Tag Archives: Saudi Arabia

The waning of American will

Incredibly, the State Department has forced Kenya’s governent to release the leader of the Islamic Courts Union, a Somali Islamofascist group.  Do our diplomats have the will to fight and win the War for the Free World?

Kenyan Foreign Minister Raphael Tuju is on a five-day visit in Israel this week and boy, does Israel have a lot to discuss with him. Unfortunately, it would seem that the Olmert government will fail to recognize this.

The most important question that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his colleagues should be broaching to their Kenyan guest is how his government is coping with the fact that Washington has apparently lost its will to fight the war against the global jihad.

Last week, under pressure from US Ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger, Kenyan authorities released from prison Sheikh Sharif Ahmad, one of the leaders of the ousted al-Qaida-linked Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in Somalia.

In late December, with US backing and support, Ethiopian forces invaded Somalia with forces from the recognized Somali Transitional Federal Government, (TFG). The invasion came a month after the ICU declared jihad against Ethiopia and Kenya. ICU forces, which had set up a Taliban-style tyranny throughout the country, fled before the Ethiopian advance. In just six days, the ICU was overthrown and the recognized Somali government had retaken control over Mogadishu.

From the outset of the Ethiopian invasion, the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) both demanded an immediate Ethiopian retreat.

This is not surprising because the ICU has been the beneficiary of generous support from Arab League and OIC member states Eritrea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Djibouti, Yemen and Libya. According to respected military analyst Bill Roggio, US intelligence officials maintain that the so-called Saudi "Golden Chain" of al-Qaida financiers have given $200 million to the ICU since last spring. The EU also demanded that Ethiopia withdraw its forces and that the TFG negotiate an accord with al-Qaida’s front organization in the Horn of Africa. Today EU humanitarian aid commissioner Louis Michel has linked EU assistance to the TGF to its acceptance of ICU elements in its government.

The US was the only country that backed Ethiopia, and with good reason. Shortly after Ethiopian forces took control of Mogadishu, US aircraft pursued fleeing al-Qaida terrorists in southern Somalia after intelligence reports indicated that among the fleeing ICU leaders were the masterminds of the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.

Disturbingly, the US seems to have abandoned the fight. The State Department has joined the EU, the Arab League and the OIC in calling for "reconciliation" between the TFG and the ICU and supports the participation of "moderate" jihadists in the Somali government. Speaking to African journalists this week in Addis Ababa, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer said, "I think the [ICU] was hijacked by the extremists from within. And there are members who want negotiation to participate in national reconciliation."

So it is that the US ambassador in Nairobi, Kenya, forced Kenyan authorities to release Sharif Ahmad from jail.. Commenting to the Kenyan media on his release, Prof. Ali Abdiweli, a US-based Somali professor with ties to the TFG said, "I am outraged by the behavior of [the US ambassador] to Kenya. More than 3,000 Somalis died because of Sheikh Sharif and the ICU.

"[Sharif] should be put on trial. Here we go again saying that he is moderate… This is nonsense, and there is no way that Sheikh Sharif will accept any secular government. Actually, the behavior of the ambassador will encourage the remnants of the Islamic Courts."

The US policy of appeasing jihadists in the Horn of Africa is just one example of the recent turn that US policy has taken regarding the war against the global jihad. On every major front, and particularly in its dealings with Israel, Iraq and Iran, the Bush administration is implementing policies that undermine its allies, strengthen its enemies and consequently harm US national security interests.

While the administration and the new Democratic Congress argue over troop levels and funding for the US military in Iraq, as former CIA analyst Robert Baer wrote last week in Time magazine, Iran has effectively taken control of Basra, Iraq’s port city and oil hub. The Iranian toman rather than the Iraqi dinar is the currency of trade in the city. The Shi’ite holy city of Najaf is also veering toward becoming a protectorate of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

Although he is far from alone, the central Iraqi leader enabling the Iranian takeover is Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Hakim, who heads the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) spent the 20 years preceding the US-led invasion of Iraq in Iran. SCIRI’s militia – the Badr force – has overt ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Indeed, both the Badr militia and SCIRI were created in Iran in 1982 by the Revolutionary Guards.

SCIRI is the largest faction in the Iraqi parliament today, and Hakim is considered key to ensuring stability in Iraq. To this end, he was brought to Washington last December to meet with President George W. Bush.

But since Hakim is controlled by Iran, by attempting to appease him, the US is effectively attempting to collaborate with Iran in a manner that facilitates the Iranian takeover of Iraq. This move is opposed by US military commanders in the country who are tired of allowing the Iranians to kill US forces at will. Yet while they are reportedly demanding that the authority kill Iranian operatives in Iraq, their moves are being blocked by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her associates at the State Department and the CIA.

This critical dispute currently revolves around the issue of whether or not the White House will publicly reveal evidence of Iran’s deep involvement in the war in Iraq generally, and attacks against US forces specifically. Rice and her colleagues argue for suppressing the information. Revealing the depth of Iranian operations against the US, they argue, will force the US to actually fight back.

That is, apparently, Rice and her associates would rather see Iran take control of Iraq, and so bring about the most humiliating defeat of US forces since the Vietnam War, than acknowledge that Iran is fighting the US and its allies.

This preference for appeasement and defeat in Africa and the Persian Gulf is even more apparent in the US dealings with the Palestinians. Ahead of his summit with Hamas terror masters Khaled Mashaal and Ismail Haniyeh today in Mecca, Fatah chief and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said, "We must unite the Hamas and Fatah blood in the struggle against Israel as we did at the beginning of the intifada. We want a political partnership with Hamas and we are not only optimistic, but also very serious about this. And that’s why we’re going to Mecca."

Fatah forces make no attempt to hide their involvement in terror attacks against Israel. They wear their Aksa Martyr Brigades T-shirts beneath their official uniforms. And yet, this week it was revealed that some $76.4 million of the $86.4 million that the US plans to give to Fatah will go to training 13,500 terror forces. That is, the US is now openly involved in training and equipping Palestinian terrorists who, as Abbas makes clear, are seeking to expand their operations to kill Israelis.

Furthermore, last month Rice signaled that the US is easing off its refusal to engage the Hamas terror group. Speaking to European reporters, Rice referred to the jihadist terror group as a "resistance movement."

In many ways it makes sense that Bush has lost his will to fight. Since the September 11 attacks, the president has refused to acknowledge the true nature of the forces arrayed against the US and the rest of the free world. By insisting on referring to the war against Sunni and Shi’ite jihad as a war against terrorism, Bush refused to acknowledge the identity of America’s enemies or the scope of their power and ambitions. Consequently, he has approved policies in Iraq, and indeed throughout the world, which are based on a denial of the nature of the enemy and so cannot possibly defeat its forces.

Now, frustrated with the seemingly intractable realities on the ground and in the political battlefield in Washington, Bush is attempting to establish a middle course between victory and surrender. Unfortunately, this course – which involves handing over the fruits of military victories to jihadists and their state sponsors – cannot help but ensure the defeat Bush rightly wishes to avoid.

Were Olmert and his colleagues in the government to recognize this state of affairs, perhaps they could join forces with governments – like the Kenyan government – to persuade Bush of the dangers inherent in his embrace of this recipe for failure. Unfortunately, in light of the Olmert government’s own failures to contend with the growing threats to Israel’s security, it is difficult to imagine its members acting in such a constructive and prudent manner.

What is at stake

Two trenchant articles in last Friday’s Wall Street Journal shed light on the stakes should the Congress act this week in ways that jeopardize the chances for success in Iraq and embolden our enemies in Islamofascist Iran.

