Obama Meets With Pro-Hezbollah Groups Ahead of Mideast Trip

Thu, March 14, 2013

by:

Ryan Mauro

On Monday, President Obama prepared for his trip to the Middle East by meeting with around 10 Muslim and Arab officials that provided him with “recommendations.” The attendees included representatives from the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, two anti-Israel groups with a record of pro-Hezbollah advocacy. The meeting came four days after his meeting with Jewish leaders.

A joint press release by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), American Task Force for Palestine, American Federation of Ramallah Palestine and the Arab-American Institute boasted of the meeting.

Separately, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) alerted its supporters that the director of its Washington D.C. office, Haris Tarin, also attended. He was previously thanked by President Obama in a personal phone call for his activism on July 13, 2011. The ADC earlier tried to get President Obama’s attention by helping to organize an interfaith “No Blank Check for Israel” rally in the capital near Inauguration Day.

The meeting took place in the Roosevelt Room near the Oval Office and also involved unidentified national security officials and Valerie Jarrett, the senior adviser who was a keynote speaker at the 2009 annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America, a group with Muslim Brotherhood origins.

The meeting apparently wasn’t all good news for the invitees. The president of ADC, Warren David, complained that President Obama has let down many Arab-Americans with his Middle East policy and said he left with a “bittersweet feeling.”

The ADC was founded by the first Arab-American Senator, who praised Hezbollah during its war with Israel in 2006. He also has stated that Zionists were secretly behind the 9/11 attacks. The ADC leadership opposed its designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

In 2000, an ADC spokesperson called Hezbollah a “responsible liberation force.” The ADC also honored Helen Thomas after she said the Jews in Israel should “get the hell out of Palestine” and go to Poland.

Similarly, MPAC stood against the designations of Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist groups in a 2003 policy paper. On the other hand, it called Israel a state sponsor of terrorism in 2001. It said that the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon did not qualify as terrorism.

In 2006, MPAC explained it was only stating a “highly relevant fact” and did not support the attack. In 1998, MPAC co-founder and senior adviser Maher Hathout said Hezbollah’s attacks on armed forces are “legitimate” and the following year, MPAC president Salam al-Marayati said that its attacks on Israeli soldiers are “legitimate resistance.”

On 9/11, al-Marayati said that Israel should be considered a suspect. Hathout similarly entertained suggestions of a 9/11 conspiracy. In 2000, Hathout referred to Israel as “butchers” and “an apartheid state” and predicted that the Arab governments would be “flushed down in the cesspools of history of treason” by a “general intifada.”

Hathout and his brother, another MPAC co-founder, are disciples of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood and formerly served in his organization. They continued to promote al-Banna’s Islamist preaching in the 1990s. However, Hathout has stated that he opposes the Muslim Brotherhood’s power grab in Egypt and that Sharia’s penal code is not applicable anymore. He recently expressed a tolerant view of homosexuals. Regardless of what his views on Sharia law may be, MPAC’s record on Israel and Hezbollah is undeniable.

This meeting is the latest entry in the Obama Administration’s record of ties to the ADC and MPAC. Kareem Shora, who was appointed to the Department of Homeland Security’s Advisory Council and then served as a community engagement liaison for the DHS, was an ADC official since 1999 and was its national executive director.

In September 2009, MPAC celebrated that it participated in a dozen Iftar dinners with government agencies. In 2010, the State Department asked al-Marayati to speak in Europe. The Department of Defense apologized to MPAC in February 2012 for the accidental burning of a Koran in Afghanistan.

On February 8, 2012, MPAC, ADC, the Islamic Society of North America and other groups met with the director of the FBI to discuss its counter-terrorism training content. Afterwards, the FBI said it would consider forming a panel with them to help with the review.

The meeting with President Obama to provide policy “recommendations” is unsettling. Were their records even considered? What type of advice are they given to the President, his administration and elected officials? And why aren’t more moderate voices being asked for their assistance in combating Islamism, anti-Semitism and the other causes of the ongoing conflict?

Monday’s chat shows the influence these groups have had in the past and, most importantly, the influence they will have for the next four years.

www.radicalislam.org/media.radicalislam.org/files/11-2012/85x109xbs..." style="width: 85px; height: 109px; margin: 5px 10px; float: left;" />Ryan Mauro is RadicalIslam.org's National Security Analyst and a fellow with the Clarion Fund. He is the founder of WorldThreats.com and is frequently interviewed on Fox News.
This article may not be republished without expressed written permission from RadicalIslam.org

This article was sponsored by the Institute on Religion and Democracy.

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Comment by Gordon Ray Kissinger on March 24, 2013 at 11:52am: The Iran, Hezbollah, Venezuela Axis to “Grow Exponentially” Under C...

24 Mar 2013

by Adam Kredo

Photo Credit: AP

Iran has illegally laundered billions of dollars through the Venezuelan financial sector and is currently stashing “hundreds of millions” of dollars in “virtually every Venezuelan bank today,” according to a former senior State Department official.

“It’s a huge blind spot in those trying to implement sanctions” on Iran, Roger Noriega, a former United States ambassador and assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, told the Washington Free Beacon.

Venezuela served as Iran’s closest Western ally under the late President Hugo Chavez, who allowed the rogue regime to establish a military and financial presence at the highest levels of the Venezuelan government.

Iran’s foothold in the country is expected to grow exponentially under the rule of Chavez’s likely successor, Vice President Nicolas Maduro.

Noriega and other experts warned House lawmakers at a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday that Iran’s terrorist proxy Hezbollah is gaining power in Venezuela.

Read more from this story HERE.

Read more: http://joemiller.us/2013/03/the-iran-hezbollah-venezuela-axis/#ixzz...

Comment by Gordon Ray Kissinger on March 22, 2013 at 4:08pm

DARK KNIGHT KILLER JAMES HOLMES 'IS NOW A MUSLIM WHO PRAYS FIVE TIMES A DAY'

DARK KNIGHT KILLER JAMES HOLMES 'IS NOW A MUSLIM WHO PRAYS FIVE TIMES A DAY

Holmes has found Islam and "a way of justifying his horrific murder spreee in Aurora." That's his jihad -- what's yours?

"He has brainwashed himself into believing he was on his own personal jihad and that his victims were infidels." I wonder if he'll get special accommodation now. Respect it!

Did he recently convert or was there some knowledge about his leanings before the shooting?

Dark Knight killer James Holmes 'is now a Muslim who prays five tim...Daily Mail, March 20, 2013 (thanks to Parag)
James Holmes, the gunman behind the Dark Knight massacre in Colorado last July, has reportedly turned Muslim and prays five times a day.

The killer showed off a lengthy, thick beard during a court appearance earlier this month, and a prison source has claimed it is a symbol of his new-found faith.

The source said Holmes has turned to Islam as a way of justifying his horrific murder spree in an Aurora, Colorado cinema on July 20 which left 12 people dead and 58 people wounded.

'Changed man': James Holmes, pictured in a Colorado courtroom during his arraignment on March 12, has reportedly turned Muslim in a bid to justify his horrendous killing spree

'He has brainwashed himself into believing he was on his own personal jihad and that his victims were infidels,' a prison source told the National Enquirer.

He now prays five times a day, sticks to a strict Muslim diet and spends hours each day studying the Qur'an, the source said. But his new routine has upset Muslim inmates.

'None of them condone forms of terrorism or extremism,' the source added. 'And they don't want their religion to be connected to that awful shooting.'

