran), July 26, 2014.

[50] ISNA (Iran), January 27, 2015.

[51] Tasnim (Iran), August 29, 2014.

[52] On Soleimani’s presence in Dar’a, including photos, see Alhadathnews.net, February 11, 2015. There have recently been many other reports in the Arab press on the involvement of Iranian troops in the fighting in Dar’a. See a February 13, 2015 report in the Lebanese Al-Akhbar, as well as reports in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat from February 12 and February 13. The February 12 article in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat stated that Hizbullah’s leadership in the area was stationed in a special war room in the 9^th Division base in Sanamin, north of Dar’a.

[53] Lbcgrouop.tv; Al-Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), February 12, 2015.

[54] Alhadathnews.net, February 11, 2015.

[55] Al-Akhbar (Lebanon), February 11, 2015.

[56] Iran has made numerous threats to this effect. IRGC Qods Force deputy commander Esmail Qaani said after the Quneitra attack: “We will not rest until Israel is eliminated,” Mehr (Iran), January 22, 2015. IRGC commander ‘Ali Jafari threatened a response by means of Hizbullah’s cells across the world: “They [Israel] are surely familiar with the capabilities of the Hizbullah cells that have been established around the world [to fight] the enemies of Islam, and they fear them. If they expect Hizbullah to respond to their action, they must expect a firm and crushing response not only in the region of their border but in any part of the world where there are Zionist Israelis or their supporters” Fars (Iran), January 30, 2015.

[57] On this, see note 9.

[58] Yjc.ir, February 8, 2013.

[59] See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 946, “Iranian Official: The Loss Of Syria Will Lead To The Loss Of Tehran Itself; Syria Is An Iranian Province; Iran Has Formed A 60,000-Strong Syrian Basij; Israel Is Our Only Threat,” March 11, 2013.

[60] See reference in note 59.

[61] Al-Akhbar (Lebanon), February 13, 2015.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Anti Semitism, Caliphate, Hamas, Hizbullah, Iran, Iran Scam, Iranian Basij fighters, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamism, Jihad, Middle East War, Muslim Brotherhood, Syria, Terrorism, United Nations, USA

Comments: 1 Comment

Iran won’t accept incomplete, vague nuclear deal

February 22, 2015

Iran won’t accept incomplete, vague nuclear deal

via Iran won’t accept incomplete, vague nuclear deal.

Is there a crack in the iranian government ?

Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 22
By Umid Niayesh – Trend:

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that Iran will not accept any “incomplete, vague” deal with the P5+1 over the country’s nuclear program.

“No other deal will be reached before achieving a complete agreement,” Zarif said, Iran’s Mehr news agency reported Feb. 22.

He also emphasized that the nuclear negotiating team is following the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei’s guidelines about a one stage deal.

“Neither Iran, nor other party would benefit small, separate and permanent agreements,” Zarif said.

Khamenei said on Feb. 8 that he doesn’t agree with a two-stage accord on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear case.

“If an agreement is reached, it should include both the generalities and details in one stage,” Khamenei explained.

This is while the US Secretary of State John Kerry said US President Barack Obama had “no inclination whatsoever” to extend the talks facing a March 31 deadline for agreement on a political framework for the deal.

Iran and the P5+1 (the US, the UK, Russia, China, France and Germany) extended their talks to reach a comprehensive nuclear deal, with the aim of reaching a high-level political agreement by March 31, and confirming the full technical details of the agreement by July 1.

After the sides failed to meet the Nov. 24, 2014 deadline they also extended the Geneva nuclear deal, which was signed in November 2013 to provide Iran with some sanctions relief in exchange for Tehran agreeing to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities.

Zarif also referred to the remaining gaps in the negotiations saying differences are mainly “mental.”

Some western countries, especially the US and some factions in this country consider sanctions as advantage for them in achieving their goals, Zarif said, adding that however, with these sanctions they have only harmed themselves.

While answering a question about presence of Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization in the negotiations Zarif said that the negotiations have reached a stage that presence of Salehi, who is fully involved in the country’s nuclear issues was necessary.

He also touched upon participating of Hossein Fereydoun, the younger brother of Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani in the nuclear talks and said his presence is needed for coordination with president and the Islamic Republic’s senior officials

Iran and the US have started a fresh round of talks in Geneva to narrow remaining gaps ahead of the March 31 deadline for political agreement.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Abbas Araqchi and US under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman held over 5 hours of talks on Feb. 20.

On Feb. 21 Ali Akbar Salehi held talks with the US energy secretary Ernest Moniz at the second day of the negotiations over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.

Mohammad Javad Zarif and his US counterpart John Kerry are scheduled to join the talks on Feb. 22 and hold discussions for two days.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Anti Semitism, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Israel, Jihad, Middle East War, Terrorism, USA

Comments: 4 Comments

Iran prepares to attack Northern Israel

February 22, 2015

February 21, 2015

Iran prepares to attack Northern Israel

By James Lewis

via Articles: Iran prepares to attack Northern Israel.

Take an old-fashioned iron bar magnet and a flat piece of white paper with hundreds of scattered iron filings. As soon as the paper is placed on the magnet, all the particles align around the two separate poles of the bar’s magnetic field. Every iron particle becomes polarized around one of the two extremes.

