Sunni – The Conservative-Patriot Christian Right

Explaining the Islamic State Phenomenon, Part One

The perception that the West led by the United States are the new Crusaders trying to subdue Islam has nurtured extremists ideologies and created many militant organizations whose mission is to fight “the infidels.” This perception should be considered to be at the root of the creation of Al-Qaeda whose raison d’être is to fight the West and to strive to re-create a Muslim (Sunni) caliphate in the areas extending from North Africa to “Ma wara al Nahr,” meaning Central and Eastern Asia, the historical boundaries of the once Islamic empire. – Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah

I do believe Col. Neriah has hit the nail on the head about how Middle Eastern Muslims feel toward the West and America in particular. As you read Col. Neriah’s part one essay about the pattern of the emergence of what Daesh/ISIS calls itself the Islamic State, he elaborates on the part United States played in this emergence. Although Col. Neriah talks of America’s part he is very careful not to talk about America’s President in charge of Foreign Policy during this growth of the Islam State. Of that President the most responsible is Barack Hussein Obama in which Hillary Clinton was his Secretary of State in Obama’s earliest days of Foreign Policy decisions.

JRH 2/2/16

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Explaining the Islamic State Phenomenon, Part One

By Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

2016-02-01

ACT for America

Part One: Explaining the Islamic State Phenomenon

The Islamic State is a terrorist state with almost all governing elements. Over the last four years, it has developed from an extremist fringe and marginal faction to become the strongest, most ferocious, best funded and armed militia in the religious and ethnic war that is waged today in Syria and Iraq.

ISIS rules today over a swath of land bigger than the United Kingdom, with a population of almost 10 million. ISIS changed its name to the Islamic State to illustrate that its goals are not limited to Iraq and the countries of the Fertile Crescent.

Since the fall of Muslim empires and supremacy, Muslim scholars and philosophers have tried to understand the reasons behind its collapse. The conclusion of most was that Muslim civilization had drifted away from the teachings of the Koran and adopted foreign and heretical inputs that had destroyed its fabric. The remedy they proposed was to return to “pure Islam” and reconstruct Muslim society.

After the U.S. occupational authority in Baghdad disbanded the Iraqi army in May 2003, thousands of well-trained Sunni officers were robbed of their livelihood with the stroke of a pen, creating some of America’s most bitter and intelligent enemies. In addition, many Islamic State terrorists spent years in detention centers in Iraq after 2003.

Never in the modern history of the Muslim world has a conflict drawn so many jihadists, who seek to participate in the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate to rule the world after the defeat in battle of the Western powers and their local Arab allies.

For many, life in the Islamic State is better than in their country of origin. This is particularly the case for Chechen fighters who flock to the IS because the conditions of combat in Iraq and Syria are less harsh than against the Russians.

Much has been written about the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (the Levant) — ISIS. Most of the analysts have looked at ISIS as another terrorist organization, an al-Qaeda off-shoot, waging a guerrilla war with cohorts of unorganized thugs. The Afghani-style gear, the pickup trucks, the all black or army fatigue uniforms that most ISIS fighters wear, the unshaven beards, the turbans, hoods and head “bandanas” with Arabic inscriptions have added to the confusion.

In fact, ISIS is much more than a terrorist organization; it is a terrorist state with almost all governing elements. Over the last four years, since the beginning of the civil war in Syria, the Islamic State developed from an extremist fringe and marginal faction participating in the civil war to become the strongest, most ferocious, best funded and armed militia in the religious and ethnic war that is waged today in Syria and Iraq.

ISIS rules today over 300,000 square kilometers, a swath of land roughly bigger than the United Kingdom with a population of almost 10 million citizens. In the course of its first year of expansion, ISIS has changed its name to the Islamic State, a choice made to illustrate that its goals are not limited to Iraq and the countries of the Fertile Crescent. Moreover, the IS caliphate now has 10 branches, following pledges of allegiance in the past few months from new fronts including Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Algeria, Afghanistan, Nigeria and, most recently, the Caucasian Emirates.

Factors behind the Establishment of the Islamic State

To understand the IS phenomenon, it is crucial to examine the factors that contributed to its emergence.

Since the fall of Muslim empires and supremacy, Muslim scholars and philosophers have tried to understand the reasons behind its collapse, its domination by Western Powers, its colonization and its incapacity to reproduce the genius that so much characterized the Muslim civilization following the conquests that stretched the Muslim lands from Spain to India, West Asia, and China. Most, if not all the scholars tried to analyze the characteristics behind the “Golden Age” of Islam and why at a certain point, the Muslim world stopped producing innovations in science, medicine, algebra, mathematics, military warfare machines and graphic arts. The conclusion of most was that Muslim civilization had drifted away from the teachings of the Koran and adopted foreign and heretical inputs that had destroyed its fabric. The remedy they proposed was to return to the “pure Islam” which would heal the wounds and respond to the West by first reconstructing the Muslim society according to their raw interpretation of the Koran and organizing to defeat Western power.

Indeed, since the fall of Muslim Spain in the fifteenth century and especially since the beginning of western colonization of Muslim territories, the Muslim world has witnessed the rise and fall of successive radical movements whose prime aim was to combat the West while regenerating the original Muslim society of Prophet Mohammad which was thought to be the cure for all ailments. Muslim thinkers like Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani (late 19th century), Muhammad ‘Abduh (19th century), Sayyed Qutub (20th century), Muhammad Iqbal (early 20th century), and the Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi in Sudan (19th century) are only a few examples of Muslim radicals who inspired upheavals against Western powers. ISIS is but another refined product of the radicalization of the Sunnis in West and Central Asia.

Since the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, foreign military intervention in the latter part of the 20th century, be it Soviet or American, was greatly responsible for the awakening of Sunni radicalism in West and Central Asia and to its expression today as a Holy War against the West, its allies and Israel. The perception that the West led by the United States are the new Crusaders trying to subdue Islam has nurtured extremists ideologies and created many militant organizations whose mission is to fight “the infidels.” This perception should be considered to be at the root of the creation of Al-Qaeda whose raison d’être is to fight the West and to strive to re-create a Muslim (Sunni) caliphate in the areas extending from North Africa to “Ma wara al Nahr,” meaning Central and Eastern Asia, the historical boundaries of the once Islamic empire.

The civil war in Syria transformed very quickly into a radical Sunni armed insurrection against the Alawite Iranian-backed Assad regime. The Muslim Brotherhood, which led the battle against the regime at the beginning of the conflict, was soon joined by radical organizations financed not only by Saudi Arabia and Qatar but also by other actors such as the United States, UK, France and Turkey. Qatar alone is said to have poured into the conflict more than $500 million. The Syrian scene provided all the ingredients for the radicalization of Sunni organizations. The Syrian civil war is an “all-in-one” situation in which all the previous factors are involved: foreign presence, Sunnis against Shiites, Iran and Hizbullah, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the United States, France and Turkey and an international coalition led by the United States fighting Islamic militants in the lands of Islam.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar fund Islamic organizations all over the world, nurturing mainly the Salafi-Wahhabi schools at the expense of traditional and moderate Islam. Most of the Muslim states have been exposed for a long time to Wahhabi proselytism that is by essence opposed to the “moderate” Sufi Islam practiced in North Africa. No wonder after the revolution in Libya and the takeover of Mali by Islamic fundamentalists, the Muslim militants destroyed all religious shrines, an exact copy of the reality in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. However, it appears now that Saudi Arabia is apprehensive of what seems to be the result of its actions: One of the biggest contingents fighting in Syria and Iraq is Saudi (almost 2,500). As a consequence of the assessment that these Jihadist organizations could harm the monarchy, Saudi Arabia and all Gulf states have adopted a sort of “Patriot Act” and designated all those volunteers as terrorists.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has also played a major catalyst role in contributing to the polarization of the Muslim world into two rival camps, Shiites and Sunnites. Since the beginning of the Khomeini takeover in 1979, Iran has been preaching a pan-Islamist ideology while sealing alliances with Islamic movements in the Arab world, Africa, and Asia. Iran concealed its Shiite philosophy and succeeded in creating the illusion that it was transcending its origins and its identity as a Shiite entity. It was not until the beginning of the so-called “Arab Spring” that the Arab nations realized the Iranian scheme. The war in Syria and Iran’s open alliance with the Assad regime and the Shiite regime in Baghdad, Iran’s subversive activity in Lebanon through Hizbullah and the Houthis in Yemen, unveiled the implications of the Iranian contribution: the transformation of local conflicts in West Asia into a Shiite-Sunni open conflict over hegemony. Moreover, the Arab perception that the U.S. administration was looking to mend the fences with Iran at the expense of it historical clients in the Middle East accelerated the crisis between the Arab world and Iran and justified in the eyes of many the armed struggle waged by the Islamists against Iran and its allies in the region.

Another factor in the rise of the Islamic State is the so-called “Arab Spring” which was the expression of the failure of the Arab nation-states. The events in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen were exploited by Islamic militant movements which found the right opportunity to rise from their clandestine activities after years of oppression and persecution by the different Arab regimes to the forefront of the political struggle for power. Years of military rule did not eradicate the Islamic political forces that had remained in the shadow and camouflaged themselves under the cover of charitable organizations, social assistance and non-profit entities. However, after a first round in which the Islamists seemingly won in Tunisia and Egypt, the secular forces backed by the military succeeded in overcoming the Islamists. The Muslim Brotherhood was dealt a heavy blow both in Syria and Egypt. However, the different regimes were unsuccessful in eradicating the plethora of militant terrorist Islamic organizations that are still conducting their deadly attacks against the different regimes. Some regimes survived – even though deeply shaken and destabilized – like Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco – while others like Libya deteriorated into failed states, and others are struggling for their survival such as Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.