The first was an op.ed. article entitled "Senator Feingold’s Sin" by Kimberley Strassel. It exposes the charade playing out in Congress over the war in Iraq. Ms. Strassel notes that Senator Russ Feingold called a spade a spade in hearings held last week – much to the chagrin of his colleagues, who merely want to make it difficult for President Bush to achieve victory while avoiding responsibility for defeat. The Wisconsin senator observed that Congress could bring U.S. involvement in Iraq to a quick end if it so desired, simply by refusing to fund operations. By contrast, the non-binding resolutions offered by the President’s critics will serve merely to undermine the morale of U.S. troops and the American public, while emboldening our enemies.

[More]

The second op.ed. ran under the headline, "Between State and Revolution," and was written by noted Middle East scholar Amir Taheri. It forecasts the next ruse in the Iranian regime’s attempt dominate the region. The author predicts that, in the face of increased pressure from sanctions, disinvestment, etc., Tehran will soon offer a "grand bargain." It expects to exploit U.S. weakness and lack of resolve by exhibiting a willingness to discuss anew its nuclear program and proxy wars against Iraq, Lebanon and Israel. Taheri warns, however, that – as in the past – these gambits will not represent any change of heart on the part of the Iranian regime. Rather, they will be intended to play on illusions of some American politicians who believe that the behavior of the mullahocracy can be modified through negotiations.

In fact, as Taheri observes, the prospects for success of this approach are nonexistent:

The problem with the regime…is its nature, its totalitarian ambitions and messianic claims. Being an enemy of the U.S., indeed of all democracies, is in its political DNA….A regime that is the enemy of its own people cannot be a friend of others.

Both articles in the Journal underscore the contention offered by Center President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. in his column in last Tuesday’s Washington Times that "Members of the 110th Congress are behaving like drunken drivers" with respect to America’s foreign policy, "veering wildly all over the road, seemingly oblivious to the risk they pose to others." As Mr. Gaffney warns, they risk in due course having "their license to enact legislation revoked by an electorate that did not vote last November for a ‘change’ that makes things far worse."

"Between State and Revolution"

By Amir Taheri

2 February 2007

"Mizanan, ya na?" (Will they hit or not?) In Tehran these days, this question is the talk of the town. The "they" is seldom spelled out. Yet everyone knows that it refers to the United States.

The question is wreaking havoc on Iran’s fragile economy by fomenting an atmosphere of uncertainty even before the sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council start to bite. Many in Tehran expect the Security Council to decree even tougher sanctions in March when the ultimatum for the Islamic Republic to halt its uranium enrichment program will end.

The Khomeinist leadership is divided over the reality of the threat, and over ways of dealing with it. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claims that the U.S. is in no position to do much damage, and counts on the new Democratic majority in Washington — he calls them "the wise people" — to restrain George W. Bush.

The bulk of the Khomeinist leadership, including the "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei, however, take the threat seriously and are preparing public opinion for a climb-down by the Islamic Republic. The American naval build-up in the Persian Gulf, the new U.S. offensive against Iran’s agents and armed clients in Iraq, Tehran’s failure to seize power in Beirut through its Hezbollah proxy, and plummeting oil prices are all cited by Ayatollah Khamenei’s entourage as reasons why a climb-down might be necessary.

Sometime in the next few weeks, Iran is likely to offer a "compromise formula" under which it would suspend its enrichment program, as demanded by the Security Council, in exchange for a suspension of sanctions. This will be accompanied by noises from Tehran about readiness to help the U.S. in Iraq, plus possible concessions in Lebanon and over the Palestine-Israel issue.

The expected climb-down is sure to bring back the Baker-Hamilton "realists" with fresh calls for offering the mullahs a seat at the high table. It would also prompt the guilt-ridden "idealists," who blame the U.S. for whatever goes wrong in the world, to urge "Bush the warmonger" to engage the Islamic Republic in a constructive dialogue, whatever that might mean. The French and the Russians would applaud the mullahs and urge the Americans to be "reasonable."

So, what should the Bush administration do when, and if, the mullahs unveil their compromise formula? First is to see the mullahs’ move as deja vu all over again. Each time the mullahs are in trouble they become the essence of sweet reasonableness. They deploy their traditional tactics of taqiyah (obfuscation), kitman (dissimulation) and ehtiat (caution) to confuse the "infidels" and divide their ranks. The Iranian leadership did this in the early days of the Khomeinist revolution in 1979 by persuading the clueless Jimmy Carter that the ayatollah was the only force capable of preventing Iran from falling into communist hands. In 1984 and ’85, they seduced the Reagan administration with an offer of releasing the American hostages in Beirut in exchange for the secret U.S. arms deliveries Iran needed to stop the Iraqi advance. In 1987 they stopped their attacks on Kuwaiti oil tankers in the Persian Gulf after an American task force sunk the Revolutionary Guard’s navy in a 10-hour battle.

In 1988, fear of an even bigger U.S. military attack persuaded Ayatollah Khomeini to "drink the cup of poison" by agreeing to end his eight-year war with Iraq. In 1998, the mullahs offered a "grand bargain" to the Clinton administration as a means of averting U.S. retaliation for the Iranian-sponsored killing of 19 American soldiers in an attack in Khobar, Saudi Arabia.

The second point to bear in mind is that a suspension of uranium enrichment will cost the Islamic Republic nothing. Iran does not have any nuclear power plants, and thus does not need enriched uranium anyway. Even if the country does not have secret parallel nuclear facilities, it could always resume weapons-making activities once it is no longer under pressure.

Successive U.S. administrations have assumed that the problem with the Khomeinist regime lies in its behavior, which they hoped to modify through traditional carrot-and-stick diplomacy. The problem with the regime, however, is its nature, its totalitarian ambitions and messianic claims. Being an enemy of the U.S., indeed of all democracies, is in its political DNA. A scorpion stings because it is programmed by nature to do so. A regime that is the enemy of its own people cannot be a friend of others.

The threat that Khomeinism poses to stability in the Middle East and, beyond it, to international peace, will not be removed until Iran once again becomes a normal nation-state with the interests and ambitions of normal nation-states.

For more than a quarter of a century, Iran has suffered from an affliction faced by most countries that experience revolution. The conflict between state and revolution makes the development and practice of moderate domestic and foreign policies difficult, if not impossible. Leading a revolution is like riding a bicycle: One keeps going for as long as one continues to pedal, regardless of the destination. To stop pedaling means to fall.As a nation-state, Iran may be a rival and competitor for other nations. But it would not be an existential threat. As a revolution, however, Iran can, indeed must, be such a threat not only to its neighbors but also to a world that it regards as "the handiwork of Jews and Crusaders."

The Khomeinist revolution has not succeeded in destroying the plurimillennial idea of Iran as a nation-state. But each time the Khomeinist revolution found itself on the defensive, the Western powers, including the U.S., helped it restore its legitimacy and regain its breath. The same illusions that produced the détente, which arguably prolonged the life of the Soviet Union, have also helped the Khomeinist revolution survive long after its sell-by date.

Today, Iran is once again facing the schizophrenia imposed on it through the conflict between state and revolution. A majority of Iranians, including many in the ruling elite, wish Iran to re-emerge as a nation-state.

The U.S. has no interest in helping the Khomeinist revolution escape the consequences of its misdeeds. This does not mean that there should be no diplomatic contact with Tehran or that pressure should be exerted for the sake of it. Nor does it mean that military action, "to hit or not to hit," is the only question worth pondering with regard to the Islamic Republic.

No one should be duped by a tactical retreat in Tehran or a temporary modification of the regime’s behavior. What is needed is a change in the nature of the regime. The chances of setting such change in motion have never been as good, and the current showdown should be used to communicate a clear message: As a nation-state, Iran can and will be a friend. As a revolution, it would always remain a foe.

Next Steps in the Iran Crisis

Below is the prepared statement of Center for Security Policy Advisory Council Co-Chariman R. James Woolsey’s testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on 11 January 2007.