Holmes sported a thick, bushy beard and unkempt dark brown hair during his appearance earlier this month - a stark difference to his bright orange hair at the time of the massacre.
Different look: A prison source claimed Holmes' new beard is a symbol of his new-found faith; it is a stark difference from his appearance in July 2012 (left) just after the killings and in September (right)

Backing their son: Robert and Arlene Holmes appeared at court for the first time earlier this month

Holmes is charged with 166 counts, mostly murder and attempted murder, in the assault on moviegoers at a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora.

On the night of the attack, prosecutors say he donned a police-style helmet, gas mask and body armor, tossed a gas canister into the seats and then opened fire.

neither he nor his lawyers have said much about how he would plead.

If Holmes is convicted, he could be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison.

Comment by Gordon Ray Kissinger on March 21, 2013 at 4:11pm

Staggering Numbers of Women Converting to Islam

Tue, March 12, 2013

by:

Abigail R. Esman

www.radicalislam.org/media.radicalislam.org/files/3-2013/330x224xfH..." align=""/>Aminat Kurbanova became radicalized after converting to Islam. Kurbanova blew herself up, killing 7 people with her, inside a mosque after hearing the cleric speaking against the radicalization of Muslims in Russia's Dagestan region.The first thing the Dutch girl did once she’d converted to Islam was change her name – to Soumaya, she says, because “she was the first martyr. She was prepared to die for Allah.”

Soumaya, née Aphrodite, is one of a wave of tens of thousands of Westerners who convert to Islam every year, more than 75 percent of whom, astonishingly, are women. Equally surprising is the fact that most of these women gravitate to conservative Islamic groups – the more misogynistic and oppressive ones – insisting all the while that they feel “liberated” and “free.”

Reading through dozens of stories of such women, one can’t help but notice the similarities among them. All claim to have embraced Islam of their own free will; yet an overwhelming majority, like Soumaya (whose story was profiled in the Dutch newspaper Het Parool), converted only after dating (or wedding) a Muslim man, usually – interestingly enough – a Moroccan (even in countries like England, where Moroccans do not form the majority Muslim population).

Others speak of “finding themselves” after years of wild drink and drugs – a pattern similar to that found in male prison converts, who often are convinced by other Muslim inmates to seek salvation through Allah. They repeat, as if by rote, the same rhetoric about escaping the sexual objectification of women by adopting the hijab or full-body abaya, as if in their previous life it had not occurred to them to dress in maxi skirts or loose-fitting turtlenecks and jeans.

(Hilariously, Aphrodite/Soumaya, along with all the other young women profiled, appears photographed in hijab and a full face of makeup – which, of course, is what women wear in order to appear more beautiful to men.) In so doing, they ignore – I would argue, are made to ignore – the very essence of what such coverings in fact represent: The notion that a woman is nothing but sexual object, and therefore must be kept hidden, just as, in the West, we hide our genitalia.

That this fact is not explained to these women and young girls is what has many feminists concerned, not only about Muslim women in general, but particularly, about converts, who are, as it were, handed Islam in small, attractive bites, sweetened artificially and served up on flowered plates.

Most of these young women display little self-confidence or ability to define their own values and behavior – qualities that make them easily influenced by others, and susceptible especially to those who offer up a lifestyle option that relinquishes them from responsibility for their actions, that gives them a code of behavior and the ease of attributing what they do or wear or eat to God and not to self.

And because their profiles are so similar – young, female, insecure, seeking structure and an identity– it isn’t just seducing women to convert that is made so easy. Recruiting by radicals can be -- and is --performed virtually programmatically.

Over and over, for instance, young female converts speak of wanting to be a good Muslim and a good wife; the two become equated, acted out in a life of feminine submission, first to her husband and then, by extension, to Allah.

This is dangerous stuff. Indeed, as the BBC reported as early as 2010 , often Muslim women are targeted by extremist recruiters for jihad precisely for their willingness to follow the advice of more “knowledgeable” Muslims and the commands and demands of Muslim men.

Islamists often prey on their emotions, exposing these girls to videos of child victims of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, while explaining the importance of violent jihad.

Speaking to the BBC, then 32-year-old Hadiya Masich (not a convert), who was recruited by members of the radical Hizb-ut-Tahir, explained that “once they’ve established that suspicion (against the West)…that emotion can be challenged in various ways, including violence.”

Violence, however, is rare among women – though the frequency is increasing at an alarming rate. Radicalized Muslimas are far more likely to take part in terrorist plots indirectly, either, say, by raising their sons to be suicide bombers, or by sending funds to terrorist groups.

The trend is also notable in the US, where in between 2001 and 2010 alone, seven Muslim women – including four converts – were convicted on terrorism charges. An ADL report observed, “Foreign terrorist organizations have also sought to recruit female operatives with Western appearances.

In January, 2010, for example, reports surfaced that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Al Qaeda’s affiliate based in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, had formed a brigade of non-Arab women who carry Western passports. The women were reportedly recruited to carry out suicide attacks against American and Western targets in the region.”

Obviously, not all of these women become terrorists. Farhana Qazi, a Pakistani-American Muslim previously with the Rand Organization and who now serves as a senior instructor to the US military, points out that “American converts to Islam seek a sense of belonging and come to Islam for many reasons. And most of these women do not become radicalized unless they are actively recruited by violent men.” Shaista Gohir, a consultant to the UK’s counter-terrorism program, similarly told the BBC, “Most Muslim women have no interest in violence.”

But violence is not all that radical Islam involves. Indeed, in some ways, these women can be even more dangerous, either by encouraging violence in their sons, supporting it in their husband or helping to raise money for terrorist groups. And in the meantime, cautioned Shaista Gohir, “There is a small number of females who are being targeted [for violence]. This is very serious, because the numbers are slowly growing.”

And in the right place, at the right time, all it takes is one.

www.radicalislam.org/media.radicalislam.org/files/3-2013/85x65xiHBt..." style="width: 85px; height: 65px; margin: 5px 10px; float: left;"/>Abigail R. Esman, an award-winning writer based in New York and the Netherlands, is the author, most recently, of Radical State: How Jihad Is Winning Over Democracy in the West
This article may not be republished without expressed written permission from RadicalIslam.org

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Comment by Gordon Ray Kissinger on March 21, 2013 at 4:10pm

Female Genital Mutilation on Rise in U.S.

Mon, March 18, 2013

by:

Clare Lopez

www.radicalislam.org/media.radicalislam.org/files/3-2013/330x252xbs..."/>e4.3 Circumcision is obligatory (O: for both men and women). For men it consists of removing the prepuce from the penis, and for women, removing the prepuce.(Ar. Bazr) of the clitoris (n: not the clitoris itself, as some mistakenly assert). (A: Hanbalis hold that circumcision of women is not obligatory but sunna, while Hanafis consider it a mere courtesy to the husband.) – Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law

As the population of immigrants to the United States increases from countries where Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is practiced, so does the practice of cutting. This is the finding of a new study published by the New York-based non-profit organization, Sanctuary for Families, which specializes in gender-based violence.

The study, “Female Genital Mutilation in the United States: Protecting Girls and Women in the U.S. From FGM and Vacation Cutting,” relied on statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and data from the 2000 U.S. census.

Both CDC and the census appear to have arrived at their conclusions by extrapolating from the numbers of immigrants who come from countries documented by the World Health Organization as places where FGM is common, in order to arrive at a number of women and girls in the U.S. deemed “at risk” for FGM, either in the U.S. itself or while on “vacations” to home countries of origin.