The second American war in Iraq in 2003 dealt a death blow to the Sunni minority that had ruled Iraq since its separation from the Ottoman Empire by British colonialism. The Americans, striving to establish a new world order with democratic regimes as a copy of the West, established an unprecedented Shiite regime which in turn discriminated against the Sunnites who found themselves out of jobs, positions, army command, and Baath party offices. Paul Bremer, then head of the U.S. occupational authority in Baghdad, disbanded the Iraqi army in May 2003. Thousands of well-trained Sunni officers were robbed of their livelihood with the stroke of a pen. In doing so, America created its most bitter and intelligent enemies. This was the fertile ground that welcomed Al-Qaeda and allowed the symbiosis between the Sunnite opposition to the Shiite regime and the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Until the schism with ISIS in 2013, Al-Qaeda was, in fact, the sole quasi-military opposition to the U.S.-led coalition campaign:

Amazingly, the Islamic State terrorists who have emerged in Iraq and Syria are not new to the U.S. and Western security agencies. Many of them spent years in detention centers in Iraq after 2003. “There were 26,000 detainees at the height of the war,” the New York Times reported, “and over 100,000 individuals passed through the gates of Camps Bucca, Cropper, and Taji.” The leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was incarcerated in Camp Bucca in southern Iraq. “A majority of the other top Islamic State leaders were also former prisoners, including Abu Muslim al-Turkmani, Abu Louay, Abu Kassem, Abu Jurnas, Abu Shema and Abu Suja,” the Times detailed. “Before their detention, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and others were violent radicals. Their time in prison deepened their extremism and gave them opportunities to broaden their following.”

Unfortunately, the phenomenon went unnoticed for most American decision makers. “The prisons became virtual terrorist universities,” the Times reporters Andrew Thompson and Jeremi Suri wrote. “Policies changed in 2007… Where possible, the military tried to separate hardline terrorists from moderates.” But after the American withdrawal these prisoners were placed in Iraqi custody. The Islamic State freed these extremists as they swept across parts of Iraq. “With a new lease on life,” the New York Times reported, “these former prisoners are now some of the Islamic States’ most dedicated fighters.”

Never in the modern history of the Muslim world has a conflict drawn so many jihadists as is the case with the Syrian and Iraqi civil wars, surpassing wars in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. Since the outburst of the conflict in Syria in 2011 and the 2014 takeover of Mosul by the IS (the Islamic State), Syria and Iraq have become the epicenter of the global Jihad. Thousands of jihadists originating from more than 90 different nationalities have flocked to Syria and Iraq to be part of the battle against the Assad regime and the Shiite regime in Iraq. The latter two are reinforced by Hizbullah and Iran.

The jihadists seek to participate in the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate to rule the world after the defeat in battle of the Western powers and their local Arab allies. The attraction the Islamic State is exercising on Sunni Muslims around the globe and jihadists in the Arab and Muslim world is tremendous. The Islamic State has become the beacon to rally thousands of militants in Iraq, Syria and around the globe.

The attraction is not limited in space or time. The movement is in Europe, the United States, Australia, Xinyang and also in the Arab world and Africa. As a matter of fact, most of North Africa’s jihadist groups were hesitant to associate themselves with the Islamic State until the United States commenced its military intervention in Iraq and Syria in August 2014.

Part Two of this series will be published on Wednesday, February 3rd

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Killing Islam

Justin Smith describes a strategy against Islamic terrorism that is sure to make bleeding heart Leftists bleed more and Muslim Apologists cry for their non-existent Mahdi. I concur with the strategy and might even be bold enough to take the strategy to a higher level of collateral damage due to the inherent violence sewn within the pages of the Quran, Hadith and Sira. Justin also mentions a few Muslims that are calling for a Westernized reform of Islam. And yet Justin correctly points out such a reformation would obliterate the heart of makes Islam into Islam.

JRH 1/3/16

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Killing Islam

Or Let Allah Sort It Out

By Justin O. Smith

Sent: 1/2/2016 2:29 PM

Islam is a septic, twisted and demented ideological maelstrom that is incapable of reform, and it has disseminated its own particular brand of hate, intolerance, dissent, division and violence in every nation that has opened its doors to Muslims, who deny the theological warrant for violence and intolerance embedded in Islam’s religious texts. It is not a religion of peace, as history and current events detail, and the terrorist murderers from Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and the Islamic State quote the same Koranic verses that every Muslim in the world considers sacrosanct; in totality, all the factual evidence shows that Islam is the antithesis of freedom, constitutional governance and liberty, and America should close Her doors to Islam and Muslims permanently.

Approximately 70% of Muslims in America and Europe follow fundamental Islamic traditions and cultural adaptations, and over 50% of Muslims worldwide, about 800 billion, affirm all or a significant portion of the Koran’s teaching on violence. This includes theologically sanctioned violence aimed at blasphemy, adultery, apostasy and any perceived insult against family “honor” or Islam.

Throughout Islam’s history, several attempts towards “islah” [Wikipedia & Oxford Islamic Studies] (reform and “tajdid” [Claremont Graduate University & Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization]) renewal were witnessed. Many of these ended in the manner of Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah of Damascus (1263-1328), who died in prison after trying to modify Islam’s “fiqh” (jurisprudence). One other, Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahab (1703-92) was a “reformer” who aimed his efforts at doctrinal purity; his vision became the virulent Wahhabi sect of Islam that controls most of Sunni Islamic thought today and advocates violent methods to make Islam supreme across the entire world.

Secular attempts to reform Islam have largely failed, because they were not sanctioned by the top clerics of Islam: Mustafa Kemal enraged Muslims in Turkey and everywhere else by abolishing the Ottoman sultanate on November 1st 1922, which resulted in the Khilafat Movement and an effort to protect the caliphate. And today we see Pres. Tayyip Erdogan supporting the Islamic State covertly [Jihad Watch] and restoring Turkey’s fundamental Islamic heritage and Sharia law to the heart of public life in finance, legislation and education.

Likewise, Shah Mohammed Reza lost support from the Shia clergy of Iran, largely due to his strong policies regarding secular government and modernization. This paved the way for the January 17th 1979 revolution and Ayatollah Khomeini’s rise to power; Khomeini would later offer his convoluted reasoning that suggested Islamic government, the theocratic state — the mother of all totalitarianisms, was constitutional.

Khomeini saw government as the vehicle of divine law and divine rule, which Allah had delegated to the Prophet. In December 1987 Khomeini stated: “The government is empowered to unilaterally revoke any lawful agreement … if the agreement contravenes the interests of Islam and the country. It can prevent any matter, whether religious or secular, if it is against the interests of Islam.”

Some small hope can be placed in recent calls from reformers, such as Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, Irshad Manji, Asra Nomani ( December 4th) and Ayaan Hirsi Ali (March 20th), who have all outlined plans for the reformation of Islam. One should also note Egyptian President Sisi’s call for reform, as he told Egyptians on January 22nd 2015 that “the Islamic world is being torn, it is being destroyed … by your own hands.”

And in February of 2015, Sheik Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al Azhar University (leading cleric), called for a reform of Islamic teaching [Clarion Project] on the first day of a counter-terrorism conference in Mecca. This is only significant if the lesser clerics act in favor of Sheik Tayeb’s suggestion.

However, with so much of Islam grounded in the literal translation of Koranic verses touting Islam’s supremacy and Mohammed’s infallible nature, any of the proposed reforms will be seen as an attack at the heart of Islam and the Shahada itself, which states: I bear witness that there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger.” At least 109 other verses command Muslims to war with the infidels for the sake of Islamic rule, and these verses are still followed by the greatest majority of Muslims.

Muslim (1:33) – “the messenger of Allah said: I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, that Mohammed is the messenger of Allah.”

Bukhari (52:256) – “The Prophet … was asked whether it was permissible to attack the pagan warriors at night with the probability of exposing their women and children to danger. The Prophet replied, ‘They are from them’.

Tabari 9:69 – “Killing Unbelievers is a small matter to us.”

Some American Muslims might accept [reforming] “the core ideas that inspire political Islam” and [condemning] “violent jihad”, in the manner described by Dr. Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy [AIFD], but the overwhelming majority of Muslims across the earth will recoil in revulsion, disgust and anger from such proposals. This overwhelming majority of Muslims accept the literal translation of the Koran, and they believe the Koran is the final and perfect manifesto of God’s will; even so-called “educated” people, like the failed Times Square Bomber, the islamofascist terrorists in Chattanooga and San Bernardino and Al Qaeda leader Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri, fall within this group.

By accepting such reforms, Muslims would be sticking a knife into the heart of Islam. In essence, these reforms call for Muslims to kill Islam.

From the highest levels of Islam, the top “qadis” [Britannica.com] (judges), their consultants (“muftis” [Wikipedia]) and the (“ulema” [About.com]) religious scholars to CAIR, the average Muslim around the world and the idiot U.S. Congressman – Keith Ellison, the apologists for Islam continue to insist that Islam is “a religion of peace and tolerance.” But, my own lying eyes tell me otherwise, as I observe that Saudi Arabia outlaws Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, Pakistan executes critics of Islam, most Islamic nations imprison anyone celebrating Christmas, Iran hangs homosexuals, and last year 70% of all fatalities in armed conflicts worldwide [WSJ – 3/20/15] were a result of Islamic inspired wars (International Institute for Strategic Studies [IISS]).

The laws and cultural practices of other nations deserve respect and tolerance only in so far they themselves are respectable and tolerant. We cannot accept any form of oppression in the name of cultural tolerance, and we cannot accept codified child abuse, oppression of women and murder under the color of any law.

America has already suffered too much from Islam’s intrinsic evil and violence. Why would any sane person allow more Muslims entry to America or the expansion of the anti-American ideology of Islam — the death cult of their Anti-Christ?