Mr. Chairman, Representative Ros-Lehtinen, Members of the Committee, I was honored to be asked to testify before you today on this important issue. By way of identification I am currently a Vice President of the consulting firm, Booz Allen Hamilton; I principally work in the field of energy. Earlier, during a twenty-two year career of practicing law in Washington, I served in the federal government on five occasions, holding Presidential appointments in two Republican and two Democratic administrations, most recently as Director of Central Intelligence for two years during the first Clinton administration.  Today I am expressing solely my personal views.

The Iranian Regime

In a sense, Mr. Chairman, the Iran Crisis now enters its 28th year. The totalitarian and corrupt regime in Tehran does not differ in any fundamental way from that which took power in the aftermath of the collapse of the Shah’s regime in 1979. 

It is true that beginning in the late nineties during the first year of the Khatami presidency there was a period of a year or so when the optimistic could believe that the forces of moderation might make substantial progress in Iran. But the crackdown in the spring of 1998 on students and journalists, including the imprisonment and killing of many, should have signaled clearly that these hopes had been dashed. Khatami was always a creature of the regime. He had passed the test of regime approval to be permitted to run for President, a test honorably failed by dozens of more truly reform-minded and brave Iranian political figures. He made no substantial changes in the nature of the regime during his time in office.

Now the camouflaged mantle of “moderate” has passed from Khatami to Rafsanjani, who during his time in office was responsible for the execution and imprisonment of a great many regime opponents, and the murder abroad of a large number as well. If President Khatami might be compared to Prime Minister Kosygin in the Soviet Union – a man who was labeled “moderate” largely because he didn’t use excessive rhetoric and smiled more than his colleagues – then Mr. Rafsanjani’s current characterization as a moderate or pragmatist might be compared to the image of Mr. Andropov that the KGB successfully sold to much of the world’s press: the evidence for Mr. Andropov’s moderation was that he listened to jazz and drank Scotch. Mr. Rafsnjani, for example, like President Ahmadinejad, has threatened the destruction of Israel; has noted he is responsible for many deaths of decent people; he is also famously corrupt.

The regime’s threats to destroy Israel and, on a longer time-scale, the United States are part and parcel of its essence. Recent official statements to this effect represent not a shift in policy – Iran’s regime has defined itself by its fundamental hostility to the West, and especially Israel and the US, for nearly three decades (“Great Satan” etc.) – but rather a greater degree of public and explicit candor. 

This fundamental hostility is now seasoned by a more pointed expression of the views of the circle of fanatic believers around Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi in Qum, including Ahmadinejad himself. This group expressly promotes the idea that large-scale killing should be welcomed because it will summon the return of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi, which in turn will lead to the end of the world. Recently the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting web site  has begun to assert that the world is in its “last days” and that, as the world ends, Jesus will appear with the Mahdi, as a Shi’ite and as his lieutenant. This rhetoric is not limited to a small circle. Rafsanjani, e.g., has utilized it as well. To us, of course, it sounds bizarre – but we ignore such ideology at our peril. As Enders Wimbush points out in the current Weekly Standard “Iran’s leadership has spoken of its willingness – in their words – to “martyr” the entire Iranian nation, and it has even expressed he desirability of doing so as a way to accelerate an inevitable, apocalyptic collision between Islam and the West . . . .” Those in decision-making roles in the Iranian regime who believe such things are certainly not going to be very inclined to negotiate in good faith with us about Iraq, their nuclear program, or indeed anything at all. Even deterrence is questionable, much less arms control agreements.

The Iranian regime does not restrict itself to hideous speech. As President  Bush noted last night, the regime is assisting terrorists to infiltrate into Iraq and is providing material support to attacks on the US.  It is clear, for example, that the increasingly effective Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are not so improvised any more – many now include sophisticated shaped charges that penetrate armor. And they are of Iranian manufacture. Over the years, directly and through its controlled assets such as Hezbollah, Iran has killed and murdered hundreds of Americans – in Beirut, at Khobar Towers – and large numbers of Israelis, French, and Argentinians as well. Torture has often also been part of the picture. 

The Persians invented chess and if I were to characterize Iran’s international behavior today in those terms I would say that they are actively utilizing a number of pieces. One might call their nuclear weapons development program their queen – their most lethal and valuable piece. No one should, by the way, discount their intention to obtain nuclear weapons. The traces of highly-enriched (not just fuel-grade) uranium, their deception, their heavy water plant and other indicators brand their program as one designed to develop nuclear weapons even in the absence of considering their rhetoric about destroying Israel and ending the world. The Sunni states of the region have become extremely alarmed at the Iranian regime’s nuclear weapons program and six of them, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, have recently announced their intent to move toward nuclear programs themselves, allegedly solely for electricity generation.  t seems remarkable that six states, several of them with substantial reserves of oil and gas, would simultaneously determine that these reserves would be inadequate for their energy needs and that adequate electricity can only be obtained by their simultaneously moving to develop nuclear power. What has in fact, of course, happened is that Iran has now begun a Shi’ite-Sunni nuclear arms race in this volatile region.

I do not believe that any degree of international disapproval — or sanctions such as the tepid ones that can be obtained through the UN process in the face of Russian and Chinese opposition to strong ones – will lead this regime to abandon its nuclear weapons program. And even if it should be two-to-three more years before Iran could have enough fissile material through the operation of its own centrifuges to fashion an entirely home-built nuclear weapon, one must not forget its co-conspirator North Korea.  North Korea’s principal exports today are counterfeit American currency, heroin, and ballistic missile technology (the Iranian Shahab and the North Korean No Dong and Taepo Dong essentially constitute a joint missile development program). Why would North Korea refrain from selling Iran either fissile material or a crude nuclear weapon?  Either is easily transported by air.  Such a purchase would substantially shorten the time before Iran could have a nuclear weapon.

Iran moves four chess pieces of lesser value from time to time in part to keep the US and Israel off balance, in part to protect their nuclear queen: Hamas, Hezbollah, and Moqtadh al Sadr’s forces in Iraq might be said to be pawns; Syria perhaps rises to the level of rook, since it is a nation-state and has a mutual defense treaty with Iran. It is of no particular importance to the regime that the Alawite Syrian regime needed special Iranian theological dispensation to be regarded as part of Shi’ite Islam nor that Hamas is Sunni.  The Iranian regime, going back to the training of the very Shi’ite Revolutionary Guards in the early seventies in Lebanon by Yasser Arafat’s secular Fatah, is quite willing to work with terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda, that have all sorts of different ideological DNA.  In recent years this has included visits with and even mutual travel by Ahmadinejad with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. 

Some believe that Shi’ites will not cooperate with Sunnis, or either with secular groups – that, e.g., there could have been no collaboration of any kind by secular Baathist Iraq or Shi’ite Iran with Sunni al Qaeda. Seventy years ago it was the conventional wisdom was that Communists and Nazis would never cooperate, and that was largely true – until the Stalin-Hitler Pact.  The Iranian regime doesn’t just appreciate but more or less lives the old Middle Eastern saying:  “Me against my brother. Me and my brother against our cousin.  Me, my brother, and our cousin against the stranger.”

Some Suggested Courses of Action

Given the nature of the Iranian regime, what should we do?

I agree that this is a difficult matter and that there are no easy answers. But since I am convinced that the Iranian regime is fundamentally incorrigible, and since I am not yet ready to propose an all-out use of military force to change the regime and halt its nuclear program, in my judgment we should opt for trying to bring about, non-violently, a regime change. I admit that the hour is late since we have wasted much time trying to engage and negotiate with the regime, and I understand that in the context of an effort to change the regime without using force the effort could get out of hand. Yet I am convinced that the least bad option if for us to state clearly that we support a change of regime in Iran because of the irremediable theocratic totalitarian nature of the current regime as it has been demonstrated over nearly three decades, together with its interference with the peace and security of its neighbors – currently especially Iraq and Lebanon – and its nuclear weapons program. I also believe that restiveness among Iranian minorities – Arab, Kurdish, Azeri, and Baluch – and the sullen opposition of many young people indicate that there is some chance of success in stimulating regime change. In a poll taken at the behest of the Iranian government some three years ago over 70 per cent of those polled said that they wanted improved relations with the US. The Iranian government, of course, imprisoned the pollsters.