Available statistics on the global prevalence of FGM come mostly from African countries, especially Muslim-majority ones, and have been gathered primarily by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

There seems to be a deliberate dearth of FGM statistics from Middle Eastern countries, where the influence of Islamic law (sharia), mosque imams and local traditions that pre-date Islam may all contribute to what is likely a vastly underreported practice. Indeed, as noted by Thomas von der Osten-Sacken and Thomas Uwer in a Winter 2007 Middle East Quarterly essay, “[m]any Muslims and academics in the West take pains to insist that the practice is not rooted in religion but rather in culture.”

This is exactly what the Sanctuary for Families study does, asserting, “A common misperception about female genital mutilation is that the practice is required by religion, particularly Islam…FGM is not particular to any religious group, and is not prescribed by any faith.”

Except that it is. As cited at the beginning of this piece, the Shafi’i shool of Islamic jurisprudence explicitly states that “circumcision is obligatory” for both men and women. Other schools of Islamic jurisprudence, such as the Maliki school, call FGM “praiseworthy (makruma).”

The Maliki school is most prevalent among the 35% or so of the world’s Muslims who live in North and West Africa (in addition to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates). The Shafi’i school is dominant among Muslims in the African countries of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and parts of lower Egypt.

Although statistics generally (and perhaps deliberately) are lacking for Muslim populations elsewhere in the Middle East, an important June 2010 Human Rights Watch (HRW) study documented the startling prevalence of FGM in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Entitled “They Took Me and Told Me Nothing,” the report described the traumatic experiences of girls and women and the terrible toll that the mutilation takes on their mental and physical health.

The HRW study is credited with prodding the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to pass the Family Violence Law, which banned FGM and went into effect on August 11, 2011. To its credit, the KRG since then has implemented measures designed to raise awareness of the negative effects of FGM, train judges and issue instructions to the police who are charged with dealing with domestic violence incidents. Nevertheless, progress in stamping out the practice is slow, attesting to the ingrained influence of Islam and cultural practice.

Nor should any of this information be especially surprising, given that all Muslim countries belong to the 57-member-strong Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which in 1990 explicitly rejected the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights with the Cairo Declaration. According to Articles 24 and 25 of the Cairo Declaration, the only human rights that Muslim-majority OIC members recognize are those granted by sharia.

As if right on cue at the UN Commission on the Status of Women (taking place at UN Headquarters in New York City from March 4-15), the Muslim Brotherhood issued an official statement denouncing a proposed UN declaration entitled “End Violence Against Women.”

See RadicalIslam.org’s related article Muslim Brotherhood: UN Document on Violence Against Women 'Un-Islamic'

Their objection? That granting women equal rights with men in such areas as marriage, divorce, child custody and sexuality “would lead to complete disintegration of society.” “Granting wives full rights to file legal complaints against husbands accusing them of rape or sexual harassment” seems to have struck an especially sensitive nerve with the Brotherhood—as well it might, given that the Qur’an explicitly grants husbands the right to marital rape:

Your wives are as a tilth unto you: so approach your tilth when or how ye will

(Q 2:223)

Yes, the Ikhwan do have a point: Granting women full equality with men would very likely would spell the end of Islamic society. Allowing women to choose their sexual partners (just as men do), to marry and have children with whom they will (just as men do) would surely end Islam as it’s been known and practiced for nearly 1400 years.

Significantly, the Brotherhood’s condemnatory declaration concluded with a call to Al-Azhar University “to take the lead, condemn this declaration, and state clearly the Islamic viewpoint with regard to all details of this document.” This, of course, is in perfect alignment with the new 2012 Egyptian Constitution which states that “The Council of Al-Azhar’s Senior Scholars shall be consulted on issued related to Islamic Sharia.”

While many Muslim immigrants to the U.S. come for the chance to escape just such abuse and violence as the FGM practices of their homelands, others clearly are bringing the practice with them.

The Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA) provides guidance on Islamic jurisprudence to Muslims in the U.S. through an in-house group of sharia scholars. On the question of FGM, Dr. Hatem al-Haj offered a fatwa on the topic twice (once in 2006 and repeated again in 2010).

Citing the hadith and touting alleged “health benefits” of FGM as somehow analogous to male circumcision, Dr. al-Haj clearly links the practice to Islamic doctrine (however he seeks to minimize the actual cutting involved). Even though he ultimately advises Muslims in the West where FGM is illegal not to have the procedure done “as long as you are a resident/citizen of the West,” he leaves no doubt about where he really stands on the topic: “We should never doubt anything in our religion because of the bad p....” American Muslims who are sharia-compliant know what he means.

Incredible as it may seem that such a barbaric practice as FGM should exist in the U.S., Congress found it compelling enough in 1996 that it directed the Department of Health and Human Services to develop estimates of how many women and girls either have suffered FGM or were at risk for being subjected to it.

The initial report, based on 1990 data, found that some 168,000 women and girls in the U.S. fit that category. The new Sanctuary for Families study, based on 2000 census data and work by the African Women’s Health Center (AWHC) at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), found that the numbers of those at risk had risen to 228,000 (a 35% increase).

The Federal Criminal Code (18 U.S.C. § 116 : US Code - Section 116) makes FGM illegal in the U.S., although only some 20 states also criminalize it. As of 2012, however, there had been no prosecutions for FGM under federal law and only one case brought under a state statute.

To ensure that all communities living in the U.S., immigrant and native-born alike, understand and comply with the ban on FGM in this country, educational efforts aimed at the immigrants themselves, health care professionals and local law enforcement must be stepped up.

Equally, effective enforcement is needed to ensure that girls are not sent abroad, on “vacations,” to be cut.

FGM is an abusive and brutal practice that has no place in the U.S. or any other civilized society.

www.radicalislam.org/media.radicalislam.org/files/12-2012/85x109xsJ..." style="width: 85px; height: 109px; margin: 5px 10px; float: left;"/>Clare Lopez is a senior fellow at RadicalIslam.org and a strategic policy and intelligence expert with a focus on the Middle East, national defense and counterterrorism. Lopez served for 20 years as an operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
This article may not be republished without expressed written permission from RadicalIslam.org

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Comment by Gordon Ray Kissinger on March 21, 2013 at 4:08pm

Muslim Cleric Calls U.S. Aid to Egypt ‘Jizya’ (Infidel Tax)

Wed, March 20, 2013

by:

Raymond Ibrahim

www.radicalislam.org/media.radicalislam.org/files/3-2013/330x203xY9..." align=""/>The Salafi sheikh on Egyptian TVUnlike the Muslim Brotherhood, which was founded much earlier, doublespeak is not second nature to the Salafis.

The most recent example comes from Al Hafiz TV, an Egyptian Islamic station. During a roundtable discussion on the U.S. and foreign aid to Egypt, an Islamic cleric, clearly of the Salafi bent—he had their trademark mustache-less-beard—insisted that the U.S. must be treated contemptuously, like a downtrodden dhimmi, or conquered infidel; that Egypt must make the U.S. conform to its own demands; and that, then, all the money the U.S. offers to Egypt in foreign aid can be taken as rightfully earned jizya.

Historically, the jizya (tribute) was money that conquered non-Muslims had to pay to their Muslim overlords to safeguard their existence (as indicated in Koran 9:29). And this is not the first time of late that Muslims have called for non-Muslims -- especially Christian minorities under Islam -- to resume paying the jizya, which was abolished in the nineteenth century thanks to European intervention.