In my lifetime, I’ve seen Muslims rejoicing over the murders of innocents on 9/11 and every terror attack against America, since that time. I’ve seen Muslims conceal information that would have prevented the Boston Bombing and the attack in San Bernardino. I’ve witnessed American middle school children intimidated into emulating Muslims, and I am now seeing Congressional Democrats attempting to pass a blasphemy law (HR 569) to appease Muslims. I have witnessed the horrible bloody violent truth at the core of Islam, from Cyprus and Pakistan and Bangladesh and Algiers and Lebanon to Iran and Serbia and Russia, and much of Eastern and Western Europe, and on to Iraq, Libya and Syria, and so-called “allies” like Pakistan (aids Haqqani and Taliban), Turkey (aids Islamic State) and Saudi Arabia (aids Taliban and Islamic State) actually aiding our enemies in far too many instances.

This is a record that demands more than a simple accounting or retribution from proponents and agents of Islam or “diplomatic conferences” and negotiated peace. America must encourage the decline of Islam, as it is now configured, within Her borders, by halting all Muslim immigration and utilizing forceful countermeasures to defeat any Islamic political adventurism focused on subverting and abrogating our U.S. Constitution. America must defeat the islamofascists and Islam abroad more definitively than the Allies defeated the Ottoman Empire, with or without the Western nations, through political, military and any other necessary means; defeat them so definitively that they beg for relief from the spilling of Muslim blood, and they quit their efforts to harm us and content themselves within the confines of a (renewed? – modernized? – civilized?) Middle East of their own making. America must take this course to avoid the complete islamification of our country and a certain bloodier future, since the Islamic world will never totally reject the imposition of Islam’s ideology by the sword.

Whether “Islam is at a crossroads” or not, I don’t give a damn. Let Allah sort it out, if they really hate living so much. Let Allah sort it out, if they hate modernization, secularism, civilization and Westerners. Let Allah sort it out if they wish to die in various internecine battles between Shia and Sunni sects or by the hands of Western forces; they can do what they want, so long as they do it over there and no longer harm Americans and Christians here and abroad. And let Allah sort it out if they reject peace and wish to be isolated from the civilized world.

By Justin O. Smith

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Edited by John R. Houk

All links or text enclosed by brackets are by the Editor.

Any links enclosed or not by parentheses are by Justin Smith. Any link not in a bracket are by Justin Smith.

© Justin O. Smith

Pak-Stan, Land of Pure

Intro to ‘Pak-Stan, Land of Pure’

Edited by John R. Houk

11/5/14

Shamim Masih writes about Sunni Muslims persecuting all the religious minorities of Pakistan. Shamim points out religious strife in Pakistan is largely due to the intolerance by Sunnis of all things not Muslim especially all things not Sunni Islam. Then Shamim segues how some Pakistani Sunnis flipped their lid when some students participated in an international student fair choosing Israel their nation to commemorate.

Now let me address Shamim’s title, “Pak-Stan, Land of Pure”:

Many writers translate the word ‘Pakistan’ as ‘Land of the Pure’; this is incorrect. The word Pakistan consists of two parts, i.e., Pak and Istan. While Pak is a Persian word, which mans (sic) holy/ pure/ clean, the word Istan is from the word isthan, which is a Hindi word meaning a place. For example ‘Janum Isthan’ means the place of birth. So the word Pakistan means a holy/ pure/ clean place (country) and not the ‘Land of the Pure’. The word Pak is an adjective which describes ‘Istan’ (Isthan), place and not its inhabitants. This is eulogized in the National Anthem; which begins as ‘Pak Sar Zamin Shad Baad’ As regards its inhabitants; all of them cannot be said to be pure as they have proved time and again. (The true meaning of Pakistan; By KHAWAJA MUHAMMAD BASHIR BUTT; The Nation; 1/19/13)

I suspect Shamim views the Land of the Pure through the filter of the hope that Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah was genuine in his founding speech proclaiming:

You are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed. That has nothing to do with the business of the State. – Presidential address to the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, Karachi, 11 August 1947 (Muhammad Ali Jinnah; Wikiquote)

The minority religions in Pakistan to this do believe this was a promise for secular state in which all the citizens of Pakistan would enjoy equal civil rights. I believe this was a lie. You can read a decent essay that sets the case that Jinnah was not being honest to the future citizens of Pakistan: “Muslim Partition of an Independent and United India”.

If Pakistan was ever to be considered the Land of the Pure it was more in the sense of a Nazi Aryan pure race in which like Hitler’s German supremacy, Pakistan was intended to be an Islamic Supremacist State.

JRH 11/5/14

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Pak-Stan, Land of Pure

Pakistani demanded expulsion of the students for displaying pro-Israel

By Shamim Masih

Sent: 11/4/2014 7:11 PM

ISLAMABAD: Rawalpindi city was seized for three days due to the Moharam [Also Muharram] riots [Religious conflict between Sunnis and Shias – HERE and HERE] in October, 2013. Roads were blocked, mobile service was off and the residents faced a short fall off their household items. Sunni Muslims wanted to dictate to the other faiths of the country. There is large number of Shia Muslims living in the country, on every year when there is Moharam, the situation becomes worse. This has been [going] on for years, both targets each other; and thus the situation is getting worse day by day (I am sorry, but it is fact). When there are different schools of thought and people are from different faiths, you have to be tolerant. Tolerance is the essence of the faith you believe in.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah had conceived Pakistan as a democratic state for Muslims and all others, [where] they could live together in peace and harmony. And every Pakistani can worship freely according to his belief. Unfortunately a religious mind-set had started ruling after Pakistan’s independence. As a result, insecurity, terrorism and intolerance are prevailing in the country. No Pakistani feels safe and secure in the country either from the majority or minority. Minorities – weak segment of the society – is especially targeted [by the] majority Muslims, especially Shias are not protected.

Recently the International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) arranged an international student fair at Faisal Mosque. Students publicly displayed Israeli culture & customs that include Israeli flags, photographs of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Orthodox Jews, a high-tech manufacturing plant, and Jerusalem’s Al- Aqsa [See HERE]. The mere presence of the display triggered a ferocious and immediate reaction led by religious and student groups on campus and across the country. After a firestorm of criticism, authorities at the university empanelled a disciplinary committee to investigate and punish the students behind the stall. Even this was discussed in the parliament and parliamentarians demanded to take strict action against those students, who have promoted Israeli culture and painted it as land of peace and prosperity. Unfortunately people don’t accept others.

When there are different schools of thought and people are from a different faith, you have to be tolerant. Since, the people of Pakistan tied with Jordanians and Egyptians are the world’s most anti-Semitic people. According to the most recent Pew Global Attitudes Survey only 2% of all Pakistani polled reported favorable attitudes towards the Jewish people and Israel. Perhaps, they could be Christians. Christians around the world believe Jews as [the] favorite nation of God.

For more than a decade – Pakistan [has] faced terrorism and you [can] find different protests, mobile phone service [is often] off, sit-ins, energy shortages etc. The law and order situation has reached its worse. Politicians are smashing each other and only nationalism is seen in papers. Normally on every other occasion, when people are celebrating their special days, mobile service usually is off. This is so-called precautionary measure taken for security reasons.

Biblically speaking- Jews, Christians and Muslims are siblings of Abraham. Thus Pakistani Christians believe and obey the Word of God. We being Christians believe that Jacob (son of Isaac) was named Israel by God. And God loved Israel throughout his life and ordered to bless Israel. It is written in the Bible; Genesis 27:28-29 ……. May nations serve you and people bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers…… may those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed.

When it is written in the Bible, we being Christian have to follow the teaching and we bless Israel. When it is written; those who bless [Israel will] be blessed. Isaac’s blessing was irrevocable. Israel is the land of prophets; most of messages came from this soil.

I give you an example, Hindus of India chose to be secular as that is what their religion teaches; acceptance. When there are 330 million gods you have to be tolerant. That is the beauty of pantheism and polytheism. There are around 180 million Muslims in India. Not only the population is increasing by the percentage but the total population is increasing too. It is due to tolerance from Hindus that Muslims are just multiplying in India.

The authorities have to realize that many Hindus are migrating to India and thousands of Pakistani Christians and Shia Hazaras are seeking asylum in different countries. It doesn’t make any difference if Pakistan does not accept Israel. Israel exists and it is member of United Nations. And most importantly Christ Jesus was born in Jerusalem and set an example of tolerance. A land of peace and prosperity; live long Israel.

Be Blessed,

Shamim Masih

Diplomatic Correspondent, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, UN, F & S, MOST and CADD

Daily Khabrian – in Urdu (PakBiz.com description – in English) & Channel – 5

Human Rights Activist

For Americans especially, I have discovered the best way to donate to Shamim Masih is via Western Union sending this LINK to a Western Union agent in Islamabad. Include Shamim’s phone – +92-300-642-4560

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Edited by John R. Houk

All links and text enclosed by brackets are by the Editor.

© Shamim Masih

Is Erdogan Setting Stage for Turkish Caliphate?

Sultan Erdogan

John R. Houk

© June 27, 2014

Caroline Glick has written a very interesting editorial: “Turkey’s high-risk power play”. Glick’s observations are about Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Erdogan seems to be a mystery to Washington DC. For years the PM’s Radical Islamic beliefs seemed to be second to governing a secular pseudo-democratic Muslim State. His initial actions appeared supportive to the Ataturk vision for Turkey but with only a slight reform of bringing Islam to the fore of Turkish society. HOWEVER, in recent years, Erdogan’s governing actions have begun to match his Radical Muslim beliefs. Thus Glick posits in no uncertain terms that Erdogan is trying to revive Turkey’s Muslim domination a la Ottoman style of the old empire days prior to WWI.