To implement this policy I would suggest that we begin by rejecting the recommendation of the Iraq Study Group (ISG) that we should try to “engage [the Iranian regime] constructively”, i.e. seek to negotiate with them. As Senator John Kyl and I wrote just over a month ago in an open letter to the President (in our capacities as Honorary Co-Chairmen of the National Security Advisory Council of the Center for Security Policy) opening negotiations with Iran, and Syria, would legitimate those regimes, embolden them and their affiliated terrorist groups, help the Iranian regime buy time for its nuclear weapons program, create the illusion of useful effort and thus discourage more effective steps. We added that no regional conference should take place without including Israel.  I would point out that the able analyst of these matters, Kenneth Pollack, in his book The Persian Puzzle (2004) sets it out clearly. Iran is not really interested:  “…Iran is simply not ready for a meaningful relationship with the United States…From America’s side, our dislike of this regime should not prevent the conclusion of a comprehensive settlement of our differences, but from Iran’s side it has and it likely will for quite some time…” (pp. 396-97).

Second, we should indeed engage, but with the Iranian people, not their oppressors. 

Along the lines of recommendations made a year ago by the Committee on the Present Danger (which I co-chair with former Secretary of State George Shultz), and by Iran experts such as Michael Ledeen, we should target sanctions – travel and financial – on the Iranian leadership, not on the Iranian people, and draw a sharp line between them. One possibility in this regard is to seek to bring charges against President Ahmadinejad in an international tribunal for violation of the Genocide Convention in calling publicly for the destruction of Israel. Our precedent would be the charges brought against Charles Taylor while President of Liberia for crimes against humanity before a special international tribunal in Sierra Leon.  Iran’s protectors in the United Nations would doubtless block the establishment of such a tribunal, but clarity and principle have a force of their own – Natan Sharansky and other Soviet dissidents then in the Gulag have told us of the electrifying effect of President Reagan’s declaration that the USSR was an “evil empire”.

We should also engage in ways similar to those techniques we used in the 1980’s to engage with the Polish people and Solidarity —  by communicating directly, now via the Web and modern communications technology, with Iranian student groups, labor unions, and other potential sources of resistance. 

We should abandon the approaches of Radio Farda and the Farsi Service of VOA and return to the approach that served us so well in the Cold War. Ion Pacepa, the most senior Soviet Bloc intelligence officer to defect during the Cold War (when he was Acting Director of Romanian Intelligence) recently wrote that two missiles brought down the Soviet Union: Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. Our current broadcasting does not inform Iranians about what is happening in Iran, as RFE and RL did about matters in the Bloc. Privately-financed Farsi broadcasts from the US follow the RFE-RL model to some extent, but exist on a shoestring. Instead we sponsor radio that principally broadcasts music and brief world news, and television that, I suppose seeking a bizarre version of balance, sometimes utilizes correspondents with remarkable views: one VOA correspondent, on another network, last year characterized the arrest in the UK of 21 individuals accused of plotting to blow up transatlantic airliners with liquid explosives as “a conspiracy against Islam” by the US and alleged that the US and the UK fabricated the plot to deflect attention from “Hezbollah victories”.  (Richard Benkin in Asian Tribune Aug. 12, 2006, vol. 6 no. 41.)

Our current broadcasting is a far cry from RFE and RL’s marvelous programming of news, cultural programs, investigative reporting (in the Eastern Bloc), and satire.  (As an example of what could be done with satire I have attached to this testimony an article published some months ago by me and my family about one, admittedly quite unorthodox, possibility.)

Finally Iran’s economy is driven by oil exports. This leaves it open to several measures.  Although Iran has reaped substantial financial rewards from today’s high oil prices we have begun to have some effect on its oil production by our campaign to dry up its oil and gas development. The Iranians are very worried about this. Deputy Oil Minister Mohammed Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian recently said in an interview that:

[i]f the government does not control the consumption of oil products in Iran….and at the same time, if the projects for increasing the capacity of the oil and protection of the oil wells will not happen, within ten years there will not be any oil for export.(Daneshjoo publishers, Current News, article 9303.)

At the appropriate time we could move toward a step that, although drastic, is potentially very effective relatively quickly – namely cutting off Iran’s imports of refined petroleum products (Iran has built no refineries in many years and must import around 40 per cent of its gasoline and diesel fuel). 

And finally, by moving toward technology that can reduce substantially the role of oil in our own economy and that of the world’s other oil-importing states, we can help deprive oil exporters – Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela, and others – of much of their leverage in international affairs. As Tom Friedman of the NY Times puts it, the price of oil and the path of freedom run in opposite directions.  The attached op-ed piece of mine, published in the Wall Street Journal December 30, notes the possibility of plug-in hybrid vehicles soon making it possible for consumers to get around 500 miles per gallon of gasoline (since almost all propulsion would come from much less expensive electricity and renewable fuels, the latter mixed with only 15 per cent gasoline). This may seem an extraordinary number. But when General Motors last Sunday joined Toyota in the plug-in hybrid race to market and unveiled its new Chevrolet Volt, one of its executives used a figure of 525 miles per (gasoline) gallon.  Five hundred and twenty-five miles per (gasoline) gallon should give Minister Nejad-Hosseinian and his colleagues a bracing degree of  concern.

What, me worry?

(Washington, D.C.): In a recent press conference, U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Ross Wilson dismissed as “political cacophony” concern about the Islamist agenda of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan‘s Justice and Development Party (known in Turkish as the AKP). “There is nothing that worries me,” Mr. Ross stated, “with regards to Turkey’s continuation as a strong, secure, stable and secular democracy.”

In a trenchant op.ed. for yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, however, Michael Rubin underscores foreboding changes to Turkish society since the assumption of power in 2002 by a man who once explained that “Democracy is like a streetcar. You ride it until you arrive at your destination and then you step off.” Dr. Rubin asks us to consider the assault on the secular nature of the following institutions:

Education. The government now equates degrees from religious academies (known as Imam-Hatips) with high school degrees, thus allowing Islamist students to enter university and qualify for government jobs having been taught only to memorize the Koran and to embrace a radical, Wahhabi interpretation thereof, not the sorts of skills that afford them or their society a successful future.

The Judiciary. The AKP passed legislation lowering the mandatory retirement age of civil servants, potentially resulting in the near-term replacement of many, including perhaps 4,000 out of 9,000 judges. Similarly, the AKP has warned that it might abolish constitutional courts if judges hamper its legislation, and Erdogan has refused to implement certain Supreme Court decisions levied against his government.

Banking. Erdogan has replaced nearly every member of the banking regulatory board with officials from the Islamic banking sector. In the first six months of this year, money entering the Turkish economy for which regulators cannot account has increased almost eightfold compared to 2002, the year the AKP came to power. Worryingly, it is widely believed some of this money flows from Saudi Arabia to subsidize the AKP.

In light of such evidence of the AKP’s Islamist maneuvering, the rosy view of Turkey’s future expressed by Mr. Ross may be the result of hopeful ignorance. More than likely, however, he – like others in the State Department – is deliberately discounting evidence that there is no such thing as a moderate Islamist. As is true in other cases, at home and abroad, no good can come of official Washington’s endemic inability to distinguish between Muslims who are genuinely tolerant and supportive of democracy and Islamofascists like Erdogan just riding the “streetcar.”