According to the sheikh, Egypt must be less cooperative with the U.S. and, at the same time, insist for more monetary aid. If so, the sheikh believes that “America will accept; it will kiss our hands; and it will also increase its aid. And we will consider its aid as jizya, not as aid. But first we must make impositions on it.”

When the host asked the sheikh “Do the Americans owe us jizya?” he responded, “Yes,” adding that it is the price Americans have to pay “so we can leave them alone!” When the host asked the sheikh if he was proclaiming a fatwa, the latter exclaimed, “By Allah, of course!”

The sheikh added that, to become a truly Islamic state, Egypt must “impose on America to pay aid as jizya, before we allow it to realize its own interests, the ones which we agree to.”

While the Egyptian cleric was focused on “international jizya”—that is, money paid by one non-Muslim nation to a Muslim nation (in this case, U.S money to Egypt)—other Muslims have been receiving and enjoying individual “jizya” from Western, infidel governments, in the form of welfare aid.

Just last February, for example, Anjem Choudary, an Islamic cleric and popular preacher in the United Kingdom, was secretly taped telling a Muslim audience to follow his example and get “Jihad Seeker’s Allowance” from the government—a pun on “Job Seeker’s Allowance.”

The father of four, who receives more than $38,000 annually in welfare benefits, referred to British taxpayers as “slaves,” adding, “We take the jizya, which is our haq [Arabic for “right”], anyway. The normal situation by the way is to take money from the kafir [infidel], isn’t it? So this is the normal situation. They give us the money—you work, give us the money, Allahu Akhbar [“Allah is Great”]. We take the money. Hopefully there’s no one from the DSS [Department of Social Security] listening to this.”

Thus, the non-Muslim world should be grateful to the Salafis for always and ever exposing the teachings and beliefs of Islamic (Sharia) law. Convinced that Allah is on their side and they can do no wrong, today’s Salafis are unabashed when it comes to the things of Islamic law, from evoking them to upholding them.

But of course, all this honesty is for naught for those many in the West who, having eyes and ears, do not see or hear reality.

Raymond Ibrahim, a Middle East and Islam specialist, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum. A widely published author, he is best known for his book, The Al Qaeda Reader . Mr. Ibrahim's dual-background—born and raised in the U.S. by Egyptian parents —has provided him with unique advantages to understanding of the Western and Middle Eastern mindsets.

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Comment by Gordon Ray Kissinger on March 21, 2013 at 4:07pm

Christie Continues Engagement With Hamas-Linked Mosque

Tue, March 12, 2013

by:

Ryan Mauro

www.radicalislam.org/media.radicalislam.org/files/3-2013/300x180xem..." align=""/>N.J. Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa Last month, N.J. Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa attended the Friday services of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, continuing the Christie Administration’s engagement with the Hamas-linked mosque and its imam, Mohammad Qatanani.

The referenced article states that “Immigration officials have sought unsuccessfully to tie Mohammad Qatanani to Palestinian terrorist groups” and he is supported by Christie and N.J. law enforcement. Actually, the Department of Homeland Security is still seeking his deportation because of the extensive evidence linking him to Hamas.

Christie first rushed to Qatanani’s defense as U.S. Attorney when the Department of Homeland Security began deportation proceedings. The mosque he leads was founded by a Hamas fundraiser. Before joining the mosque leadership, Qatanani was arrested and convicted in 1993 by the Israeli government for his links to Hamas. His failure to disclose this on his green card application triggered the proceedings.

The trial is still underway after the Board of Immigration Appeals overturned the original ruling in favor of Qatanani. In 2011, Christie appointed Qatanani’s attorney, Sohail Mohammed, as a Superior Court Judge. Last summer, Christie charged that Qatanani’s critics are anti-Muslim “bigots.”

In November, RadicalIslam.org broke the story that four Islamist-linked individuals are on Christie’s Muslim outreach committee that serves under the Attorney General. One of them is Qatanani.

This is an issue that must come up if Christie runs for president in 2016, as seems likely. Voters should know how he reacted after being informed by the DHS and multiple articles by terrorism experts. Here’s one question that should be posed to him: If Qatanani’s critics are anti-Muslim bigots, what does that make the Department of Homeland Security?

www.radicalislam.org/media.radicalislam.org/files/11-2012/85x109xbs..." style="width: 85px; height: 109px; margin: 5px 10px; float: left;"/>Ryan Mauro is RadicalIslam.org's National Security Analyst and a fellow with the Clarion Fund. He is the founder of WorldThreats.com and is frequently interviewed on Fox News.
This article may not be republished without expressed written permission from RadicalIslam.org

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Comment by Gordon Ray Kissinger on March 21, 2013 at 4:06pm

Europe Rolls Over for Hezbollah Blackmail

Tue, March 12, 2013

by:

Soeren Kern

www.radicalislam.org/media.radicalislam.org/files/3-2013/595x397xDj..." align=""/>A Hezbollah rally (Photo: Reuters)

The main objective of Israeli President Shimon Peres's week-long state visit to Brussels, Paris and Strasbourg March 5-12 is apparently to persuade reluctant European leaders to designate Lebanon's Hezbollah movement a terrorist organization.

Blacklisting Hezbollah would deprive the militant group of significant sources of fundraising by enabling the freezing its bank accounts and assets in Europe. It would also facilitate intra-European police cooperation aimed at pursuing and arresting Hezbollah operatives believed to be living underground throughout Europe.

Several Western countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands officially classified Hezbollah as a terrorist organization years ago. But the European Union has steadfastly resisted calls to sanction Hezbollah.

EU leaders say they do not have enough information to make a judgment about whether Hezbollah is involved in terrorism. They have tried to justify themselves by saying that because the issue is legal, not moral, in nature, they need "courtroom evidence" of Hezbollah's culpability.

Well, at least that has been clarified: In recent weeks Bulgarian authorities implicated Hezbollah in the July 18, 2012 terrorist attack which killed five Israeli tourists and their driver in the Black Sea resort of Burgas.

Bulgaria's February 5 public announcement, which angered many EU countries afraid of provoking Hezbollah, was the first time that an EU member state has officially established that Hezbollah was guilty of a carrying out a terrorist attack on EU territory.

European officials have long rationalized their lack of resolve against Hezbollah by claiming that the organization has both a military wing and a political wing, and that cracking down on the former would cripple the latter, which consequently would lead to the destabilization of Lebanon as well as the broader Middle East.

Many analysts, however, say this high-mindedness is a smoke screen behind which Europeans are hiding to conceal the real reason why they are reluctant to confront Hezbollah: Fear, fear and more fear.

Europeans are afraid to call Hezbollah what it is because they fear reprisals against European interests at home and abroad. Europeans also fear that if they take a hard line against Hezbollah, the group may activate sleeper cells and carry out attacks in European cities. According to a leaked German intelligence report, there are more than 900 Hezbollah operatives in Germany alone.

In addition, Europeans are afraid that Hezbollah may retaliate against European troops, known as UNIFIL, participating in the United Nations mission in Lebanon.

In Spain, for instance, where Hezbollah was involved in the April 1985 bombing of a restaurant near Madrid in which 18 Spanish citizens were killed, the case was closed in 1987 due to a lack of arrests.

After six Spanish peacekeepers were killed in a Hezbollah bomb attack in southern Lebanon in June 2007, a fearful Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero recruited that same Hezbollah to safeguard Spanish troops, presumably as a way to safeguard his own job.