Erdogan has moved Turkey away from being a rare Muslim friend of Israel to joining the rest of the Muslim world in Jew-hatred. Erdogan is openly supporting Hamas that has the agenda of destroying Israel, killing Jews and establishing a Radical Muslim State called Palestine. The interesting point that Glick brings up is that Erdogan has reversed decades of a policy of Turkification (ok, I don’t know if this is an actual word but you get the idea) of Turkish society to encouraging non-Turkish yet Muslim ethnic groups to seek the historical identity. One stunning example is Turkey’s treatment of an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq.

After the U.S. finished liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein’s Baathist Party oppression of Iraq a debate began on how Iraq should exist politically. Saddam always favored Iraqi Sunni Muslims over the majority Shia Muslims and the ethnic Kurdish Muslims. Saddam retained power via extreme repression of Shias and Kurds. There was talk of dividing Iraq into three independent nations controlled by the three major players of Iraq; viz. the Kurds in the north, the Sunni minority that gravitated toward the west and the Shias that gravitated toward the eastern part of Iraq bordering Iran.

American conventional wisdom quickly abandoned the three State scenario due American National Interests of the location of oil fields and the legitimate concern that the Arab Shia population of Iraq would be absorbed into Iran which are ethnically Persian yet also are Shias. So the Bush Administration tried to build a new Iraq nation under the auspices of shared governance by the three Iraqi groups. Unfortunately for the shared governance concept the Western concept of democratic elections placed a Shi’ite as the governing Prime Minister. PM Maliki slowly moved away from shared governance to Shia domination by the purging of Sunni political leaders. It may be a bit more complicated but you get the idea.

Enter Erdogan’s Turkey agenda change toward non-Turks. She believes Erdogan is taking a page from the old Ottoman playbook of divide and conquer to maintain political power via the unifying effects of Sunni Islam.

Glick paints a picture of Turkey under Erdogan reasserting Islamic rule under Turkish power to rival the Islamic rule agenda of Shia Iran.

For U.S. National Interests this provides a scenario that has definite pluses and minuses. In the short run letting Sunnis under the aegis of Turkey duking it out with Iran over who controls the Islamic world probably benefits the U.S. by staying out of it. The U.S. would be in an ironic Byzantine situation of throwing support back and forth to keep the violent Muslims in one area more than islamifying the West. The Byzantine factor is the long run. If one group Muslims gains the ascendancy over their the West again could face crazy Muslims trying to conquer the world forcing an Islamized civilization as the Christian Middle East experienced under early Arab conquests and Europe faced from the Ottomans right up to the 17th century (See Also HERE).

Before proceeding to Caroline Glick’s essay I thought you might benefit from a snapshot of how the Ottoman’s maintained a huge Islamic empire for some time. If find that tiresome feel free to skip it, but you really should read Glick.

In addition to their traditions of family sovereignty, the Ottomans drew strength from their origins as ghazis. The ghazi principle fueled their urge for conquest and then helped them to structure their developing society. The social structure of settled, urban Islamic society consisted of four social groupings: 1) the men of the pen, that is, judges, imams (prayer leaders), and other intellectuals; 2) the men of the sword, meaning the military; 3) the men of negotiations, such as merchants; and 4) the men of husbandry, meaning farmers and livestock raisers. Life on the frontier was far less structured; society there was divided into two groups, the askeri (the military) and the raya (the subjects). Besides protecting the realm and the raya, the askeri conquered new territories, thus bringing more raya and wealth into the empire.

… By late in the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the men of the pen were the bureaucrats of the empire, while the judges and imams made up a separate group called the men of religion. The men of the pen, the men of religion, and the men of the sword all were classified as askeri. As such, they were exempt from taxes and lived off of the wealth produced by the raya. Each of the three groups had its own educational system, its own internal practices, and its own values. In Ottoman society there was a place for everyone, but one of the functions of the sultan was to keep everyone in their place.

There was even a place for the non-Muslim. In classical Islamic tradition, non-Muslim religious communities that possessed an accepted, written holy book were granted a covenant of protection, the dhimma, and were considered to be protected people, the dhimmis. In return for this status they paid a special poll tax, the cizye. The Ottomans continued this tradition during the reign of Muhammad the Conqueror (reigned 1451-1481). The three leading non-Muslim religious communities—the Jews, the Greek Orthodox Church, and the Armenian Church—were established as recognized dhimmi communities known as millets. Each millet was headed by its own religious dignitary: a chief rabbi in the case of the Jews, and patriarchs in the case of the Greek Orthodox and Armenian communities. In the millet system, each community was responsible for the allocation and collection of its taxes, its educational arrangements, and internal legal matters pertaining especially to personal status issues such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance. In the pre-modern Middle East, identity was largely based on religion. This system functioned well until the European concepts of nationalism and ethnicity filtered into the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the 19th century.

…

…The Ottomans modified the ghulam system by instituting the infamous devshirme, in which young Christian males between the ages of 8 and 15 were removed from their villages in the Balkans to be trained for state service. The youths were brought before the sultan, and the best of them—in terms of physique, intelligence, and other qualities—were selected for education in the palace school. There they converted to Islam, became versed in the Islamic religion and its culture, learned Ottoman Turkish, Persian, and Arabic, and were trained in the military and social arts. They owed absolute allegiance to the sultan and were destined for the highest offices in the empire as they rose through the ranks of the school. When members of this select group graduated at about the age of 25, they assumed positions in the provincial military structure or took up service in the palace guards regiments. They could then work their way up the system and become its military-administrative head, the grand vizier. Those not selected for the palace school converted to Islam, worked for rural Turkish farmers, learned vernacular Turkish and folk Islamic culture, and became members of the sultan’s elite military infantry, the Janissaries.

This division in the devshirme, between those who received the best available education in the high Islamic tradition and those who followed the folk tradition and served as Janissaries, reflected a significant development within the society as a whole: the definition of the Ottoman identity. By the early 16th century the term Ottoman, which had first indicated the men around Osman and then the dynasty itself, had become a cultural-political-sociological term. Only a minority of the askeri class could be called “true” Ottomans. To be an Ottoman one had to serve the state and the religion and know the “Ottoman way.” Serving the state meant having a position within the military, the bureaucracy, or the religious establishment that carried with it the coveted askeri status and tax exemption. Serving the religion meant being a Muslim. Knowing the “Ottoman way” meant being completely at home in the high Islamic tradition. It also meant being fully trained in Arabic and Persian—languages that were, along with Turkish, the constituent elements of Ottoman Turkish, the language vehicle of all Ottomans. By this definition, the bulk of the Janissary corps—made up of devshirme youths who were not trained in the palace school but rather in the traditions of folk Islam—could not be considered Ottomans. … (The Ottomans: From Frontier Warriors To Empire Builders: Ottoman Society – Part 4; By Robert Guisepi; International World History Project – About IWHP; 1992 [Bold text is author’s])

JRH 6/27/14

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Turkey’s high-risk power play

By Caroline Glick

June 24th, 2014

CarolineGlick.com

For most Westerners, Turkey is a hard nut to crack.

How can you understand a state sponsor of terrorism that is also a member of NATO?

How can you explain Turkey’s facilitation of Kurdish independence in Iraq in light of Turkey’s hundred-year opposition to Kurdish independence?

What is Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan trying to accomplish here?

Is he nuts?

On the terrorism support front, today Turkey vies with Iran for the title of leading state sponsor of terrorism.

First there is Hamas.

Last week an Israeli security official told the media that the abduction of Naftali Frankel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah was organized and directed by Saleh al-Arouri, a Hamas commander operating out of Turkey.

Turkey has welcomed Hamas to its territory and served as its chief booster to the West since the jihadist terror group won the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006. Erdogan has played a key role in getting the EU to view Hamas as a legitimate actor, despite its avowedly genocidal goals.

Then there is al-Qaida. As Daniel Pipes documented in The Washington Times last week, Turkey has been the largest supporter and enabler of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS).

Erdogan’s government has allowed ISIS fighters to train in Turkey and cross the border between Turkey and Syria at will to participate in the fighting. Moreover, according to Pipes, Turkey “provided the bulk of ISIS’s funds, logistics, training and arms.”

Similarly, Turkey has sponsored the al-Nusra Front, ISIS’s al-Qaida counterpart and ally in Syria.

The Assad regime is not the Turkish- sponsored al-Qaida-aligned forces’ only target in Syria. They have also been engaged in heavy fighting against Rojava, the emerging Kurdish state in northwest Syria. Yet the same Turkey that is sponsoring al-Qaida’s assault on Syrian Kurdistan is facilitating the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan.

In breach of Iraqi law that requires the Kurds to sell their oil through the central government and share oil revenues with the central government, earlier this month Turkey signed a 50-year deal allowing the Kurds to export oil to the world market through a Turkish pipeline. The Kurds are currently pumping around 120,000 barrels of oil a day to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

Top Turkish officials have in recent weeks come out openly in support for Iraqi Kurdish independence from Baghdad.

Following ISIS’s takeover of Mosul, Huseyin Celik, the spokesman for Erdogan’s ruling AKP party told the Kurdish Rudaw news service, “It has become clear for us that Iraq has practically become divided into three parts.”

Blaming Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for Iraq’s instability Celik said, “The Kurds of Iraq can decide where to live and under what title they want to live. Turkey does not decide for them.”

To date, most Western analyses of the Erdogan regime’s behavior have come up short because their authors ignore its strategic goal. In this failing, analyses of Turkey are similar to those of its Shi’ite counterpart in Iran. And both regimes’ goals are wished away for the same reason: Western observers can’t identify with them.

Iran is not a status quo power. It is a revolutionary power. Iran’s goal is not regional hegemony per se, but global supremacy.

As Lee Smith recently noted, two decades before al-Qaida and its goal of establishing a global Islamic caliphate burst onto the scene, Ayatollah Khomeini had already made the Islamic division of the world into the House of Islam and the House of War the basis for Iran’s foreign policy. He viewed his Shi’ite theocracy as the rightful leader of the Islamic empire that would destroy all non-believers and their civilization.