Unfortunately, the State Department’s position only facilitates Turkey’s slide toward Islamism under the AKP by undermining those working for the triumph of Turkey’s traditional democratic and liberal values, including Chief of the Turkish General Staff Gen. Yasar Buyukanit and his service commanders, who have lately asserted with increasing insistence the tremendous security threat posed by Islamism in Turkey. Pressure from those in uniform that has traditionally provided a bulwark against Islamic extremism will be significantly lessened if representatives from Turkey’s strongest military ally continue to question the generals’ assessment of the threat. The State Department would do well to heed Mr. Rubin’s warning: “When a country faces an Islamist challenge, PC platitudes do far more harm than good.”


 


Mr. Erdogan’s Turkey
By Michael Rubin
Wall Street Journal, 19 October 2006

Five years into the war on terror, inept U.S. diplomacy risks undercutting a key democracy (and ally) that President Bush once called a model for the Muslim world. The future of Turkey as a secular, Western-oriented state is at risk. Just as in Gaza and Lebanon, the threat comes from parties using the rhetoric of democracy to advance distinctly undemocratic agendas. Turkey has overcome past challenges from terrorism and radical Islam; always its system has persevered. But now, as Turkish politicians and officials work to defend the Turkish constitution, U.S. diplomats interfere to dismiss Turkish concerns and downplay the Islamist threat.

A crisis has simmered for months, but earlier this month Ankara erupted. On Oct. 1, President Ahmet Necdet Sezer warned parliament, “The fundamentalist threat has not changed its goal to change the basic characteristics of the state.” The next day, as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited the Oval Office, Gen. Yasar B?y?kanit, chief of Turkey’s armed forces, warned cadets of growing Islamic fundamentalism and promised “every measure will be taken against it.” Usually such warnings are enough to keep those transgressing on the constitutional separation of mosque and state in check.

Enter U.S. Ambassador Ross Wilson. At an Oct. 4 press conference he said: “There is nothing that worries me with regards to Turkey’s continuation as a strong, secure, stable and secular democracy.” He dismissed opposition concern about the Islamism of Mr. Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (known in Turkish as the AKP) as “political cacophony.” His remarks were consistent with those of his State Department superiors. Last autumn, Daniel Fried, assistant secretary of state for European Affairs, said “The development of the AKP into a democratic party . . . has mirrored and supported the development of Turkish political society as a whole in a liberal and democratic direction.” He described the AKP as “a kind of Muslim version of a Christian Democratic Party.”

Why are so many Turks angry at Washington’s dismissal of their concerns? While democrats fight for change within a system, Islamists seek to alter the system itself. This has been the case with the AKP. Over the party’s four-year tenure, Mr. Erdogan has spoken of democracy, tolerance and liberalism, but waged a slow and steady assault on the system. He endorsed, for example, the dream of Turkey’s secular elite to enter the European Union, but only to embrace reforms diluting the checks and balances of military constitutional enforcement. After the European Court of Human Rights upheld a ban on headscarves in public schools, he changed course. “It is wrong that those who have no connection to this field [of religion] make such a decision . . . without consulting Islamic scholars,” he declared. Then in May 2006, his chief negotiator for accession talks ordered the removal, from a negotiating paper, of reference to Turkey’s educational system as secular.

The assault on the secular education system has been subtle but effective. Traditionally, students had three choices: enroll at religious academies (so-called Imam Hatips) and enter the clergy; learn a trade at vocational schools; or matriculate at secular high schools, attend university and pursue a career. Mr. Erdogan changed the system: By equating Imam Hatip degrees with high-school degrees, he enabled Islamist students to enter university and qualify for government jobs without ever mastering Western fundamentals. He also sought to bypass checks and balances. After the Higher Education Board composed of university rectors rejected his demands to make universities more welcoming of political Islam, the AKP-dominated parliament proposed to establish 15 new universities. While Mr. Erdogan told diplomats his goal was to promote education, Turkish academics say the move would enable him to handpick rectors and swamp the board with political henchmen.

Such tactics have become commonplace. At Mr. Erdogan’s insistence and over the objections of many secularists, the AKP passed legislation to lower the mandatory retirement age of technocrats. This could mean replacement of nearly 4,000 out of 9,000 judges. Turks are suspicious that the AKP seeks to curtail judicial independence. In May 2005, AKP Parliamentary Speaker B?lent Arin? warned that the AKP might abolish the constitutional court if its judges continued to hamper its legislation. Mr. Erdogan’s refusal to implement Supreme Court decisions levied against his government underline his contempt for rule of law. Last May, in the heat of the AKP’s anti-judiciary rhetoric, an Islamist lawyer protesting the head scarf ban shouted “Allahu Akbar,” opened fire in the Supreme Court and murdered a judge. Thousands attended his funeral, chanting pro-secular slogans. Mr. Erdogan was absent from the ceremony.

There have been other subtle changes. Mr. Erdogan has replaced nearly every member of the banking regulatory board with officials from the Islamic banking sector. Accusations of Saudi capital subsidizing AKP are rampant. According to Turkish Central Bank statistics, in the first six months of this year, the net error — money entering the Turkish economy for which regulators cannot account — has increased almost eightfold compared to 2002, the year the AKP came to power. According to the opposition parliamentary bloc, debt amassed under Mr. Erdogan’s administration is equal to total debt accrued in Turkey between 1970 and 2000. Erkan Mumcu, a former AKP minister who now heads the center-right Motherland Party, accused the AKP in June of interfering in Central Bank operations. Accordingly, President Bush’s Oval Office statement, based on State Department talking points — congratulating “the prime minister and his government for the economic reforms that have enabled the Turkish economy to be strong” — may have hampered transparency, if not reform.

In the past year, the AKP anti-secular agenda has grown bolder. AKP-run municipalities now ban alcohol. Turkish Airlines recently surveyed employees about their attitudes toward the Quran. On July 11, Mr. Erdogan publicly vouched for the sincerity of Yasin al-Qadi, a Saudi financier identified by both the U.N. and U.S. Treasury Department as an al Qaeda financier.

When Mr. Erdogan began his political career, he did not hide his agenda. In September 1994, while mayor of Istanbul, he promised, “We will turn all our schools into Imam Hatips.” Two months later he said, “Thank God Almighty, I am a servant of the Shariah.” In May 1996, he called for a ban on alcohol. In the months before his dismissal from the mayoralty, his cynicism was clear. “Democracy is like a streetcar,” he quipped. “You ride it until you arrive at your destination and then you step off.”

Diplomacy should not just accentuate the positive and ignore the negative. When a country faces an Islamist challenge, PC platitudes do far more harm than good. At the very least, U.S. diplomats should never intercede to preserve the status quo at the expense of liberalism. Nor should they even appear to endorse a political party as an established democracy enters an election season. It is not good relations with Ankara that should be the U.S. goal, but rather the triumph of the democratic and liberal ideas for which Turkey traditionally stands.

Mr. Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute

No territory for terrorists

Decision Brief                                       No. 06-D 35                    2006-07-17


(Washington, D.C.): Suddenly, the Middle East is embroiled in a war again. No, not the sort of low-level, terrorist attack-and-limited retaliation that has passed for “peace” in the Mideast for many years. This is a shooting war, with armies on the move; widespread air, artillery and missile attacks on military targets and civilian infrastructure; and the sizeable death, destruction and dislocation of refugees and foreign nationals that typifies a conflict that may yet become far-wider in scope.


Finding Fault


Naturally, there is an effort to assign blame for this state of affairs. The Bush Administration has parried international efforts to assign that blame to Israel by correctly noting that two terrorist organizations, Hamas and Hezbollah, launched the attacks and kidnappings of Israeli soldiers that set this war in motion.


The G-8 meeting over the weekend (which wound up being, as the diplomats say, “seized” with this matter to an unanticipated degree) blames what the joint communique calls “extremists.” That euphemism apparently allowed the various governments to assign blame to others, as well. These properly should include Iran and Syria , the states whose sponsorship – along with that of Saudi Arabia in at least the case of Hamas – is helping the two terrorist groups to grow in size and lethality.