Less than a month after those killings, it emerged that Spanish intelligence agents met secretly with Hezbollah militants, who agreed to provide "escorts" to protect Spanish UNIFIL patrols. The quid pro quo was that Spanish troops look the other way while Hezbollah was allowed to rearm for its next war against Israel.

The Spanish government recently announced that it will cut the number of its troops within UNIFIL to half by the end of 2013. What is clear is that Spain, as well as its European partners, have abandoned the letter and the spirit of UN Resolution 1559, the main objective of which was to disarm Hezbollah and to transfer effective control over the southern Lebanon to Lebanon's armed forces.

Europeans are also afraid of inciting the thousands of shiftless young Muslim immigrants in towns and cities across the continent. The fear of angry Muslims is, in fact, so pervasive in European capitals that in practical terms Islam has already established a de facto veto on European foreign policymaking.

In addition to the investigation in Bulgaria, there has also been the trial in Cyprus of Hossam Taleb Yaakoub, a captured Hezbollah operative with joint Lebanese and Swedish citizenship who is suspected of plotting attacks on Israeli targets. The trial, which is scheduled to end on March 7, has provided many insights into Hezbollah's secret operations in Europe.

Taken together, the recent cases in Bulgaria and Cyprus provide irrefutable evidence that Hezbollah is highly active in Europe, where it raises funds, launders money, traffics drugs, recruits operatives and plots attacks with impunity.

Even so, the new revelations are unlikely to cause the EU to reconsider its refusal to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist group and crack down on its fund-raising. Indeed, European officials have signaled that they desperately want to keep the peace with Hezbollah.

After Bulgaria implicated Hezbollah, John Brennan, President Barack Obama's chief counterterrorism advisor and his nominee to run the Central Intelligence Agency, urged the EU to condemn Hezbollah: "We call on our European partners as well as other members of the international community to take proactive action to uncover Hezbollah's infrastructure and disrupt the group's financing schemes and operational networks in order to prevent future attacks."

But Catherine Ashton, the European Union's high representative for foreign policy, responded without even mentioning Hezbollah by name. She said only that there was now a "need for reflection" and added: "The implications of the investigation need to be assessed seriously as they relate to a terrorist attack on EU soil, which resulted in the killing and injury of innocent civilians."

In Sweden, Foreign Minister Carl Bildt went so far as to express his anger at Bulgaria for blaming Hezbollah. In a February 5 tweet, he said: "We need to reflect seriously on consequences of Bulgaria probe naming Hezbollah as behind terrorist attack."

Only one EU country has had the courage to blacklist Hezbollah's entire organization: The Netherlands proscribed the group in 2004. In a recent statement, the Dutch Embassy in Israel said: "The Netherlands has been calling for Hezbollah to be included on the EU list of terrorist organizations since 2004, and has consistently urged its EU partners to support such a move."

If the EU is eventually shamed into adding Hezbollah to its terror list, it will probably follow the example not of Holland but of Britain.

In 2008, the British government "banned" Hezbollah's military wing after the group targeted British troops in Iraq. But the Labour government stopped short of curtailing Hezbollah's ability to operate in Britain, arguing that the military wing is separate from the political wing.

In recent weeks, British Foreign Secretary William Hague has repeatedly urged the EU to replicate the British model and outlaw only Hezbollah's military wing. Although this "fix" would allow the EU to say that it has taken meaningful action against the group, Hezbollah leaders themselves make no such distinction.

Sheikh Naim Qassem, the second in command of Hezbollah, with the title of deputy secretary-general, has rejected Britain's attempt to separate the group into military and political wings. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times in April 2009, Qassem said: "Hezbollah has a single leadership. … The same leadership that directs the parliamentary and government work also leads Jihad actions in the struggle against Israel."

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu concurred, saying: "There is only one Hezbollah, it is one organization with one leadership."

Avi Dichter, Israel's Minister of Home Front Defense and a former director of Shin Bet, had this to say: "To speak about [Hezbollah leader] Hassan Nasrallah as someone who is only political is ridiculous. … Asking if Hezbollah is a terrorist organization is like asking if Paris belongs to France. Who is sleeping? Are we Israelis sleeping or are countries in Europe sleeping? There is no debate."

Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor, writing in the Washington, DC-based magazine Foreign Policy, put it this way: "Calling Hezbollah a charity is like calling al-Qaeda an urban planning organization because of its desire to level tall buildings. … The EU must find the moral and political courage to place Hezbollah on its list of terrorist organizations. It must find a clear message that Hezbollah can no longer target its citizens with impunity."

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.

This article appeared originally on GatestoneInstitute.org

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Comment by Gordon Ray Kissinger on March 21, 2013 at 4:04pm

New Syrian Rebel PM: More Ties to U.S. Brotherhood Network Emerge

Wed, March 20, 2013

by:

Ryan Mauro

www.radicalislam.org/media.radicalislam.org/files/3-2013/330x235xL8..." align=""/>Hitto is congratulated after the vote. Yesterday, RadicalIslam.org reported how the newly elected interim Prime Minister of the Syrian Opposition Coalition, Ghassan Hitto, was backed by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and was a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) official, a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity. More disturbing information has since come out about Hitto’s role in the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood network.

The Indy Star has new details about his resume. Hitto worked for the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Like CAIR, ISNA was designated by the federal government as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial. The government listed it among current and past U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entities.

ISNA and several of its components are listed in a 1991 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood strategy memo as one of “our organizations and the organizations of our friends.” The Brotherhood describes its agenda as “a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within…”

At ISNA, Hitto worked “in the technology department, bookstore and convention planning.” The ISNA bookstore and conventions have long featured Islamist rhetoric, and Hitto helped make that happen. His wife worked as an “assistant in the development office.”

The article includes praise for Hitto and his wife from Sayyid Syeed, a senior ISNA official who is now the group’s point man for interfaith relations. Syeed is quoted as saying that Hitto’s selection “means they are committing themselves to a practical, moderate and balanced understanding of Islam.” Yet, a new documentary titled The Grand Deception includes footage of Syeed saying in 2006, “our job is to change the constitution of America.”

The newspaper reports that Hitto also worked for the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT). Continuing the pattern, NAIT was also designated an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land trial and listed as a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity. NAIT, like ISNA and CAIR’s predecessor, is also identified in the 1991 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood memo as one of its fronts.

The Independent adds that Hitto was a board member of a Muslim American Society chapter. Federal prosecutors said in 2008 that “MAS was founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.” Abdurrahman Alamoudi, a convicted U.S. Muslim Brotherhood member, said “Everyone knows that MAS is the Muslim Brotherhood.”

In addition, as we reported, Hitto also served on the board of the Muslim Legal Fund of America, which raised money to defend the Elashi brothers that were convicted in the Holy Land trial. The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report found that the media called Hitto a “friend of the Elashi family” in 2002 and that he’s linked to the Islamic Association for Palestine, a now-defunct Brotherhood entity that birthed CAIR.

There is no possibility that Hitto was just an average Muslim who became involved with his local CAIR chapter without knowing its background. He has been an official of six groups with strong Brotherhood links, including four active groups identified by the government as U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entities and he has endorsements from some of their top leaders.

The secular democratic activists in Syria see his selection for what it is: A Muslim Brotherhood takeover of the opposition. Burhan Ghalioun, Walid al-Bunni and Kamal al-Labwani are exactly the type of leaders we’d want to lead a new Syria. Here’s what al-Labwani had to say about Hitto’s selection: “The government is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Qatar government. We will be against this government and will not give it legality. Democracy is from the land and from the people not from a council that is composed by the government of Qatar.”