Iran’s first act of foreign policy – the takeover of the US Embassy in Teheran – was a declaration of war not only against the US, but against the nation-state system as a whole.

Iran uses terror, irregular warfare and subversion to achieve its ends because such tactics induce chaos.

As Iran expert Michael Ledeen wrote last week, to defeat the US in Iraq, “the Iranian regime provoked all manner of violence, from tribal to ethnic, because they believed they were better able to operate in chaos.”

The US failed to understand Iran’s strategy because the US was unable to reconcile itself with the fact that other actors do not seek stability as it does.

Like Iran’s mullahs, Erdogan and his colleagues also reject the nation-state system. In their case, they wish to replace it with a restored Ottoman Empire.

Spelling out his goal in a speech in the spring of 2012, Erdogan described Turkey’s mission thus: “On the historic march of our holy nation, the AK Party signals the birth of a global power and the mission for a new world order. This is the centenary of our exit from the Middle East [following the Ottoman defeat in World War I]. Whatever we lost between 1911 and 1923, whatever lands we withdrew from, from 2011 to 2023 we shall once again meet our brothers in those lands.”

To achieve this goal, like Iran, Turkey seeks to destabilize states and reduce peoples to their ethnic, sub-national identities. The notion is that by dividing societies into their component parts, the various groups will all be weaker than one unified state, and all of them will feel threatened by one another and in need of outside support.

This is the same model Erdogan is following in Turkey itself as he remakes it in his Ottoman mold.

As Amir Taheri explained last October, Erdogan has been encouraging members of ethnic groups that long ago melted into the larger Turkish culture to rediscover their disparate identities, learn their unique languages and so separate out from the majority culture of the country. At the same time he is repressing the Kurds, Alevis and Armenians, minorities that have maintained their identities at great cost.

In parallel to his attempt to subsume the Kurds, Alevis and Armenians into a wider morass of separate sub-Turkish ethnicities, Erdogan has been assiduously cultivating hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood associations to enable their takeover of mosques and other key institutions to build a countrywide support base for Islamic supremacism.

By fragmenting Turkish society into long-forgotten component parts while uniting it under radical Islam, he wishes to unite the country under his Sultanate rule while dividing its various factions against one another to maintain support for the regime over the long haul.

A large part of repressing the Kurds at home involves denying them outside assistance. This is where Iraqi Kurdistan comes into the picture.

By acting like Iraqi Kurdistan’s best friend, Erdogan hopes to attenuate their support for Turkish Kurds.

While Turkey and Iran are rivals in undermining the international system, their goals are the same, and their strategies for achieving their goals are also similar. But while their chaos strategy is brilliant in its way, it is also high risk. By its very nature, chaos is hard, if not impossible to control. Situations often get out of hand. Plans backfire.

What we are seeing today in Syria and Iraq and the wider region demonstrates the chaos strategy’s drawbacks.

As Pinchas Inbari detailed in a recent report for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, the Syrian civil war is causing millions of Syrians to leave the country and their migrations are changing the face of many countries.

For instance, their arrival in Lebanon has transformed the multi-ethnic state into one with a preponderant Sunni majority, thus watering down Hezbollah’s support base.

The Kurds in Iraq may feel they need Turkey today, but there is no reason to assume that this will remain the case for long.

Kurdish unity across Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran will destabilize not only Turkey, but Iran, where Kurds make up around ten percent of the population. Iranian Kurdistan also abuts the Azeri provinces. Azeris comprise nearly half the population of Iran.

As for ISIS, it is scoring victories in Iraq today. But its forces are vastly outnumbered by the Baathists and the Sunni tribesmen that defeated al Qaida in 2006. There is no reason to assume that these disparate groups won’t get tired of their new medieval rulers.

Many commentators claimed that Erdogan’s recent foreign policy setbacks in the Arab world convinced him to abandon neo-Ottomanism in favor of more modest goals. But his cultivation of Iraqi Kurdistan, and his sponsorship of ISIS, al-Nusra, the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas tell a different story.

Erdogan remains an Islamic imperialist.

Like Iran he aims to destroy the global order and replace it with an Islamic empire. But like Iran, if his adversaries get wise to what he is doing, it won’t be very difficult to beat him at his own game by using his successes to defeat him.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

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Is Erdogan Setting Stage for Turkish Caliphate?

John R. Houk

© June 27, 2014

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Turkey’s high-risk power play

About Caroline Glick

The ISIS Threat that could LEAD to Global War

John R. Houk

© June 13, 2014

Isis (Ancient Greek: Ἶσις, original Egyptian pronunciation more likely “Aset” or “Iset”) is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the patroness of nature and magic. She was the friend of slaves, sinners, artisans and the downtrodden, but she also listened to the prayers of the wealthy, maidens, aristocrats and rulers.^[1] Isis is often depicted as the mother of Horus, the hawk-headed god of war and protection (although in some traditions Horus’s mother was Hathor). Isis is also known as protector of the dead and goddess of children.

The name Isis means “Throne”.^[2] Her headdress is a throne. As the personification of the throne, she was an important representation of the pharaoh’s power. The pharaoh was depicted as her child, who sat on the throne she provided. Her cult was popular throughout Egypt, but her most important temples were at Behbeit El-Hagar in the Nile delta, and, beginning in the reign with Nectanebo I (380–362 BCE), on the island of Philae in Upper Egypt.

… READ THE REST (Wikipedia)

The above info is what I thought when I heard the word “Isis”. But I have learned that ISIS is the English acronym for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria – ISI and Levant or Greater Syria (Unexpectedly CNN has a great Backgrounder – Fox News though less detailed fills in some blanks). Not paying as much attention as I should have to the happenings Iraq. Apparently this ISIS terrorist organization has conquered enough territory in Iraq to actually form a nation to match their name.

From random listening on Fox News, it seems the collapse of the Shia controlled Iraq government that Obama has bequeathed will imminently collapse. I understand that if a collapse occurs it is because Obama refused to sign up for any commitment to maintain a military presence.

Which brings us to the third reason. When the Americans invaded, in March, 2003, they destroyed the Iraqi state—its military, its bureaucracy, its police force, and most everything else that might hold a country together. They spent the next nine years trying to build a state to replace the one they crushed. By 2011, by any reasonable measure, the Americans had made a lot of headway but were not finished with the job. For many months, the Obama and Maliki governments talked about keeping a residual force of American troops in Iraq, which would act largely to train Iraq’s Army and to provide intelligence against Sunni insurgents. (It would almost certainly have been barred from fighting.) Those were important reasons to stay, but the most important went largely unstated: it was to continue to act as a restraint on Maliki’s sectarian impulses, at least until the Iraqi political system was strong enough to contain him on its own. The negotiations between Obama and Maliki fell apart, in no small measure because of a lack of engagement by the White House. Today, many Iraqis, including some close to Maliki, say that a small force of American soldiers—working in non-combat roles—would have provided a crucial stabilizing factor that is now missing from Iraq. Sami al-Askari, a Maliki confidant, told me for my article this spring, “If you had a few hundred here, not even a few thousand, they would be coöperating with you, and they would become your partners.” President Obama wanted the Americans to come home, and Maliki didn’t particularly want them to stay. (You Really Should Read this Entire article – IN EXTREMISTS’ IRAQ RISE, AMERICA’S LEGACY; By DEXTER FILKINS; The New Yorker; 6/11/14)

AND the Shi’ite Prime Minister Maliki disbanded the Sunni Muslim militias that formed a loose confederation that helped the U.S. Military strategy of The Surge led by then General Petraeus to eradicate the al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) terrorists in Dunbar Province thus for one brief moment uniting Sunnis and Shias into a united Iraq. Maliki’s Shi’ite domination agenda resulted in the Sunni Militias (Sahwa Militias) in not finishing the AQI eradication. The Sunnis again began to trust the Islamic terrorists more than the Shi’ite dominated government of PM Nouri al-Maliki. AQI evolved into ISIS under the leadership of a still enigmatic Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (perhaps a pseudonym for Ibrahim Ali al-Badri). AND I do mean enigmatic. Here are four newspapers profiling al-Baghdadi and all four have similarities but each has information that the other does not – one American and three British newspapers:

1) The Telegraph – 6/11/14

2) BBC – 6/11/14

3) The Guardian – 6/12/14

4) Miami Herald – 6/13/14

The existence of a new Arab nation, that is ultimately psycho Sunni version of Iran’s psycho Shia-Mullocracy, has HUGE geopolitical implications for the Middle East region. The players of these Middle East implications have an extreme volatility between Iran, Sunni ISIS, Shia Iraq, Syria – Assad’s Shia-Alawite government and Sunni Syrian Rebel controlled land, Lebanon as ran by Hezbollah, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and foremost as the current bastion of Liberty and protector of Israel – the USA. There are two other regional powers that probably would be forced to choose sides and that is Turkey and Egypt. I am unsure of the level of involvement Turkey and Egypt will play; however the area is so volatile a decision of importance would have to be made by those two Muslim nations.

Due to Russia’s increasing entanglements with Iran in the sale of military hardware and nuclear technology I suspect they will become involved if for no other reason than to be a thorn to the USA.

Communist China has also developed a National Interest in Iranian resources so you can be sure they will weigh in; however China has its own regional hegemonic aspirations and could possibly remain neutral and join a side that seems to benefit China more than the self-serving National Interests of a Middle Eastern regional power struggle. Indeed, China may test the waters by unleashing North Korean entanglements which would favor Iran’s agenda.

It is my opinion that Obama’s multiple apology tours making America look like a villain has a contributing factor for this President’s Foreign Affairs debacle emerging in Iraq.

All that being said, these thoughts came about from Gatestone Institute article I read from an email alert. The article’s title is quite thought provoking. Below is the cross post.