Others, notably the UN’s Secretary General Kofi Annan, prefer a moral equivalence that places at least as much blame on Israel as on its enemies. Such sentiments are evident in calls for an immediate cease-fire – which President Bush has, to his credit, thus far strongly resisted. Unfortunately, the G-8 communique negotiated for the United States by Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nick Burns is sufficiently ambiguous on this point to allow some to claim that it does, in fact, demand a cease-fire.


Israel ‘s Deadly Errors


The truth of the matter is that the present conflict might have been avoided had successive Israeli administrations not allowed conditions to be created which made it inevitable. This is not the same thing as blaming Israel for responding to the recent provocations.


Rather, it is to say that Israel ‘s previous behavior – undertaken by Labor, Likud and Kadima-led governments alike, in the fatuous belief that ceding territory to terrorists would result in something other than more terror – produced, predictably, just the opposite. Incredibly, despite the whirlwind that Israel is now reaping, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has recently reiterated his determination to give up virtually all of the West Bank and parts of Jerusalem – an area vastly larger than the combined territories of South Lebanon and the Gaza Strip that his predecessors, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon, surrendered respectively to Israel’s enemies in 2000 and 2005.


The Rising Cost of Terror


This is all the more extraordinary since Israel has learned at great cost that the effect of turning over territory to terrorists has been not only to assure that more attacks are mounted against the Jewish State from those areas. It is now indisputable that such terrorist strikes are more deadly, as well.


For example, the attack by Hamas operatives that resulted in the capture of the first Israeli soldier three weeks ago involved the digging of a tunnel hundreds of meters under border fences, coming up behind Israel Defense Forces (IDF) positions. Such a sophisticated and lethal operation makes a mockery of the idea of “disengagement,” based upon the notion that good fences will make, if not good neighbors, at least ones with which Israel can live. Under present and foreseeable circumstances, the only hope of discouraging more – and far more destructive – terror attacks in the future is if the Israelis exercise control of both sides of the border.


Similarly, many observers have been surprised by the number and range of the weapons being used against Israeli civilians and, in at least one case, against an IDF naval vessel off the Lebanese coast. Here again, the only surprise is that “experts” are surprised: Ever since Israel abandoned its security zone (and allies) in South Lebanon and relinquished control over the Rafah and other crossings between Egypt and Gaza, there has been a steady infusion of advanced armaments and skilled personnel from terror organizations like the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and al Qaeda able to operate them, and to train local terrorists to do the same.


A Taste of What is to Come


Bad as the resulting attacks on Israel have been – involving populated areas as far from the front lines as Haifa, Tiberius and Ashkelon – far worse would be in the offing were Israel now to compound the errors that brought on the present crisis. Today’s war would pale by comparison with what will inevitably ensue should the Jewish State turn over control of the West Bank and parts of Jerusalem to those now operating against her from Gaza and Lebanon.


In that case, every major Israeli population center would be within range of artillery, mortar and missiles. So would virtually all Israel ‘s airports, major roads and infrastructure. And it is equally predictable that were Iranian, al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas forces next allowed to operate with impunity from the West Bank, as well as from Lebanon and Gaza, they would use that safe haven not only to pursue Israel’s destruction, but that of the Free World more generally – including the United States.


The Bottom Line


It is time for the U.S. and the Free World to adopt anew the Bush Doctrine (as opposed to the negotiation uber alles “Burns Doctrine” promoted by the Under Secretary of State). Reduced to its essence that means no territory for terrorists.


 

‘Iraq War’ truth squad

Decision Brief                                       No. 06-D 30                     2006-06-19


(Washington , D.C.): With voters going to the polls in a little more than four months, legislators on both sides of Capitol Hill and both sides of the aisle are jockeying for position on a host of contentious issues. Topping the list at the moment is what to do about Iraq.


Reduced to their essence the choices are, according to most Republicans, between “cutting-and-running” or “staying the course”; according to most Democrats, “redeploying to fight the global war on terror” or Vietnam redux. Last week, the House of Representatives had its turn, providing a bipartisan endorsement of President Bush’s Iraq policy. The Senate is expected to take the issue up in earnest this week.


Critics of our involvement in Iraq have embraced arguments or “facts” that frequently do not stand up to scrutiny. Unfortunately, some of those who continue to support the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime have unnecessarily conceded points to their opponents. As a result, all other things being equal, even if the Senate joins the House in rejecting the Democrat-led effort to set deadlines for reducing our presence in Iraq or withdrawing posthaste, this week’s deliberations may not adequately serve the public’s need to understand the true nature of this conflict and its stakes.


Just the Facts, Ma’am


As a contribution to the debate – and an effort to provide quality control on its content – herewith a few relevant truths:



-President Bush did not “lie” about Saddam Hussein’s regime posing a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) threat . In addition to the obvious point that the Iraqi dictator had used such weapons against his own people and Iranians in the past, it is irresponsible to ignore the fact that, therefore, he had the know-how and infrastructure to produce and maintain stocks of such weapons.


We now also have evidence – thanks to defector accounts and captured Iraqi documentation – that Saddam engaged in a massive effort to deny us a “smoking gun” by dispersing his WMD before U.S.-led Coalition forces launched their invasion. For example, Georges Sada, the former Iraqi general who was responsible for organizing air-shipments conveying chemical and biological weapons across the Syrian border and into Syrian-controlled Lebanon, has confirmed that such movements occurred.



-What is more, even the oft-cited Iraq Survey Group, which found no evidence of WMD in Iraq after the invasion, confirmed that Saddam had plans when sanctions were lifted (an imminent prospect until Operation Iraqi Freedom intervened) to convert some of his inherently dual-use facilities to the manufacture of chemical and/or biological agents. The plans called for such agents to be placed in aerosol cans and perfume sprayers for shipment to the United States and Europe . These are precisely the sort of intentions and terrorist applications for WMD that caused President Bush properly to believe it necessary to act preemptively against Saddam’s regime.


There is, similarly, no doubt that Saddam Hussein was involved with and supportive of international terrorism. In fact, his regime had been designated a state-sponsor of terror for years before George W. Bush became president, due to the safe-havens, training facilities, intelligence and logistical assistance and arms he provided to an assortment of Islamist and other terrorist organizations.


Some still cavil that al Qaeda was not among the beneficiaries of Saddam’s largesse. Typically, they make much of the 9/11 Commission’s conclusion that there was no evidence of “operational” connections between al Qaeda and the Iraqi despot’s regime. In fact, as the Weekly Standard‘s Steven Hayes (among others) has demonstrated, U.S. and allied intelligence have accumulated information about myriad contacts and meetings, both inside and outside of Iraq, between Osama bin Laden’s operatives and those of Iraqi intelligence or its intermediaries. To ignore such associations and their potentially devastating implications would have been irresponsible.



–We will not encourage the Iraqis to “get their act together” by convincing them they will shortly be abandoned to contend with the myriad enemies at home and abroad who wish to snuff out their fragile experiment with democracy and freedom . It is nonsense – not to say insufferably condescending – to ignore a central reality: People like those of Iraq, who have long been traumatized by despotic misrule and the existential threat it can pose at any time, simply will not line up with the cause of freedom unless they have reason to believe it is going to be the winning side.


If the Iraqi people abandon the opportunity we have helped afford them – a chance for a future that is far more peaceable, prosperous and free than anything they have known before – far more than just the loss of an ally and a model for the region will occur. Our mutual enemies around the world, be they al Qaeda operatives, Baathist irreconcilables or the sectarians and their foreign sponsors, will be vindicated in their belief of our susceptibility to defeat, and emboldened to pursue it far beyond Iraq , including here at home.


This is not idle speculation or fear-mongering for short-run political effect. To the contrary, it is the confident prediction and stated goal of bin Laden, the late Abu Musab Zarqawi, Wahhabi imams in Saudi Arabia, Hezbollah and Hamas terror leaders in the Levant and Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, among others.


