May 21 2007
The Apex Of The War On Terror
While democrats dream of surrendering to al Qaeda, al Qaeda and its allies in Iran and Syria are betting it all on this summer’s actions. They plan to intimidate the West into fleeing the ME by opening all out campaigns in Afghanistan, Lebanon and Iraq. Iran will be coordinating the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan:
US officials now say they have firm evidence that Tehran has switched tack as it senses a chance of victory in Iraq. In a parallel development, they say they also have proof that Iran has reversed its previous policy in Afghanistan and is now supporting and supplying the Taliban’s campaign against US, British and other Nato forces.
Tehran’s strategy to discredit the US surge and foment a decisive congressional revolt against Mr Bush is national in scope and not confined to the Shia south, its traditional sphere of influence, the senior official in Baghdad said. It included stepped-up coordination with Shia militias such as Moqtada al-Sadr’s Jaish al-Mahdi as well as Syrian-backed Sunni Arab groups and al-Qaida in Mesopotamia, he added. Iran was also expanding contacts across the board with paramilitary forces and political groups, including Kurdish parties such as the PUK, a US ally.
“Their strategy takes into account all these various parties. Iran is playing all these different factions to maximise its future control and maximise US and British difficulties. Their co-conspirator is Syria which is allowing the takfirists [fundamentalist Salafi jihadis] to come across the border,” the official said.
Any US decision to retaliate against Iran on its own territory could be taken only at the highest political level in Washington, the official said. But he indicated that American patience was wearing thin.
And Syria has begun its efforts in Lebanon and Palestine to threaten Israel:
Syria on Monday denied any ties between Damascus and the extremist Fatah al-Islam group which is fighting the Lebanese army in northern Lebanon.
Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Bashar Jaafari ( picture right) also saw the current turmoil in Lebanon as a bid to urge the U.N. Security Council in not establishing the international tribunal to prosecute suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri.
…
“Every time there is a meeting in the Security Council to deal with the Lebanese crisis, one or two days before the Council meets, there is some kind of trouble, either assassinations, or explosions or attempts to assassinate somebody,” Jaafari told reporters in New York.
“This is not a coincidence…Some people are trying to influence the Security Council and to make pressure on the Council so they can go ahead with the adoption of the draft resolution on the tribunal,” he added, without elaborating.
Actually, this is the beginning of the end. People forget that we had concerns with Syria and Iran when we went into Iraq and Afghanistan. And we warned them to step away and keep out of the situation there. The Democrats screwed up and emboldened Syria and Iran to act now, while they perceive weakness in America. But there is no weakness in America, there is political opportunism at work in the Democrat Party. And that misunderstanding is causing the powers on the Islamo Fascist side to make serious mistakes. And the biggest mistake is to escalate the war and get Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey involved.
Americans who believe we can surrender Iraq base their fantasies on the belief all will be peaceful and good if we leave. But if it turns out the Islamo Fascists will go after the moderate states and start their march to global, violent domination – then the public mood in America will shift. When the sense of gathering danger becomes too much to ignore, then we will shift from tentative actions in Iraq to regional actions. Again, we have WW II as an example.
When Germany started its 3rd Reich it annexed sections of neighboring states with Germanic populations. France and other nations looked the other way. Germany saw the weakness and was emboldened. Germany then went into Poland – which woke up Europe, but too late. Germany continued on and the world lost much of Europe, before it turned around and got serious with Germany. Japan saw the world’s attention on Europe as an opening and went on its own spree.
The fact is if Germany had slowed down its actions it might have survived. But these brutal dictators get power hungry like a herione addict with loads of money to spend. And they always start believing their own omnipotence is real. Iran and Syria are making the same mistake. If they start entering this war, there will be no diplomatic niceties to stop the US from blasting Tehran from the face of the earth. And with our precision munitions the Mullahs will be thrown back onto their heels and open revolt will take over Iran. Syria would be even easier to turn around. Assad is a whimp.
Escalation rarely brings retreat. It usually stiffens the spine of those with the most to lose. And in this case that is the moderate Arab/Muslim states and the Iraqi people. The reason al Qaeda has had to go to Iran for support is their natural base inside the Sunni community is becoming their enemy. And the Arabs of Iraq will not stand by and let the Persians of Iran take over. Never. And that includes the Arabs of Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Iran is about to make a big mistake. To make this work they will have to expose their hand at killing Americans and Arabs. And when that happens the SurrenderMedia is going to learn an interesting lesson about Arab culture and ME politics.
This summer everyone is going all-in. But the US has not even begun to flex its muscles yet. If Iran and Syria don’t change course, they will experience the America’s fury full force. There is no going back.