JRH 6/13/14

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ISIS Threatens to Invade Jordan, ‘Slaughter’ King Abdullah

By Khaled Abu Toameh

June 12, 2014 at 5:00 am

Gatestone Institute

The recent victories in Iraq and Syria by the terrorists of ISIS — said to be an offshoot of al-Qaeda — have emboldened the group and its followers throughout the Middle East. Now the terrorists are planning to move their jihad not only to Jordan, but also to the Gaza Strip, Sinai and Lebanon.

Failure to act will result in the establishment in the Middle East of a dangerous extremist Islamic empire that will pose a threat to American and Western interests.

“The danger is getting closer to our bedrooms.” — Oraib al-Rantawi, Jordanian political analyst

Islamist terrorists in Iraq and Syria have begun creeping toward neighboring countries, sources close to the Islamic fundamentalists revealed this week.

The terrorists, who belong to The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS — known as DAESH in Arabic] and are said to be an offshoot of al-Qaeda, are planning to take their jihad to Jordan, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula — after having already captured large parts of Syria and Iraq, the sources said.

The capture this week by ISIS of the cities of Mosul and Tikrit in Iraq has left many Arabs and Muslims in the region worried that their countries soon may be targeted by the terrorists, who seek to create a radical Islamist emirate in the Middle East.

According to the sources, ISIS leader Abu Baker al-Baghdadi recently discussed with his lieutenants the possibility of extending the group’s control beyond Syria and Iraq.

One of the ideas discussed envisages focusing ISIS’s efforts on Jordan, where Islamist movements already have a significant presence. Jordan was also chosen because it has shared borders with Iraq and Syria, making it easier for the terrorists to infiltrate the kingdom.

Jordanian political analyst Oraib al-Rantawi sounded alarm bells by noting that the ISIS threat to move its fight to the kingdom was real and imminent. “We in Jordan cannot afford the luxury of just waiting and monitoring,” he cautioned. “The danger is getting closer to our bedrooms. It has become a strategic danger; it is no longer a security threat from groups or cells. We must start thinking outside the box. The time has come to increase coordination and cooperation with the regimes in Baghdad and Damascus to contain the crawling of extremism and terrorism.”

The ISIS terrorists see Jordan’s Western-backed King Abdullah as an enemy of Islam and an infidel, and have publicly called for his execution. ISIS terrorists recently posted a video on YouTube in which they threatened to “slaughter” Abdullah, whom they denounced as a “tyrant.” Some of the terrorists who appeared in the video were Jordanian citizens who tore up their passports in front of the camera and vowed to launch suicide attacks inside the kingdom.

A Jordanian ISIS terrorist wearing a suicide bomb belt and holding his Jordanian passport declares his willingness to wage jihad in an ISIS video. (Image source: All Eyes on Syria YouTube video)

Security sources in Amman expressed deep concern over ISIS’s threats and plans to “invade” the kingdom. The sources said that King Abdullah has requested urgent military aid from the U.S. and other Western countries so that he could foil any attempt to turn Jordan into an Islamist-controlled state.

Marwan Shehadeh, an expert on Islamist groups, said he did not rule out the possibility that ISIS would target Jordan because it views the Arab regimes, including Jordan’s Hashemites, as “infidels” and “apostates” who should be fought.

The recent victories by ISIS terrorists in Iraq and Syria have emboldened the group and its followers throughout the Middle East. Now the terrorists are planning to move their jihad not only to Jordan, but also to the Gaza Strip, Sinai and Lebanon.

This is all happening under the watching eyes of the U.S. Administration and Western countries, who seem to be uncertain as to what needs to be done to stop the Islamist terrorists from invading neighboring countries.

ISIS is a threat not only to moderate Arabs and Muslims, but also to Israel, which the terrorists say is their ultimate destination. The U.S. and its Western allies need to wake up quickly and take the necessary measures to prevent the Islamist terrorists from achieving their goal.

Failure to act will result in the establishment in the Middle East of a dangerous extremist Islamist empire that will pose a threat to American and Western interests.

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The ISIS Threat that could LEAD to Global War

John R. Houk

© June 13, 2014

The Wars In Iraq And Syria Have Merged Into A Single Conflict

Two Arab countries fall apart

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ISIS Threatens to Invade Jordan, ‘Slaughter’ King Abdullah

Why Does Negotiate-Peace-Obama Want Assad Out?

John R. Houk

© September 5, 2013

[Editor: I tried to post this yesterday but was distracted by family matters. When you see words like “today” or “yesterday” keep in mind the post was meant for 9/4/13]

Has anyone wondered why President Barack Hussein Obama who in part won his 2008 election due to a combined Bush Derangement Syndrome and a promise of ending the Middle Eastern wars the USA has been fighting? I mean BHO has been the Messiah of Leftists that desire peace at any cost even if it destroys American Exceptionalism. Obama has been hot to attack Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime accused of launching Chemical Weapons against Syrian civilians more aligned to the Syrian Rebels than to Assad’s Shia-Alawite military dictatorship.

Frankly I have been leaning toward a U.S. attack against Assad even if it means Sunni al Qaeda-loving rebels used the attack to reassert a military advantage and remove Assad. Why? Because removing Assad throws a monkey wrench into the Iranian agenda to be the Middle East’s primary military hegemon. As a Middle Eastern hegemon Iran undoubtedly will make a play to destroy Israel. Israel’s destruction would rally even the Islam’s Sunni majority to be favorable to Iran’s Shia-Twelver Islamic minority.

Such Iranian hegemony would be unacceptable to the global seat of Radical Islam which is financed by Saudi oil multibillions of dollars. The royal family of the House of Saud seems to be unofficially divided between worldly-Western-minded billionaires and Radical Islamic Wahhabi loyalists. Wahhabism exists in Saudi Arabia because the House of Saud manages politics and Wahhabist Clerics run Saudi religious enforcement (The roots of Saud-Wahhabi alliance can be read HERE) which includes the operation of Islam’s holiest sites in Mecca and Medina. It is apparent to me the Wahhabists are gaining more and more influence within the Saud royal family over the last quarter century because of the international Saudi money being spent to spread Radical Islam throughout the Western world. For example a vast majority of Mosques built in the USA has NOT happened as a result of local Muslim money from so-called Moderate Muslims. That money has been supplied via the Saudi money coffers.

The Wahhabi Movement of Saudi Arabia over the years seems to have hooked up with Muslim Brotherhood networks in the West. A lot of that Saudi money has found its way through Muslim Brotherhood linked organizations masking as Moderate Muslims yet in reality are MB fronts for the MB agenda to spread stealth jihad in America. The Egyptian military crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood home in Egypt has placed a bit of a dent in the MB international agenda because their Radical Islamic focus now is to remain viable in Egypt.

So again! Why is anti-war Obama rattling swords to attack Assad’s regime? There is no doubt that Chemical Weapons were deployed on Syrian civilians. The doubt is was Assad responsible for the Chem Weapon attack or were the Syrian Rebels responsible?

I listened to Obama’s explanation of who the Chem Weapon culprits are in a Swedish news conference today. Obama’s reasoning runs something like this (off the top of my head): Everyone knows Assad’s regime has Chemical Weapons. Everyone knows that Assad’s regime has the military capability to launch those Chemical Weapons. Everyone knows that the Syrian Rebels does not have the military capability to launch a Chemical Weapon attack even if they had the Chem WMD. And everyone knows the civilians attacked with Chemical Weapons were Free Syrian Army sympathizers, so are the Syrian Rebels so vicious to attack their own and blame Assad?

I have to tell ya, this is good reasoning. At this point what is important to me is that Chemical Weapons were used in an act of war. It is irrelevant who used them. The fact they were used should broach an international outcry to step into the Syrian Civil War and remove those Chemical Weapons no matter who used them. In such a measure admittedly that would turn that war toward the Radical Muslim rebels. And as I wrote earlier a rebel victory – at least momentarily – would throw a monkey wrench into the Iranian hegemonic agenda.

Then I discovered an interesting thing that has not been widely disseminated by the American MSM or the mainstream conservative network known as Fox News. Or at least I have not read or listened to any news about this news story that should be widely disseminated. What is this news information I discovered? Are you saying in your mind’s eye, “Come on, out with it John?”

Ok – Ok, I got you. Here it is. There is a news story from Associated Press correspondent Dale Gavlak who has written that Saudi Arabia had somehow funneled Chemical Weapons to the Syrian Rebels. The problem though is that no one taught the Rebels how to handle or use the Chemical Weapons. While in a Damascus suburb called Ghouta the Syrian Rebels unwittingly mishandled the Chemical Weapons and BOOM – Ghouta civilians were doused with Chemical Weapons. I found the story at a Conspiracy Theory blog called Zero Hedge. And Zero Hedge picked up the information from the Voice of Russia.

Admittedly the story might be Putin propaganda because Russia, China and Iran have formed a triumvirate of support for Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian government. BUT if there was even a minuscule amount of truth to the story the information would go a long way to explain peace-at-any-cost Obama wanting to engage Assad’s regime in war.

Let me say up front I do not believe Obama is a Muslim any more than I believed his assertion of being a Christian while attending Jeremiah Wright’s Marxist Black Liberation Theology oriented Church in Chicago. Yet old Barry’s upbringing included schooling in a must-be-a Muslim school in Indonesia while his Marxist mommy (very unflattering S. A. Dunham bio) was married to Barry’s Muslim step-dad. This is not to mention that Barry’s Marxist daddy (OR was daddy really Frank Marshall Davis?) was also brought up a Muslim in Kenya. So I am thinking there is a lot of sympathy from President Obama toward Islam – particularly Sunni Islam which comprises around 90% of all Islam. Notably on Obama’s Middle East version of his apology tour included a speech at Cairo in which the Muslim Brotherhood was in attendance and in a stop at a G20 Conference Obama exerted Muslim respect to the King of Saudi Arabia by bowing down to him in front of the cameras that showed this symbolism to primarily Christian America. Also I could mention the scores of Radical Muslims (even if some claimed Moderate) that visited ~~Barry Soetoro~~ – er I mean – President Barrack Hussein Obama at the White House.