The Bottom Line


In short, Iraq is just one front in the larger War for the Free World. Saddam Hussein’s despotism had to be eliminated if our necessary success in that war was to be achieved in the only way it can be: by systematically eliminating the regimes that sponsor Islamofascism and otherwise serve as well-springs of terror. If we are clear about that reality, we will indisputably have a chance to prevail, not just in Iraq but wherever freedom is under assault.


 

‘Convergence’ Plan for the West Bank and US Middle East Policy

(Washington, D.C.): In a highly timely analysis of the new Israeli prime minister’s plan to withdraw Israeli citizens and forces from most of the West Bank, the Center for Security Policy’s Senior Fellow for Mideast Affairs, Caroline Glick, concludes that: "Just as Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza has led to the takeover of that area by terrorist groups and their supporters, a similar withdrawal from the West Bank will result in an even more dangerous situation for the United States and its allies in the region."

Entitled "Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s ‘Convergence’ Plan for the West Bank and U.S. Middle East Policy," this nineteen-page critique notes the irony that, at the same time as America is seeking to establish a modern, liberal democracy in Iraq in an effort to encourage the spread of freedom and stability in the Greater Middle East, an Israeli unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank threatens to create a new terror enclave in the Levant. From such an enclave, we must expect that jihadists will be able to spread their influence and destabilize the entire region, thus decreasing the prospect of American success in Iraq and threatening U.S. security interests elsewhere in the region – and far beyond.

In addition to her work for the Center, Ms. Glick is deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post. A former officer in the Israel Defense Forces, she was a core member of Israel ‘s negotiating team with the Palestinians and later served as an assistant policy advisor to the prime minister. She is widely regarded as one of the most insightful and informed strategic analysts of Middle East affairs.

The stakes for the United States of the Israeli government proposal are made even higher by Mr. Olmert’s expectation that the Bush administration and the Congress will agree to have American taxpayers finance this retreat from the West Bank, which he foresees costing some $10 billion.

In her paper, Ms. Glick outlines four key ways that a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank will undermine America ‘s national security interests in the Middle East and its efforts to win the global war against Islamofascism. It will:

  1. Weaken U.S. logistical capacities in Iraq. The destabilization of Israel and Jordan through the establishment of a Taliban-like regime in the West Bank will endanger the overland supply route U.S. forces use to move materiel from Israeli ports through Jordan into Iraq. This will increase U.S. dependency on Persian Gulf ports and invite Iran to create crises in the Straits of Hormuz.
  2. Establish a new terror refuge in the West Bank that will serve as a training ground for terrorists who will fight not only against Israel and Jordan , but also against U.S. forces in Iraq.
  3. Enhance the prestige of declared enemies of the U.S. including Iran, Syria, al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Wahabist extremists in Saudi Arabia and Salafist extremists in Egypt at the expense of the United States. The widespread perception in the Arab and Islamic world of Israel as a U.S. client state will cause an Israeli retreat and its consequent destabilization of Israel and Jordan to be seen for what they are: strategic defeats for America . This will, in turn, likely translate into thousands of additional recruits for global jihad against the United States .
  4. Decrease motivation to cooperate with the U.S. in the war against Islamofascism throughout the Arab and Muslim world. This perceived victory for the global jihad will undermine U.S. efforts to gain the support of regimes and individuals around the globe, particularly those in the Arab and Islamic world such as leaders like Gen. Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan . He, like democracy activists in Iraq , and advocates of Islamic moderation in Europe , will be undercut and possibly undone by the victory of the jihadist forces in the aftermath of Israel ‘s withdrawal from the West Bank.

In light of these considerations and others elaborated upon in Ms. Glick’s paper, the Center for Security Policy strongly recommends that the United States not support Ehud Olmert’s retreat in the face – and to the great benefit – of forces that are fighting against this country and its allies. Instead, America should encourage him to pursue strategies that will have the effect of promoting the Free World’s interests and security.

Ehud Olmert’s “Convergence” Plan for the West Bank and U.S. Middle East Policy

Executive Summary

Israel’s incoming Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has announced his intention to implement what he refers to as “the convergence plan,” which involves an Israeli pullout from some 90-95 percent of the West Bank and from several neighborhoods in Jerusalem by the end of 2007. Mr. Olmert is scheduled to visit Washington in May 2006 to present his plan to the Bush Administration and Congressional leaders in the hope of securing U.S. monetary and policy support for his plan.

Olmert’s convergence plan entails the expulsion of between 50,000-100,000 Israeli civilians from their homes in the West Bank and the destruction of between 50-100 Israeli towns and villages in the area. It further requires the withdrawal of Israeli military forces to garrisoned locations in proximity to Israel’s security barrier which will encompass the remaining 5-10 percent of the West Bank territory located along the 1949 armistice lines that constituted Israel’s national boundaries until 1967.

Olmert maintains that implementation of his plan will enhance Israeli security and regional stability by lessening the daily contact between Israelis and Palestinians and by safeguarding Israel’s demographic durability as a democratic Jewish state. He further maintains that an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank will enhance U.S. and Israeli interests by improving Israel’s political posture internationally.

Upon scrutiny, however, it is clear that Olmert’s plan will do none of the above. An Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank will effectively cause the area to be transferred to the control of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. As experience from Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in September 2005 has shown, the area will likely become a base for global terrorists allied with Iran and other terror-supporting states.

In fact, terrorists operating in the relinquished areas will be capable of conducting missile attacks against Israel’s major cities, its international airport and other strategic locations in Israel. They will constitute a destabilizing force that could lead to the fall of the Hashemite regime in Jordan. Mass expulsions of Israeli civilians will destabilize Israeli society and will manifest a serious blow to the morale and retention levels of the Israeli military’s combat officer corps. Also, an Israeli pullout from the West Bank will likely make it easier for terrorist forces to execute infiltrations of Israel for the purpose of conducting large-scale bombing attacks in Israeli population centers like Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa and mobilizing the Israeli Arab minority in the cause of jihad against the Jewish state.

 

–––––––––––––––

Caroline B. Glick is the Center for Security Policy’s Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs.

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Islamists’ creeping coup in Turkey

Decision Brief                                       No. 06-D 14                           2006-03-13

 

(Washington, D.C.): Arguably, among the most pressing questions of our time are: Can Islamic nations enjoy the benefits of secular, tolerant and accountable government – and, if so, will they be able to do it in the future?

A Test Case: Turkey

A bellwether may prove to be Turkey, the modern and very secular state created some eighty years ago by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk on the ashes of a theocratic Ottoman Empire defeated in World War I. His legacy has been one of the best hopes for believing that Muslims could practice their faith without being subjected to the dictates of repressive theocracy.

It is important to note that the guarantor of that secular government in Turkey – sometimes at the expense of democratic rule – has historically been the country’s military. For this reason among others, the armed forces remain Turks’ most highly regarded institution.

Ending Ataturk’s experiment and restoring the Muslim caliphate it supplanted has long been a goal of Islamofascists, adherents to a dangerous political movement whose global reach and terrorist methods have largely been made possible thanks to decades of investment by the world’s repressive Islamist regimes, led by Saudi Arabia. The rise of Islamofascism has prompted some in the West to hope that Turkey would continue to serve as a model for the Muslim world, even after an avowed Islamist named Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2002 parlayed a minority of votes into a monopoly of power.

This delusion contributed to the European Union allowing its negotiations for Turkish accession to the EU to be skillfully used by Erdogan to checkmate Turkey’s military. Thus, had the armed forces acted to prevent Erdogan’s creeping Islamofascist coup against the country’s secular institutions and traditions, they would have been blamed for keeping Turkey “out of Europe.”

Six months ago, the Center for Security Policy documented the comprehensive nature of Erdogan’s takeover. To recap:

 

 

-The Turkish government and economy is being corrupted by billions of dollars in what is known as “green money,” from Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states awash with petro-windfalls. There is reason to believe some this unaccountable cash is finding its way into Turkish businesses, creating revenue streams used to consolidate the Islamists’ power base and finance Islamofascist terrorism.