Warning that the US was “absolutely determined” to hit back hard wherever it was challenged by Iranian proxies or agents inside Iraq, he cited the case of five alleged members of the Revolutionary Guard’s al-Quds force detained in Irbil in January. Despite strenuous protests from Tehran, which claims the men are diplomats, they have still not been released.
“Tehran is behaving like a racecourse gambler. They’re betting on all the horses in the race, even on people they fundamentally don’t trust,” a senior administration official in Washington said. “They don’t know what the outcome will be in Iraq. So they’re hedging their bets.”
There is no surrender available to us. Sadly, too many think these are options on the table. And they are making dumb decisions because of it. The Dems will probably forever regret the day they decided to confuse Iran and Syria and al Qaeda into believing they ever had a chance. The death toll of a mistaken course taken by Iran and Syria will be caused by their blind political ambitions.
Hey AJ, Here’s a Democrat who gets it. He has some criticisms of the Bush Administration, but overall, he’s right on target! I hope you’ll excuse me for excerpting the entire column, but it’s really good.
by the way, here’s the link:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010107
The Left’s Iraq Muddle
Yes, it is central to the fight against Islamic radicalism.
BY BOB KERREY
Tuesday, May 22, 2007 12:01 a.m.
At this year’s graduation celebration at The New School in New York, Iranian lawyer, human-rights activist and Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi delivered our commencement address. This brave woman, who has been imprisoned for her criticism of the Iranian government, had many good and wise things to say to our graduates, which earned their applause.
But one applause line troubled me. Ms. Ebadi said: “Democracy cannot be imposed with military force.”
What troubled me about this statement–a commonly heard criticism of U.S. involvement in Iraq–is that those who say such things seem to forget the good U.S. arms have done in imposing democracy on countries like Japan and Germany, or Bosnia more recently.
Let me restate the case for this Iraq war from the U.S. point of view. The U.S. led an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein because Iraq was rightly seen as a threat following Sept. 11, 2001. For two decades we had suffered attacks by radical Islamic groups but were lulled into a false sense of complacency because all previous attacks were “over there.” It was our nation and our people who had been identified by Osama bin Laden as the “head of the snake.” But suddenly Middle Eastern radicals had demonstrated extraordinary capacity to reach our shores.
As for Saddam, he had refused to comply with numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions outlining specific requirements related to disclosure of his weapons programs. He could have complied with the Security Council resolutions with the greatest of ease. He chose not to because he was stealing and extorting billions of dollars from the U.N. Oil for Food program.
No matter how incompetent the Bush administration and no matter how poorly they chose their words to describe themselves and their political opponents, Iraq was a larger national security risk after Sept. 11 than it was before. And no matter how much we might want to turn the clock back and either avoid the invasion itself or the blunders that followed, we cannot. The war to overthrow Saddam Hussein is over. What remains is a war to overthrow the government of Iraq.
Some who have been critical of this effort from the beginning have consistently based their opposition on their preference for a dictator we can control or contain at a much lower cost. From the start they said the price tag for creating an environment where democracy could take root in Iraq would be high. Those critics can go to sleep at night knowing they were right.
The critics who bother me the most are those who ordinarily would not be on the side of supporting dictatorships, who are arguing today that only military intervention can prevent the genocide of Darfur, or who argued yesterday for military intervention in Bosnia, Somalia and Rwanda to ease the sectarian violence that was tearing those places apart.
Suppose we had not invaded Iraq and Hussein had been overthrown by Shiite and Kurdish insurgents. Suppose al Qaeda then undermined their new democracy and inflamed sectarian tensions to the same level of violence we are seeing today. Wouldn’t you expect the same people who are urging a unilateral and immediate withdrawal to be urging military intervention to end this carnage? I would.
American liberals need to face these truths: The demand for self-government was and remains strong in Iraq despite all our mistakes and the violent efforts of al Qaeda, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias to disrupt it. Al Qaeda in particular has targeted for abduction and murder those who are essential to a functioning democracy: school teachers, aid workers, private contractors working to rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure, police officers and anyone who cooperates with the Iraqi government. Much of Iraq’s middle class has fled the country in fear.
With these facts on the scales, what does your conscience tell you to do? If the answer is nothing, that it is not our responsibility or that this is all about oil, then no wonder today we Democrats are not trusted with the reins of power. American lawmakers who are watching public opinion tell them to move away from Iraq as quickly as possible should remember this: Concessions will not work with either al Qaeda or other foreign fighters who will not rest until they have killed or driven into exile the last remaining Iraqi who favors democracy.