Obama’s sympathies are with Sunni Islam. Wahhabi Clerics have declared Shiites as kafir (infidels or unbelievers of Islam) worthy of death. That would obviously include the Shia-Twelvers of Iran and Shia-Aliwites of Syria.

As I was writing this I haphazardly heard a Fox News report in which German Intelligence claims they intercepted a message between the Bashar regime and Hezbollah (or was it Iran to Hezbollah?) in which confirmation was heard that the Bashar military did commit the Chemical Weapon attack. Secretary of State John Kerry before a Senate Committee said that there was proof contradicting Senator Rand Paul’s assertion there is no proof of who used Chem Weapons in Syria. I was left with the impression the proof was Classified and could be revealed in Closed Chambers but not during a public forum.

So here I am after reading report that the Syrian Rebels bungled Chemical Weapon handling resulting in the deaths of hundreds of their supporters. I read the report on a Conspiracy Theory website which is always tainted with the specter of believability YET Zero Hedge quotes a much respected AP journalist in Dale Gavlak. BUT Dale Gavlak is quoted from a Russian source which I am fairly certain jumps when Vladimir Putin barks.

I suspect Obama will attack Assad. I suspect WWIII will spark. The unknown is Israel. Some suspect Obama’s agenda is Israel’s destruction. I’m not sure if it will work out that way with this WWIII spark. Perhaps Obama is just a charismatic speaking Leftist that is a Foreign Policy imbecile. Perhaps where the cards fall has multiple possibilities and God Almighty will direct how those cards fall according to His grand plan. Yup, I am a Right Wing Christian Believer in the Word of God that believes there is a Divine plan.

JRH 9/5/13

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Our National Interests and Syria

John R. Houk

The blogger Danny Jeffrey has often been critical of the U.N. and Obama international principle of Responsibility to Protect (R2P). The public presentation of R2P is that the international community has a responsibility to protect civilians of a nation placed in a life threatening dangerous position from either its government or perhaps internal terrorism the local government cannot cope with or both. AND that sounds altruistic enough, don’t you think?

Jeffrey’s criticism is simple. R2P is a tool of Leftist Globalists and the U.N. to have an excuse to further the agenda of a global New World Order under some kind of dual Leftist-Islamic design. Danny Jeffrey off the top of my head seems to emphasize the Caliphate agenda of Radical Islam.

I say “off the top of my head” because it seems that Danny’s essays that I have read tend to be suspicious of Islam’s goal to destroy Israel and the Leftist tend to agree with that agenda. I personally think global Leftists and the Caliphate agenda Muslims are taking advantage of each other with the intention of screwing each other over. My reasoning for this thinking is that Leftists are not fond of religious influence in general and Islam is not fond of any other religions or ideologies that are secularist at best and atheistic at worst. As far as Islam is concerned that would run the Leftist gamut of Secular Humanist Socialists to atheistic Marxists.

Thus in my line of thinking the Leftist-Radical Islam unity is more like an “enemy of my enemy is my friend” agenda until that enemy is eliminated. If that situation occurs you can imagine the global bloodlust that would follow a global Leftist vs. global Muslim Caliphate war. It would be like medieval days when the winners destroyed en masse the losers. Protocols of modern Western Civilization would be totally thrown out the door while such a war would be a series of battles in which each battle victory by either side would be an ethnic cleansing moment until the victors would be the only ones standing after ethnic cleansing annihilation.

A global Leftist-Caliphate war would be an End Times apocalypse in nature.

In this sense I agree with Danny that R2P is a nefarious thing that the long term affects will be of no good for people (Mostly Americans) who love Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The long term affects of R2P will strengthen the ulterior motives of global Leftists and global Caliphate Muslims to the horrible misfortune of Christians and Bill of Rights minded Americans. Both Christians and Bill of Rights minded Americans are the target of destruction by global Leftists and global Caliphate Muslims.

However when it comes to Syria, I believe dumping Bashar al-Assad will throw a monkey wrench in the Caliphate agenda because it will highlight the mutual hatred that Sunnis and Shias have for each other. Sunnis represent roughly 90% of Islam and Shias represent roughly 10% Islam.

The largest Shia nation is Iran of which that nation’s Mullocracy are mostly Twelver Shias. They are called Twelvers because they believe a Twelfth or Hidden Imam will reveal himself and force Islam upon the whole Earth. That Twelfth Imam is a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed. Therein lay the hatred between Sunnis and Shias.

The Sunnis beat back the Shias in a war in which the last Mohammed relative that was a Caliph – Ali – had his Caliphate terminated by assassination. The Shias believed only a person of a Mohammed ancestry line could guide Muslims as Caliph. Allegedly the last living relative of Mohammed (the twelfth in lineage that is) disappeared. I am uncertain what the Sunnis believe about this guy – perhaps Sunnis believe he was killed or perhaps never existed; thus ending any claim to a hereditary Caliphate. I am certain that the Shias believe this twelfth Imam and descendant of Mohammed via Ali went into some sort of occultation to be hidden until the time was right for revealing himself to secure the Earth for Islam.

Okay that is a brief summary of the Sunni-Shia divide that is roughly correct but I am sure is filled with anomalies from the Sunni or Shia perspective.

The thing is Iran – a Shia theocratic nation – has regional designs as in being the top Muslim dog in the Middle East. Iran is the only Muslim nation that has an open destructive against both Israel and America that will undoubted be threatening because the development of nuclear weapons.

Iran’s principle allies in the region are Assad’s Shia-Alawite minority Syrian government and Hezbollah-Shia terrorist dominated Lebanon. Taking out Assad from this religious maniac alliance of Iran-Syria-Hezbollah will disrupt the military designs of Iran.

Of course the problem that Danny will point is that Syrian rebels fighting against Assad are religious nuts of radical Sunni-Muslims that essentially and probably will lead to a problem for the USA and Israel. My thinking is though that the USA and Israel already have a problem with Israel. So why not place Iran is a situation that some of their nefarious regional goals are disrupted by killing or booting Assad out of Syrian control?

So here I am in the unenviable position of both agreeing and disagreeing with Danny Jeffrey’s most recent essay on R2P, aiding the Syrian rebels, Obama’s support of those rebels and Senator McCain’s pushing Obama to support those rebels.

And yet I also have to tell you that Obama is the most corrupt President as to supporting the Constitutional principles of the Founding Fathers since Aaron Burr almost attained that Presidency in our then young Republic. When Obama says “Change” he means transform America away from the Bill of Rights and to at least make America a Multiculturalist Socialist-Democratic nation and at worst a Marxist utopia with no Liberty whatsoever.

JRH 6/3/13 (Hat Tip: Danny from Facebook Group 1683 AD)

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Is Obama Hiding Complicated Geopolitics from Americans?

John R. Houk

May 31, 2013

Here is something to wrap your mind around. And it is a bit complicated as far as Conservatives are concerned about U.S. National Security. Obama has been supportive of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) which is dominated by Islamists now. Benghazigate probably even has something to do with Obama clandestinely arming the FSA. So the potential mind warping thing to tackle is Hamas has been training the FSA in Lebanon.

Obama has to be aware of this! The information about Hamas training FSA has become public knowledge because … CHECK THIS OUT – Hezbollah has told Hamas to clear out of Lebanon because they are training the FSA. You see, the FSA is fighting Assad who is a major client state of Iran. AND Hezbollah is a major terrorist client of Iran. AND Hezbollah basically controls Lebanon. AND Hezbollah, Hamas, the FSA, Assad’s Syrian government and Iran ALL hate Israel!

Hmm … A fellow writer friend of mine – Danny Jeffrey – believes the arms deal Chris Stevens was trying to hammer out was sending Qaddafi-Libyan arms to Hamas rather to directly to the FSA via Turkey as seems to have been the usual practice.

Now in Danny’s essay I linked to, believes the Libyan arms were diverted to Hamas to use against Israel. Was Obama possibly arming Hamas with the intention of training the FSA? If that is the case, I wonder what Israel felt about Obama sending clandestine arms through Hamas with the intention of benefiting the FSA? Did Israel protest? Was Israel in cahoots with the plan also clandestinely? Perhaps Obama and Israel were exploiting the Sunni-Shia mutual hatred for each other as a way to wedge separation between the Muslims who all basically desire Israel’s destruction regardless if they are the majority Sunni or the minority Shia? Things are getting geopolitically complicated enough that some on the Left and the Right with both agree and disagree on any path to aiding the FSA rebels against Bashar Assad’s Syrian rogue government allied to Twelver-Shia dominated Iran.

So you have to wonder what does Obama not want Americans to know about Benghazigate, don’t you think?

JRH 5/31/13

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Chemical Assad is a War Criminal

John R. Houk

Most Conservatives see the Syrian Civil War as a no-win situation for American National Interests. On one side you have the rogue government of Bashar al-Assad that is Iran’s ally and a conduit for Islamic terrorists especially the Shi’ites of Hezbollah entrenched in Lebanon. On the other side you have the Free Syrian Army (FSA) that is a loosely united bunch of Sunni Muslims and Syrian Secularists (See Also HERE and HERE) rebelling against Assad’s Shi’ite Alawite dominated government. The current problem with the Free Syrian Army rebels is that its army is dominated by Islamist factions of which the largest appears to an al Qaeda affiliate.

And so there is the appearance of a no-win choice existing for the U.S. government. It has been confirmed that the Assad government is indeed using chemical weapons against the FSA. It is probably a good guess that Assad is using internationally illegal chemical weapons against the FSA it is a good guess that Assad is using chemical weapons against the Sunni civilian population that is supportive of the FSA.