This is what Obama and Jarrett have managed to achieve in the Middle East. It is not an accident. We know that the two-person cult of Obama-Jarrett have been secretly “negotiating” with the mullahs since the beginning of the Obama years. But time is running out, and everybody over there is planning for the post-O years.

For the Iranians that means moving as fast as possible to capitalize on a historic moment of Western weakness, collusion, and accommodation. The mullahs remember what happened when Ronald Reagan won over Jimmy Carter. They have less than two years to grab whatever they can.

That is why Iranian Revolutionary Guard troops are now moving through Syria into high mountain positions to attack the Golan Heights, the northeastern tip of Israel. Syrian Army forces and Shi’ites recruited in Pakistan and Afghanistan are working under the command of Iran’s Guards.

DEBKAfile has a detailed article on this. (Debka is linked to Israeli intelligence, but this kind of stuff they don’t kid about).

DEBKAfile February 18, 2015, 9:04 AM (IDT)

“Even in stormy winter conditions, the Syrian army continued Wednesday to press forward with Iranian, Hizballah and imported Afghani and Pakistani Shiite forces towards the Golan and Israeli lines. Their immediate objective appears to be the lofty Tel al-Hara mountain fortress, which the Syrian army lost to rebel forces. … Our military sources report that the fall of Tel al-Hara would lay Quneitra (on the Goland Heights) open to attack. …(In) Quneitra… Tehran plans to establish a major military outpost and forward command center up against Israel’s Golan deployment. This is the first instance of Syria’s Bashar Assad agreeing to pass a warfront to Iranian command.”

In response, Israel has conducted a successful decapitation strike across the border, killing half a dozen top Guard officers and half a dozen Hizb’allah planners. Syrian artillery has reportedly killed 200 Guards in a “friendly fire” accident -– but Israel probably knows how to penetrate Syrian battlefield electronics.

Of all the extremely dangerous events that are now gathering momentum in the region, the Iranian-Syrian drive against northern Israel is the most dangerous. The reason is simple. Israel has a sophisticated nuclear, WMD, and missile deterrent, to be used under military doctrines similar to our own. For rational nations, WMDs are a last resort, only usable when a threat is direct and existential. Iran has always played the crazy card, a big show of irrational fanaticism and rage. Maybe they really are crazy — nobody knows for sure.

The mullahs are now trying to push Israel to the wall –- which is when a Western-style deterrent doctrine comes into force. Ayatollah Khamenei, the “Supreme Guide,” has obviously decided this is the moment when America will not defend its former allies. Maybe Obama and Jarrett have actually told him so; maybe Iran has penetrated this supremely foolish and malignant administration. Whatever the case may be, Iran is moving military forces through Syria toward Israel. Iran is also winning power in Yemen (which controls the narrow entrance to the Red Sea). All these moves directly threaten Saudi Arabia and Egypt, as well as Israel and U.S. naval and air force assets in the region.

This is an enormous Iranian gamble, maybe a martyrdom gamble, following Khomeinist war theology.

This is therefore the most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. It is a moment of unpredictable confrontation, with nuclear weapons in the offing.

Obama and the Iranians are gambling everything on the toss of a coin.

Israel does not have the manpower to match Iran, Syria, and Hizb’allah at the Golan border. If the Iranians stage a blitzkrieg against the Golan, using a force of fifty or more tanks now located in Syria, Israel may resort to unconventional weapons. These can range from massive electronic warfare to arming the Syrian Sunni rebels, to a wide range of WMD’s.

If the Golan becomes the flashpoint, a likely outcome is a huge regional war, pitting Shi’ite Iran against Sunni Arabs. Israel has long had contacts with the Saudis and Egyptians on how to respond to Iranian aggression. If Israel is drawn into regional chaos, it is likely to support the Sunni powers, who will need all the help they can get.

Iran has a Shi’ite martyrdom creed, which suggests it is trying to provoke an Israeli strike that will predictably enrage Obama and Western liberals, so that Iran can play the aggrieved victim. The Muslim world, which is 80% Sunni, may then back Shi’ite Iran.

The most intelligent form of preemption on the Golan is therefore the most invisible one. Big nuclear bangs are self-defeating. Silent strikes may work. There is now a range of unconventional weapons available to technically advanced nations. However, any local war can spread unpredictably around the Middle East.

Obama has brought us to the nuclear brink. It is vital to understand that this is not an accident. It is purposeful. It is a continuation of the Carter-Brzezinski strategy that put Ayatollah Khomeini into power forty years ago — the first Islamic Caliphate. The Obama-Carter strategy makes no rational sense at all, except perhaps in some drunken faculty lounge. The risks are enormous, and the potential for a major violent backlash against the United States and Europe is very great. Iran now has ICBMs that can reach Europe and soon, the United States.

The single biggest factor in this crisis is the vacuum of American power. For decades the United States was trusted to keep the peace in the Persian Gulf, where Persians and Arabs have been staring at each with implacable hatred for a thousand years, across fifty miles of water.

Obama has destroyed any trust in America. We have “community disorganized” the Middle East.

When Netanyahu comes to Washington in defiance of Obama, the Iranians and ISIS will cheer for Obama.

But maybe the American people will come to their own conclusions.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Anti Semitism, Caliphate, IDF, Iran Scam, Iraq, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Israel, Jihad, Middle East War, Muslim Brotherhood, Terrorism, UN, USA

Comments: 3 Comments

Archives