The key question for Congress is whether or not Iraq has become the primary battleground against the same radical Islamists who declared war on the U.S. in the 1990s and who have carried out a series of terrorist operations including 9/11. The answer is emphatically “yes.”
This does not mean that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11; he was not. Nor does it mean that the war to overthrow him was justified–though I believe it was. It only means that a unilateral withdrawal from Iraq would hand Osama bin Laden a substantial psychological victory.
Those who argue that radical Islamic terrorism has arrived in Iraq because of the U.S.-led invasion are right. But they are right because radical Islam opposes democracy in Iraq. If our purpose had been to substitute a dictator who was more cooperative and supportive of the West, these groups wouldn’t have lasted a week.
Finally, Jim Webb said something during his campaign for the Senate that should be emblazoned on the desks of all 535 members of Congress: You do not have to occupy a country in order to fight the terrorists who are inside it. Upon that truth I believe it is possible to build what doesn’t exist today in Washington: a bipartisan strategy to deal with the long-term threat of terrorism.
The American people will need that consensus regardless of when, and under what circumstances, we withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq. We must not allow terrorist sanctuaries to develop any place on earth. Whether these fighters are finding refuge in Syria, Iran, Pakistan or elsewhere, we cannot afford diplomatic or political excuses to prevent us from using military force to eliminate them.
Mr. Kerrey, a former Democratic senator from Nebraska and member of the 9/11 Commission, is president of The New School.
As Pres. Linclon had to get rid of many generals until he finally got Gen. Grant as we know a real tough SOB Mr Bush has finally got his own SOB in GEN. Patras and as we can see with the news in the the past few months, the news in Iraq as gotten better even the msm has admitted to this. If I was Iran I think I would think twice in getting this Genral pissed as the tribal leaders have learned in Iraq, but if they are idiots and want to try him they will learn that our commander and cheif will not back down and let his man do his job bringing these regimes down. As in your last post Mr Bush has outsmarted the DC assholes on all imporant issues that HE wanted and history will show that he was one hell of a visonary. Personaly I love when all the business station now tell us it was the tax cuts that brought this bull run in the Stock Market, Mr Bush learned his history
well!
AJ: I read this so-called “piece of analysis” last night, as soon as it hit Drudge, about Iran coordinating it’s efforts in Iraq & Afghanistan.
As a former Marine Intel Officer, who’s been to Iraq, and who has studied the Jihadis and Shias for almost 30 years now, there is so much WRONG with this piece, I don’t even have the time nor the patience to tear it apart right now.
Anyone who knows me on this board, knows I’m unabashedly Pro-Iraq War, Pro-GWOT, Pro-attacking Iran, Pro-wiping out the Jihadis as we pursue them to the ends of the earth!
So, don’t misunderstand my comments, as coming from a Leftist/Anti-war type; I’m anything but!
But this “piece”, is frankly Bogus!
Dale
Thanks for your service!!
I anxiously await a comment by you on this subject. I am sure it will enlighten us.
Semper Fi!
Dale’s right. This piece reads like pure propaganda. It’s all about politics not future military plans.
Iran believes Western and American political will to continue is GONE and regardless of what happens in September American forces WILL be reducing their footprint in Iraq and the region. Like the political opposition often tries to do, they’re simply trying to take credit for forcing the change in American policy before America and the West can try to take credit for changing America’s strategic reliance on force to diplomacy.
When the strategic disengagement takes place, they want credit. From their perspective, it’s heads they win, tails we lose. Until America speaks with one voice and acts as one people their propaganda may just prevail.
Yes, my hunches have been that we have been using the media and Left like the useful tools they are. We have been 1) letting the Iraqi’s do things their way to prove we are not occupiers, suffering the doom and gloom so they know we are taking a hit for being patient and not interfering… then boom we come in to mop up. And 2) we have been waiting for this day…and I don’t want to post anymore but I think we all can see what is happening.
George W. Bush is not about to let the evil ones succeed, period….which is another reason why the social conservatives who are bashing him make me truly disgusted with them. Like the man has nothing better to do than listen to their miniscule, power-driven gripes.
Moonbats of ER.
Any one see this yet?
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200705/NAT20070522b.html
Hi, Dale, there were a few pieces in Bob Kerry’s article that I think are errors. But he did have a few good points. At least he admits that invading Iraq and topple Saddam was the right thing to do. At least he admits that we won the first war (invading Iraq and toppling Saddam) and fighting the second war (GWOT). At least Bob Kerry is trying explain to his nutroots.
It would be nice to get with Bob Kerry on the corrections and get more Democrats to stand by Bob Kerry to change the PR game by explaining how dangerous those Salafi and Wahabi’s are to the entire world.
Shame that Carter let Iran go to ruins…