These are the Syrians we should be listening to and allying with. They were ignored by the Obama Administration, quite possibly due to the advice of CAIR, ISNA and the other groups that the administration regularly consults with.

And now, they have been defeated by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood with the help of the “moderate” American Muslim Brotherhood legacy groups and our supposed “allies” in Qatar.

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Comment by Gordon Ray Kissinger on March 21, 2013 at 4:02pm

U.S. Arming and Training Radical Islamists in Syria

Wed, March 13, 2013

by:

Barry Rubin

www.radicalislam.org/media.radicalislam.org/files/3-2013/341x340x1E..." align=""/>An Al Qaeda fighter in SyriaIn a new development, the Obama Administration is apparently not only arming (indirectly, technically) but now training Syrian rebels. We know that the weapons are going to radical Islamists--both Muslim Brotherhood and smaller groups.

We don't know which groups are now being trained militarily by the CIA in Jordan. It has been suggested that these are only Syrian army defectors who are thus likely not to be from radical Islamist groups including the Brotherhood.

But is that selectivity certain? Finding out who is receiving this military training--which they are sure to use for other purposes in future--should be a priority in the national debate and in questions from Congress.

What might be happening is this: (1) Qatar backs the Muslim Brotherhood; (2) the Saudis who hate the Brotherhood are backing the smaller Salafi groups; and (3) Jordan, who is terrified of the Islamists, is supporting the Free Syrian Army which is run by ex-army officers.

Such is the nature of U.S. policy that it goes along with all three rather than directs the process toward a specific goal. The State Department is trying to find people who are relatively moderate while also able to have links to the Brotherhood.

You can imagine how tough that is to achieve. What a mess.

In the 1980s the United States was convulsed by a scandal because the Reagan Administration was providing arms--through Saudi Arabia--and training to the pro-American Contra group in Nicaragua that were fighting against the Marxist regime there.

It was alleged that the Contras participated in some torture and killing of civilians. Well, today the Obama Administration is doing the same strategy--with Saudi and Qatari help--in Syria, with much more likelihood of atrocities by those it is helping. On top of that, those being helped are largely anti-American and radical Islamist.

Yet there is no serious concern being raised.

Largely due to the local situation but reinforced by U.S. policy, radical Islamists will one day rule Syria. What will follow will not be real democracy but another Islamist dictatorial state. Islamist militias armed with U.S. weapons and that new regime might well use U.S. weapons and training to kill Christians and Alawites; enforce second-class status on women; and intimidate moderates as well as to attack Israel.

While the mass media has widely reported the U.S. role in arming the rebels, and is now picking up the training story, virtually nowhere is the significance of this policy and its escalation analyzed.

As I have repeatedly explained, the issue regarding Syria is not whether the United States should help more—it is already helping to supply arms indirectly through Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey—but to whom the arms and help flow.

In principle, the Syrian opposition is fighting against a terrible dictatorship (see my book, The Truth About Syria for details, available free here). Yet for all practical purposes, it is dominated by radical Islamist militias (except for the Kurds who are faced with local rule by a radical Marxist militia).

The reality, then, is this:

The United States is helping arm and perhaps helping to train radical Islamist guerrillas who want a Sharia state in Syria, who believe Israel should be wiped off the map, and who may soon be murdering and oppressing Christians and other groups in Syria itself.

Shouldn’t this be an issue--one day it might be a scandal--that’s widely discussed in Congress and the mass media? There might be a way around this, as is being hinted, if the Americans, British, and French are only training former Syrian army soldiers, relatively few of whom would be in Islamist groups.

The excuse would then be that only regular soldiers are qualified for the training but that would also be designed to keep out Islamists. This would be a better approach though it still has dangers.

This brings us to the second problem:

The Islamists are getting more international military help than the moderates.

While the nominal Syrian opposition leadership backed by the United States is better than before (up until recently the Obama Administration openly backed the Brotherhood-dominated Syrian National Council!) it is powerless on the ground. The guys with guns—fully automatic weapons by the way with large magazines—are a nightmare.

Again, the issue isn’t whether the United States wants an end to Syria's dictatorship (nationalist version), but whether it wants it to be followed by a Syrian dictatorship (Islamist version). The latter may be some improvement over the current regime in one strategic respect: It would be anti-Iran and try to subvert Iranian influence in Lebanon. But hopes that the Syrian people will really have a better life are quite questionable.

The czar was overthrown in 1917 by the Communists; so was the shah, in 1979 by the Islamists; and the much-ridiculed Weimar Republic in Germany was overturned by Hitler in 1932; and the corrupt monarchy in Egypt in 1952, and the corrupt regime in Cuba in 1959.

At the time, in each case, it was claimed that the successor regime had to be better. In fact, it was worse by far.

As in the case of Egypt, the massive coverage and discussion of the Syria issue largely ignores clearly visible scenarios and dangers that should be taken into consideration in setting policy.

Israeli intelligence says that radical Islamist militias now control the entire Syrian side of the two countries' border. Are U.S.-backed rebels or the government they produce (even if it denies such behavior) going to restart attacks on Israel across a border which has been quiet for forty years?

Unconfirmed reports are that at least one of the training courses involves anti-tank warfare. That might in the long-run be used more against Israeli than against Syrian forces. While there is a real chance of bickering, the basis might also be established for an Egypt-Gaza Strip-Syria alliance among the Muslim Brotherhood branches ruling each country.

Equally, the Obama Administration does not know whether the weapons and training will be used in massive human rights' violations and ethnic massacres of civilian Alawites and Christians. These might be carried out with U.S.-facilitated weapons. Remember that if such things happen they were predictable and predicted.

Then there is the potential for anti-American terrorism. I think the U.S. ambassador was in Benghazi, Libya, the day he was murdered, to try to retrieve U.S.-supplied weapons, including lightweight, advanced anti-aircraft systems, that Libyan Islamists were selling to Hamas and other terrorist groups.

Yet how much difference is there between providing arms to Hamas (Muslim Brotherhood, Gaza branch) and to the Muslim Brotherhood, Syria branch? And will some U.S. diplomats be placed in jeopardy a year or two from now trying to get back those weapons supplied in Syria?

Secretary of State John Kerry discussed increased U.S. backing for the Syrian rebels in a meeting with Qatar's prime minister. Qatar is the country cooperating with the United States in supplying weapons to the Muslim Brotherhood forces, the best organized militias, in Syria.

Yet beyond this supposed cooperation, in reality Qatar is a headache for real Middle East moderates because it often sides with radical Islamist forces including Iran. Qatar is not giving weapons to the Syrian Brotherhood because it likes America, but because it wants the Brotherhood to win.

In Obama Administration parlance this is a good thing since that helps the “moderate” Brotherhood as opposed to the radical Salafists.

Kerry said: "We did discuss the question of the ability to try to guarantee that it's going to the right people and to the moderate Syrian opposition coalition."

Who are "the right people?" The Obama Administration considers the Muslim Brotherhood and several dozen radical Islamist (Salafist) groups to be the "right people" qualified to receive weapons. Almost all of these groups defended the al-Qaeda militia against a U.S. boycott.

According to information from U.S. government sources, the number of actual moderate groups that American experts think can be counted on is a small proportion, perhaps amounting to 10 or 20 percent of the whole.

Since arms are already being supplied in large quantities, are they in fact going to the right people, considering that there were some real problems with this procedure in Afghanistan and Libya?