 

–The Islamists are employing classic fascistic techniques, using “green” funds and the power of the state to go after strategic targets such as: enterprises of businessmen who support the democratic opposition; banks they own or rely upon for financing; Turkey’s large Alevi minority – whom intolerant Islamofascists try to vilify and persecute as “apostates”; working women (a key ingredient in Turkey’s successful economic and social modernization); the secular bureaucracy; and the press. Particularly worrisome is the fact that consolidation of media ownership has resulted in considerable self-censorship and, of late, propagandizing against the West (including notably a spate of wildly popular, virulently anti-American books and movies).

 

 

 

-A special focus of the creeping Islamofascist coup has been Turkey’s traditionally secular educational system. It is being steadily adulterated by madrassa-style imam-hatip and other “schools” where students are taught only the Koran and its interpretation according to the Islamofascists. The age at which such indoctrination can begin has been lowered to four-years-old.

 

 

 

-The prime minister, himself an imam-hatip graduate, has also mounted assaults on two other fronts that reveal Erdogan’s ominous plans not only for the country’s educators but for another critical Turkish institution, as well: the judiciary.

 

First, a local prosecutor, clearly acting on orders from higher up, indicted a prominent secular academic – a university rector named Yucel Askin – on preposterously trumped up charges. Their subsequent dismissal by a court has only intensified Erdogan’s determination to subvert the judiciary. Tens of thousands of Koranic school graduates are being appointed as judges, assuring they will increasingly serve as instruments of Shari’a religious law.

Worse yet, Erdogan has lately demonstrated that when he does not get his way in court, he is prepared to dispense with the judiciary altogether. This was the upshot of another government-inspired assault on the country’s secular universities, a case brought before the European Court of Human Rights by a female student who insisted on wearing a prohibited hijab (headcovering) to class. When this appeal was rejected, Erdogan angrily declared, “The court has no right to speak on this issue. That right belongs to the ulema (clerics).”

 

 

-This statement demonstrates the cynicism of Erdogan’s purported efforts to have Turkey join the European Union. Far from being willing to adhere to European human rights and other standards, he has simply viewed the EU accession process as a means of keeping the army from once again intervening to preserve secular rule – probably the last remaining threat to his consolidation of Islamofascist power.

 

Emboldened by the success of this gambit, Erdogan has now gone after one of Turkey’s most highly regarded generals, Land Force Commander Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, who is widely expected to become the head of the Turkish military this summer. A courageous and outspoken anti-Islamist, the regime clearly views his ascendancy as a threat and has had the same local prosecutor who went after the university rector file no-less-absurd charges against Gen. Buyukanit.

The Bottom Line

Fortunately, the cumulative impact of Erdogan’s Islamofascist assault on Turkish democracy is becoming more apparent to his countrymen and opposition appears to be rising at home. It behooves the European Union to reinforce the political impact of such sentiment by making clear that Islamofascist behavior will be what precludes Turkey from being eligible for membership, not efforts by the Turkish military to counter the Islamists’ takeover. And the United States and other freedom-loving nations must make clear that they view an Islamist Turkey as no model for the Muslim world and a threat to that nation’s standing as a valued member of the free one.

Our war with Iran

Decision Brief     No. 05-D 55                                       2005-10-31

(Washington, D.C.): On October 26th, the new president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, made international headlines by declaring that "Israel must be wiped off the map." Leaders from around the world tut-tutted that such things really should not be said, ignoring the fact that this goal has been a cornerstone of Iranian policy – and, for that matter, that of a number of other states – for years.

The blood-chilling threat to Israel overshadowed another statement by the one-time Iranian "student" whose cohort seized American hostages in 1979. Ahmadinejad declared in the same speech: "Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism?…You had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved."

Read His Lips

In other words, Tehran’s Islamofascists like Ahmadinejad are as focused today as they were at the time twenty-six years ago when, in the midst of the Iranian revolution, they sacked our embassy and seized our diplomats. The main enemy – the "Great Satan" — for Iran’s regime remains the United States. Unless prevented from doing so, it will persist, both on its own and in league with others, to bring about our destruction, as well as that of other freedom-loving people.

Regrettably, this agenda is being largely underwritten by profits the mullahs are obtaining from their oil sales. Thanks to the recent near-tripling of the price per barrel, Iran is now receiving on the order of $125 million more every day in what amounts to found-money. As with the Saudis (whose corresponding windfall is roughly $500 million per day), at least some of these funds are supporting Iranian-sponsored terrorists and financing Tehran’s accelerating weapons of mass destruction programs.

The latter have benefited greatly from our European friends. The so-called EU-3 – Britain, France and Germany – have tried to appease the mullahs into giving up the nuclear weapons program that the Iranian regime is making less and less effort to conceal. Emboldened by the absence of real penalties (or, for that matter, any adverse consequences), Iranian spokesmen have taken to talking openly – and gleefully – about how European diplomacy has "bought time" to bring their nuclear program to fruition. Worse yet, they now have advertised their willingness to share Iran’s nuclear technology with other Islamic nations.

Time is Not on Our Side

The time thus squandered has also allowed Iran to diversify its customer base, bringing China and even democratic India in as major investors in Iran’s state-controlled oil sector and purchasers of its products. Thanks to this arrangement, Tehran has obtained political protection, non-Western revenue streams and sources of advanced weaponry.

Potentially among the latter is a very dangerous new Indian supersonic, sea-skimming and maneuvering cruise missile developed with Russia and known as the BrahMos. India is aggressively marketing this weapon – which poses a grave threat to American naval vessels and potentially to other targets – including in our own hemisphere. Presumably, New Delhi would be no less willing to sell such missiles to the source of much of its imported energy, Iran.

The menace arising from the Iranian regime can no longer be ignored, any more than its president’s rhetoric can be discounted as bluster or considered untroubling since news accounts suggest it is directed at Israel alone. The Shiite Islamofascists in Tehran, like their Sunni counterparts supported by Saudi Arabia, mean what they say about imposing an international Caliphate under a Taliban-style Shari’a law. And they are deadly serious about the fact that countries like ours that stand in the way will have to be wiped from the map, too.

Whether we recognize it or not, this totalitarian ideology is at war with us. And, if we wish to survive, we have no choice but to wage total war against it.

Fortunately, in the case of Iran, we clearly have natural allies in the Iranian people. They are as anxious to dispatch the despotic mullahs who repress them, and threaten us, as we are.

What Is to Be Done?

For this reason among others, we should resist as long as possible resort to military means against the Iranian regime, lest we drive even a public who hates the radical, politicized mullahs into their arms. The United States should, instead, lead the Free World in wielding three other instruments against our enemies in Tehran. We should:

-Wage political warfare. The United States has largely failed to utilize the sorts of techniques that Ronald Reagan employed to delegitimize Soviet communism and to empower its foes within the USSR. Among other things, Americans need to bring to bear the political tradecraft we usually use against one another in our electoral campaigns to defeat our Islamofascist foes.

-Divest terror. American investors hold hundreds of billions of dollars worth of stocks in companies that partner with Iran, the other Islamofascist regimes and their friends. The South Africa divestment campaign and "socially responsible" investing have demonstrated that, by redirecting investments into corporations that do not engage in unacceptable practices, real pressure for change can be brought to bear. (For more on how, see www.DivestTerror.org.)

-Start weaning the Free World from oil. Without oil revenues, the Islamofascists would be far less formidable foes. We have no choice now but to achieve energy security by using existing transportation technologies to run on alternative fuels like ethanol, methanol and electricity, made from Free World sources. (The blueprint for doing so is at www.SetAmericaFree.org.)

As Ahmadinejad knows, we have a stark choice: a world without America, or one without Islamofascism. The latter goal is attainable and surely must be achieved.