History shows that helping Islamists against a current common enemy of the USA will come back to bite us in the – you know what. We aided Taliban Islamists against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Taliban were more than willing to take American aid to be a thorn in Soviet Russia’s side until the Soviet army withdrew and the puppet Communist government eventually fell into the hands of Mullah Mohammed Omar. AND the old one-eyed Mullah Omar repaid our aid by giving al Qaeda and its power structure led by Usama bin Laden refuge after the psycho Islamic terrorist sneak attack on 9/11.

The same thing will probably happen if America decides to aid the FSA against Assad’s rogue Syrian government. So then why help the FSA?

The reason for helping the FSA is because ending Assad throws a monkey wrench into Iran and Hezbollah’s nefarious designs against Israel and the USA. Well, at least for awhile there will be disruption against Iran.

The hat trick is knowing history of radical Muslims we have helped will bite our gluteus maximus then at least be smart enough to develop a couple of back-up plans in preparation for that radical Muslim back-stabbing. And by back-up plans I mean something that will strike pain and fear for radical Muslim treachery. A military response does not necessarily mean soldiers on the ground. A military response can be a military strike using conventional weaponry or nuclear weaponry on a strategic basis. And strategic nukes does not turning a whole nation into nuclear made glass from a massive nuke blast.

So yes, at this time an American led coalition needs to remove and punish Assad and his chem-weapon happy generals as war criminals.

JRH 5/28/13

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ISW Report Examines the Free Syrian Army

Intro: Free Syrian Army

John R. Houk

As Americans we should be kept up to date on the civil war happening now in Syria. Syria has been ruled by the Assad family for over 40 years as a ruthless dictatorship that is supportive of Syria’s minority religion of Alawite Shia Islam.

When the Arab Spring began to erupt across North Africa (Maghreb) against despotic regimes and influenced by Islamists but with secular minded Muslims in tow. The throw the dictators out syndrome reached Syria. Unfortunately for the anti-dictatorship crowd in Syria the current dictator Bashar al-Assad has aligned his regime politically and militarily with aspiring regional power Iran. Frankly I believe the Syrian civil war has lasted over a couple years because of Iranian support for the Assad Regime which has been a conduit connection with Lebanon’s Shi’ite terrorists Hezbollah.

Syria’s rebels are represented by the majority Sunni Muslims of which the most powerful elements are al Qaeda/Wahhabi influenced Islamists. This is significant because the Obama Administration is committed to bringing down Assad but is in the dilemma of supporting American-Jew hating Islamists to bring down Assad’s regime. Many people including me believe the secrecy being maintained by the Obama Administration has to do with Benghazigate; i.e. Islamic terrorists attacking a Consulate-like building in Benghazi killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others. The scandal surrounds the capability to prevent the attack (See HERE, HERE and HERE) and the reason that Stevens was there in the first place. That reason could be something to do with sending Qaddafi captured weapons to the Syrian rebels which in all likelihood are also American-Jew-hating Islamists.

Below is an email introduction from Institute for the Study of War (ISW) which has a link to a summary of the Free Syrian Army.

JRH 4/2/13

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

ISW Report Examines the Free Syrian Army

ISW – For Immediate Release

Contact person: Maggie Rackl

Sent: Mar 25, 2013 at 4:34 PM

ISW’s latest report, The Free Syrian Army, analyzes how rebel commanders on the ground in Syria have begun to coordinate tactically in order to plan operations and combine resources. This cooperation has facilitated many important offensives and rebels have taken control of the majority of the northern and eastern portions of the country. However, rebels have been unable to capitalize on these successes, and fighting has largely stalemated along current battle fronts particularly in the key areas of Aleppo, Homs and Damascus.

In her report, ISW Senior Syria Analyst Elizabeth O’Bagy explores how rebels have attempted to overcome the fragmentation and disorganization that have plagued Syria’s armed opposition since peaceful protestors took up arms in December 2011. A lack of unity has made cooperation and coordination difficult on the battlefield and has limited the effectiveness of rebel operations.

On December 7, 2012, rebel leaders from across Syria announced the election of a new 30-member unified command structure called the Supreme Joint Military Command Council, known as the Supreme Military Command (SMC). The Supreme Military Command improves upon previous attempts at armed opposition unification through higher integration of disparate rebel groups and enhanced communication, which suggest that it could prove to be an enduring security institution. The SMC has the potential to serve as a check on radicalization and help to assert a moderate authority in Syria. If the SMC can create enough incentives for moderation it will likely be able to marginalize the most radical elements within its structure.

There remain a number of critical obstacles ahead for the SMC. They include the incorporation of existing command networks, which will have an impact on command and control and resource allocation; mitigating the strength of extremist groups; and managing disparate sources of financing. As the SMC develops its institutional capacity, its ability to assert greater authority will likely depend on its transactional legitimacy and its ability to distribute critical resources to rebel-held communities. Overcoming these obstacles will be difficult, especially as the nature of the conflict transforms and the sectarian polarization makes it more challenging to create a strong military institution and professional armed force.

_____________________

The Free Syrian Army

Executive Summary

By Elizabeth O’Bagy

Institute for the Study of War

Fragmentation and disorganization have plagued Syria’s armed opposition since peaceful protestors took up arms in December 2011 and began forming rebel groups under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army. A lack of unity has made cooperation and coordination difficult on the battlefield and has limited the effectiveness of rebel operations.

Since the summer of 2012, rebel commanders on the ground in Syria have begun to coordinate tactically in order to plan operations and combine resources. This cooperation has facilitated many important offensives and rebels have taken control of the majority of the eastern portion of the country, overrunning their first provincial capital in March 2013 with the capture of al-Raqqa city. However, rebels have been unable to capitalize on these successes, and fighting has largely stalemated along current battle fronts particularly in the key areas of Aleppo, Homs and Damascus.

In order to overcome the current military stalemate, the opposition needs to develop an operational level headquarters that can designate campaign priorities, task units to support priority missions, and resource these units with the proper equipment to execute their missions. Recently, the opposition has established a new national military structure that may grow to serve this purpose.

The SMC includes all of Syria’s most important opposition field commanders, and its authority is based on the power and influence of these rebel leaders. Its legitimacy is derived from the bottom-up, rather than top-down, and it has no institutional legitimacy apart from the legitimacy of the commanders associated with the council. Thus, the SMC is not structurally cohesive, and its ability to enforce command and control is dependent on the cooperation of each of its members.

The incorporation of rebel networks has resulted in chains of command that are not uniform across the five fronts, with each sub-unit retaining their own unique authority structures.

The SMC’s primary function to date has been to serve as a platform for coordination. Regardless of the limits of its current command and control, the SMC has played an important role in syncing rebel operations with several notable successes. It has allowed for greater opportunities for collaboration and coordination among the disparate rebel groups operating in Syria.

As the SMC develops its institutional capacity, its ability to assert greater authority will likely depend on its transactional legitimacy and its ability to distribute critical resources to rebel-held communities.

To date, disparate sources of funding have significantly handicapped the rebels’ ability to unite and consolidate authority on a national level. Although private sources of funding will likely continue outside the parameters of the SMC, uniting the support channels of rebels’ main state sponsors will be fundamental to ensuring the legitimacy of the new organization. The ability to provide resources and material support to its sub-units is the determining factor in whether or not the SMC will be able to unite rebel forces under its command and establish a level of command and control.

The SMC has the potential to serve as a check on radicalization and help to assert a moderate authority in Syria. If the SMC can create enough incentives for moderation it will likely be able to marginalize the most radical elements within its structure. To this end, the SMC has recognized the importance of the inclusion of some of the more radical forces, while still drawing a red line at the inclusion of forces that seek the destruction of a Syrian state, such as jihadist groups like Jabhat Nusra.

Ultimately, even if the SMC only serves as a mechanism for greater cooperation and coordination, it is a significant development in that it has united the efforts of rebel commanders across Syria. It is the first attempt at unity that incorporates important commanders from all Syrian provinces and has enough legitimacy on the ground to even begin the process of building a structure capable of providing a national-level chain of command.

Syria’s state security apparatus will collapse as the Assad regime finishes its transformation into a militia-like entity. The Supreme Military Command is currently the only organization that could serve to fill the security vacuum left by this transformation. As the Syrian opposition begins to build a transitional government, the SMC could create a framework for rebuilding Syria’s security and governing institutions if properly supported. The SMC’s ability to act as a basis for a national defense institution will be an important component in filling the power vacuum left by Assad’s fall and will aid in a secure and stable Syria.

There remain a number of critical obstacles ahead for the SMC. They include the incorporation of existing command networks, which will have an impact on command and control and resource allocation; mitigating the strength of extremist groups; and managing disparate sources of financing. Overcoming these obstacles will be difficult, especially as the nature of the conflict transforms and the sectarian polarization makes it more challenging to create a strong military institution and professional armed force. Although the SMC must do its part internally to overcome these obstacles, its success will largely depend on greater international support and access to more resources.

The goal behind U.S. support to the opposition should be to build a force on the ground that is committed to building a nonsectarian, stable Syria, with a government more likely to respect American interests. Working with the SMC could enhance America’s position vis-à-vis Syria’s armed opposition and provide a mechanism for stability should the Assad regime fall.

PDF Document:

The free Syrian army

MIDDLE EAST SECURITY REPORT 9

March 2013

_____________________

Intro: Free Syrian Army

John R. Houk

____________________

ISW Report Examines the Free Syrian Army

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) is a non-partisan, non-profit, public policy research organization. ISW advances an informed understanding of military affairs through reliable research, trusted analysis, and innovative education. We are committed to improving the nation’s ability to execute military operations and respond to emerging threats in order to achieve U.S. strategic objectives.

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