Kerry did not refer to moderates in the Syrian opposition coalition, but implied that the coalition itself is moderate. That’s not true. The armed opposition is largely led by the Brotherhood and Salafists; the political arm of the opposition is largely led by the Brotherhood.

Then, Kerry said something even more remarkably troubling because it reflected willful ignorance or indifference to arming radical anti-American Islamists. In the words of The New York Times:

“Kerry said the Obama administration had gained new confidence in recent months that the Syrian opposition coalition could minimize the risk that weapons would fall into hostile hands. He said there was no need for the U.S. to provide arms now because other nations were already sending enough.”

Hostile hands? They are deliberately and consciously sending these weapons to hostile hands! Presumably, he is hinting at al-Qaeda. Well, one group out of about 40 Islamist militias is al-Qaida. Are the other dozens of anti-Western, antisemitic, anti-Christian groups thus okay?

Again, there are relative moderates in the opposition. Politically there are also liberals, leftists, defected army officers (radical nationalists who now seem moderate compared to the Islamists) and Kurdish nationalists. Yet the Kurdish group running northeastern Syria now is a Marxist-oriented cult that's part of the Turkey-based, terrorist PKK.

How much more visible could the developing mess be? Have no doubt that there are some senior career officials in the State and Defense departments who are horrified. Yet, despite the current policy's serious problems and visibly dangerous outcomes, there is no major debate about these points.

As we saw with Iran, the Oslo peace process, and more recently with Egypt, the canoe is heading toward the waterfall, and the only argument is over how fast to paddle.

www.radicalislam.org/media.radicalislam.org/files/3-2013/85x125xLLu..." style="width: 85px; height: 125px; margin: 5px 10px; float: left;"/>Barry Rubin is a professor at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, the Director of the Global Research and International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, and a Senior Fellow at the International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism. Rubin has written and edited more than 40 books on the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy, with publishers including Harvard, Yale, Oxford, and Cambridge University Press.

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Comment by Gordon Ray Kissinger on March 21, 2013 at 4:00pm

NY Times: Obama Jump-Started Arab Spring

Mon, March 18, 2013

by:

Barry Rubin

www.radicalislam.org/media.radicalislam.org/files/3-2013/340x309xb3..." align=""/>U.S. President Barak Obama delivering his speech in Cairo in 2009“We have to confront violent extremism in all of its forms.… America is not — and never will be — at war with Islam. We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security — because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women, and children. And it is my first duty as president to protect the American people.” --President Barack Obama, Cairo, June 2009.

“The United States is now experiencing the beginning of its end, and is heading towards its demise….Resistance is the only solution. [Today the United States] is withdrawing from Iraq, defeated and wounded, and it is also on the verge of withdrawing from Afghanistan. [All] its warplanes, missiles and modern military technology were defeated by the will of the peoples, as long as [these peoples] insisted on resistance.” --Muslim Brotherhood leader Muhammad al-Badi, Cairo, September 2010.

What did the president know and when did he know it? That's a question made classical by the Watergate scandal. Now it is possible to trace precisely what Obama knew and when he knew it. And it proves that the installment of the Muslim Brotherhood into power was a conscious and deliberate strategy of the Obama Administration developed before the "Arab Spring" began.

In February 2011 the New York Times ran an extremely complimentary article on President Obama by Mark Landler, who some observers say is the biggest apologist for Obama on the newspaper. That’s quite an achievement. Landler praised Obama for having tremendous foresight, in effect, predicting the “Arab Spring.” According to Landler,

“President Obama ordered his advisers last August [2010] to produce a secret report on unrest in the Arab world, which concluded that without sweeping political changes, countries from Bahrain to Yemen were ripe for popular revolt, administration officials said Wednesday."

Which advisors? The then counter-terrorism www.radicalislam.org/media.radicalislam.org/files/3-2013/330x198x16..." style="width: 330px;" title="Obama with John Brennan announcing his nomination of Brennan to head the CIA (Photo: Reuters)" align=""/>Obama with John Brennan announcing his nomination of Brennan to head the CIA (Photo: Reuters)advisor and now designated CIA chief, John Brennan? National Security Council senior staffer Samantha Power? If it was done by Obama's own staff, rather than State and Defense, it's likely that these people or at least one of them was the key author.

So should U.S. policy help allies avoid such sweeping change by standing firm or by helping them make adjustments? No, explained the report, it should get on the side of history and wield a broom to do the sweeping. The article continued:

“Mr. Obama’s order, known as a Presidential Study Directive, identified likely flashpoints, most notably Egypt, and solicited proposals for how the administration could push for political change in countries with autocratic rulers who are also valuable allies of the United States, [emphasis added] these officials said.

“The 18-page classified report, they said, grapples with a problem that has bedeviled the White House’s approach toward Egypt and other countries in recent days: how to balance American strategic interests and the desire to avert broader instability against the democratic demands of the protesters.”

As I noted, the article was quite explicitly complimentary (and that’s an understatement) about how Obama knew what was likely to happen and was well prepared for it.

But that’s precisely the problem. It wasn't trying to deal with change but was pushing for it; it wasn't asserting U.S. interests but balancing them off against other factors. In the process, U.S. interests were forgotten.

If Landler was right, then Obama did have a sense of what was going to happen and prepared for it. It cannot be said that he was caught unawares. This view would suggest, then, that he thought American strategic interests could be protected and broader instability avoided by overthrowing U.S. allies as fast as possible and by showing the oppositions that he was on their side.

www.radicalislam.org/media.radicalislam.org/files/3-2013/100x103x9H..." style="width: 100px;" title="The Muslim Brotherhood logo" align=""/>The Muslim Brotherhood logoPresumably the paper pointed out the strength of Islamist forces and the Muslim Brotherhood factor and then discounted any dangers from this quarter. One could have imagined how other U.S. governments would have dealt with this situation.

Here is my imagined passage from a high-level government document:

In light of the likelihood of sweeping political changes, with countries from Bahrain to Yemen ripe for popular revolt, U.S. policy should either help friendly governments retain control or encourage them to make reforms that would increase the scope of freedom in a way that would satisfy popular desires without endangering U.S. interests and long-term stability. In the event that the fall of any given regime seemed likely, U.S. policy should work both publicly and behind the scenes to try to ensure the triumph of moderate, pro-democratic forces that would be able to prevent the formation of radical Islamist dictatorships inimical to U.S. interests, regional peace, and the well-being of the local population. [Remember: that was my imagined document.]

Such an approach would have been easy and in line with historic U.S. policy. We have every reason to believe that the State Department and the Defense Department favored such an approach.

But let’s look at precisely how the White House described the U.S. policy it wanted:

"...how the administration could push for political change in countries with autocratic rulers who are also valuable allies of the United States,"

In other words, a popular revolt was going to happen (I’ve seen the cables from the U.S. embassy in Tunisia that accuratelywww.radicalislam.org/media.radicalislam.org/files/3-2013/300x198xob..." style="width: 300px;" title="Islamists march in Tunisia" align=""/>Islamists march in Tunisia predicted an upheaval) but would it succeed or fail? The Obama Administration concluded that the revolt should succeed and set out to help make sure that it did so. As for who won, it favored not just moderate Islamic forces--which hardly existed as such--but moderate Islamist forces, which didn't exist at all.

Anyone who says that the United States did not have a lot of influence in these crises doesn’t know what they are talking about. Of course, the U.S. government didn’t control the outcome, its leverage was limited. But there’s a big difference between telling the Egyptian army to stay in control, dump Mubarak, and make a mild transition—and we, the United States, will back you—or telling them that Washington wanted the generals to stand aside, let Mubarak be overthrown, and have a thoroughgoing regime change, a fundamental transformation, to coin a phrase.

So the Obama Administration did not stand beside friendly regimes or help to manage a limited transition with more democracy and reforms. No, it actively pushed to bring down at least four governments—Bahrain, Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen.

It did not push for the overthrow of two anti-American regimes—Iran and Syria—but on the contrary was still striving for good relations with those two dictatorships. Equally, it did not push for the fall of radical anti-American governments in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. No, it only pushed for the fall of “valuable allies.”

There was no increase in support for dissidents in Iran despite, as we will see in a moment, internal administration predictions of unrest there, too. As for Syria, strong administration support for the dictatorship there continued for months until it was clear that the regime was in serious trouble. It seems reasonable to say that the paper did not predict the Syrian civil war.

Want more evidence about the internal administration document? Here's another article from the Times which explains:

"The White House had been debating the likelihood of a domino effect since youth-driven revolts had toppled President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in www.radicalislam.org/media.radicalislam.org/files/3-2013/170x213x5E..." style="width: 170px;" title="The assessment was that former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would not fall." align=""/>The assessment was that former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would not fall.Tunisia, even though the American intelligence community and Israel’s intelligence services had estimated that the risk to President Mubarak was low — less than 20 percent, some officials said.

"According to senior officials who participated in Mr. Obama’s policy debates, the president took a different view. He made the point early on, a senior official said, that `this was a trend' that could spread to other authoritarian governments in the region, including in Iran. By the end of the 18-day uprising, by a White House count, there were 38 meetings with the president about Egypt. Mr. Obama said that this was a chance to create an alternative to “the Al Qaeda narrative” of Western interference."

Notice that while this suggests the debate began after the unrest started, full credit is given to Obama personally, not to U.S. intelligence agencies, for grasping the truth. This is like the appropriation by the White House of all the credit for getting Usama bin Ladin, sort of a cult of personality thing.

We know for a fact that the State Department predicted significant problems arising in Tunisia (from the Wikileaks documents) and perhaps that is true for other countries as well. But if Obama wants to takewww.radicalislam.org/media.radicalislam.org/files/3-2013/92x200xfR5..." style="height: 200px; width: 92px; margin: 5px 10px; float: right;"/> personal credit for the new U.S. policy that means he also has to take personal blame for the damage it does.

Now I assume what I'm about to say isn't going to be too popular, but I'll also bet that history will prove it correct: The revolution in Egypt was not inevitable and Obama's position was a self-fulfilling prophecy. And judging from what happened at the time, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agrees with me.

The idea of an "alternative to `the al-Qaida narrative"'of Western interference is straight Brennan. What Obama was really saying was: Ha! So al-Qaida claims we interfere to put reactionary pro-Western dictators in power just because they're siding with us? We'll show them that we can put popular Islamist dictators in power even though they are against us!

I'm writing this somewhat facetiously, but I mean it very seriously.

And here's more proof from the Washington Post in March 2011 which seems to report on the implementation of the White House paper's recommendations:

"The administration is already taking steps to distinguish between various movements in the region that promote Islamic law in government. An internal assessment, ordered by the White House last month, identified large ideological differences between such movements as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and al-Qaeda that will guide the U.S. approach to the region."

That says it all, doesn't it? The implication is that the U.S. government knew that the Brotherhood would take power and thought this was a good thing.

It continued:

"`If our policy can't distinguish between al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, we won't be able to adapt to this change,'" the senior administration official said. "`We're also not going to allow ourselves to be driven by fear."'

Might that be then counterterrorism advisor and now CIA director John Brennan? I'd bet on it.

What did Obama and his advisors think would happen? Why, that out of gratitude for America stopping its (alleged) bullying and imperialistic ways and getting on the (alleged) side of history, the new regimes would be friendly?

The Muslim Brotherhood in particular would conclude that America was not its enemy. You know, one Brotherhood leader would supposedly say to another, all of these years we thought the United States was against us but now we see that they are really our friends. Remember Obama's Cairo speech? He really gets us!

More likely he'd be saying: We don't understand precisely what the Americans are up to but they are obviously weak, cowardly, and in decline! In fact, that's what they did say.

Remember that President Jimmy Carter's attempts to make friends with the new Islamist regime in Iran in 1979 fed a combination of Iranian suspicion and arrogance which led to the hostage crisiswww.radicalislam.org/media.radicalislam.org/files/3-2013/224x300xg5..." style="width: 224px;" title="The Ayatollah Khomeni on the cover of Time magazine, Feb. 1979" align=""/>The Ayatollah Khomeni on the cover of Time magazine, Feb. 1979 and Tehran daring to take on the United States single-handed. America, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini at the time, can't do a damned thing against us.

Incidentally, everyone except the American public—which means people in the Middle East—knows that Obama cut the funding for real democratic groups. His Cairo speech was important not for the points so often discussed (Israel, for example) but because it heralded the age of political Islamism being dominant in the region. Indeed, Obama practically told those people that they should identify not as Arabs but as Muslims.

In broader terms, what does Obama’s behavior remind me of? President Jimmy Carter pushing Iran’s Shah for human rights and other reforms in 1977 and then standing aloof as the revolution unrolled—and went increasingly in the direction of radical Islamists—in 1978.

As noted above, that didn’t work out too well.

Incidentally, the State Department quite visibly did not support Obama’s policy in 2011. It wanted to stand with its traditional clients in the threatened Arab governments, just as presumably there were many in the Defense Department who wanted to help the imperiled militaries with whom they had cooperated for years. And that, by the way, includes the Turkish army which was being visibly dismantled by the Islamist regime in Ankara.

While the State Department backed down on Egypt it drew the line on Bahrain. Yes, there is a very unfair system there in which a small Sunni minority dominates a large Shia majority and yes, too, some of the Shia opposition is moderate but the assessment was that a revolution would probably bring to power an Iranian satellite government.

But the idea that they're going to be overthrown any way so let's give them a push did not apply to Iran or Syria or Hamas-government Gaza or Hizballah-governed Lebanon and not at all to Islamist-governed Turkey.

It makes sense that this basic thinking also applied to Libya, where dictator Muammar al-Qadhafi was hardly a friend of the United States but had been on better behavior lately. As for Syria, the U.S. government indifference to who actually wins leadership of the new regime seems to carry over from the earlier crises.

Credit should be given to the U.S. government in two specific cases. Once the decision to overthrow Qadhafi was made, the result was a relatively favorable regime in Libya. That was a gain. The problem is that this same philosophy and the fragility of the regime helped produce the Benghazi incident.

The other relatively positive situation was Iraq's post-Saddam government, to which most of the credit goes to Obama's predecessor but some to his administration. Still, Iraq seems to be sliding--in terms of its regional strategic stance, not domestically--closer toward Iran.

At any rate, the evidence both public and behind the scenes seems to indicate that the Obama Administration decided on two principles in early 2011.

First, let’s help overthrow our friends before someone else does so and somehow we will benefit from being on the right side.

Second, it doesn’t really matter too much who takes power because somehow they will be better than their predecessors, somehow we will be more popular with them, and somehow U.S. interests will be preserved.

Landler definitely thought he was making Obama look good. Instead, I think, he was really showing us that the bad thinking and disastrous policy was planned and purposeful.

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