Why do they do this? I don’t know, all I know is the pattern is now set. We saw it on 9-11, we saw it in Afghanistan with the Taliban, we saw it backfire in Iraq with the Awakening. It is what Islamo Fascists do – everything evolves out of violence and oppression. They would know better if they could open their minds to history. Even under Clinton the atrocities happening in the old states of Yugoslavia – which paled in comparison to what we have seen from al-Qaeda – brought America into that conflict to stop the violence. So America does act when violence erupts – just not consistently (as can be seen in Africa). Sadly the rhetoric from the Surrendercrats and SurrenderMedia is feeding the rationalizations of the thugs that more violence will stave off their defeat.

So with the incentive in place from weak-kneed liberals in the West, it is very likely something violent and bloody will happen to grab America’s attention this summer. One of those things our enemies hope will bring the Surrendercrats into a position to turn tail from the region and our success, and allow the Islamists a break before they are eradicated, is war in the Middle East. The Islamists want to push forward in a grand fashion, and war with Israel and the West is one of their grandest dreams. Unfortunately there are lots of signs this may in fact happen:

As the world’s leading powers met in Shanghai Wednesday to discuss ways to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear program, Israel and Iran were exchanging threats of war; Syria was marshalling its army near the Golan Heights; Hamas was attacking Israeli troops along the Gaza Strip; and Hezbollah was muttering about avenging the assassination two months ago of its top military commander.

Spring in the Middle East frequently raises fears of war. This year war fever is intense.

According to the Qatari newspaper al-Watan, political and media sources in Syria believe war may break out with Israel in late May or early June.

The two countries last week conducted civil-defence drills predicated on a summer war, and Syria’s military has been conducting manoeuvres along its border with Lebanon and Israel. Reservists have been called up and Syrian troops are said to be strung along a continuous crescent-shaped line from the central Lebanese mountains to the Israeli-held Golan Heights.

Some speculate the Syrian deployment may be a defensive move designed to discourage an Israeli counterattack if Hezbollah launches a revenge attack on Israel for the Feb. 12 assassination in Damascus of Imad Mughniyeh.

The axis of evil has only this summer to make any grand statement. Iran is being crippled by the economic pressure being applied by the West, which is now being piled on Syria too. al-Qaeda is on the ropes, as is the Taliban. It may be the extremists are going to have to go “all in” here soon as their one last big effort before the end. Something to remember as a possibly unavoidable scenario in the endgame in the war on terror. Our enemy is suicidal, so as they are pressed they can go insane instead of broken and can do anything to save their cause.

It is probable that events have been building towards this last gasp for some time. Clearly there have been actions taken to reduce the ability of the madmen to invoke their last chance plans – if they have such things. For example, there are more indications Israel took out a nuclear weapons facility in Syria last fall, which greatly reduces the chance that any war this summer will end with victory for the Islamo Fascists:

“There are things that I’m not prepared to talk about,” the Israeli prime minister told Yediot Achronot in an interview published Thursday after being asked to provide details on what was bombed in northern Syria on Sept. 6.

But, he continued, “I’ll say only this: To the best of my knowledge, the residents of Israel are not threatened by Syrian nuclear weapons.”

Nuclear weapons in the hands of Syrian or Iranian forces, or even worse their terrorist puppets, would have been a signal of incredible magnitude that few in the West would not notice. I find it interesting that Israel is making clear, as have Bush and the French, that there will not be a nuclear armed Iran in the world:

Olmert said that the international community including Israel is trying to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear arms capabilities. “And I believe, and also know, that the bottom line of these efforts is that Iran will not be nuclear,” Olmert told Haaretz.

“I want to tell the citizens of Israel: Iran will not have nuclear capability,” added Olmert.

Clearly some in the West have their heads on straight. If we are facing an ever desperate Islamo Fascist dead enders then we want them to be as hobbled as possible when the do execute any last ditch plans.

Sadly the Surrendercrats running for President have al-Qaeda’s Zawahiri promised would happen if the Surrendercrats do what they say they will do:

In an hour-and-a-half long audio-taped message Wednesday night, Al-Qaeda Deputy Commander Ayman al-Zawahri vowed that with Allah’s help, they would target Jews worldwide.

“We promise our Muslim brothers that we will do the best we can to harm Jews in Israel and the world over, with Allah’s help and according to his command,” said al-Qaeda’s second in command.

…

The deputy commander predicted that global jihad (”holy” war) would spread once the U.S. pulls out of Iraq.

“I expect the jihadi influence to spread after the Americans’ exit from Iraq and to move toward Jerusalem,” he said.

There you have it, if the Surrendercrats do what they both promised to do we get all out war in the region – leading to possibly World War III and the use of nuclear weapons by Israel. Surrendercrats promise to withdrawal troops from Iraq and al-Qaeda’s co-leader (with ties to Saddam and other radical leaders in the region from his days as the leader Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ)) promises that act will trigger war. How much clearer do the dots have to be for some folks? Do we need to apply them to a 2×4 first?

Zawahiri is actually the linch pin of much of this. His Egyptian Islamic Jihad terrorist group operated in Palestine and supposedly was funded by Iran according to Zawahiri’s home country of Egypt. Apparently he is the muscle to Bin Laden’s vision and money. I can easily see him working with Iran and Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas to bring about something bloody and spectacular to force the Surrendercrats to give al-Qaeda and their cousin organizations one last chance to survive and turn their fortunes around.

Now all they have is hope Surrendercrats will win in 2008. But that may be too late, so expect to see election year actions to push America to surrender Iraq sooner rather than later and ensure the election of a Surrendercrat. I don’t think that is what will happen in the minds of Americans, but I am pretty sure that is all the Jihadists see as their final option. They have misjudged Americans since 9-11, I see no reason indications they plan to stop screwing up now.

The Treasury Department said the sanctions would be imposed on Rami Makhluf, who was identified as a prominent Syrian businessman and close to the country’s Baath regime.

…

The Treasury Department order freezes any assets that Makhluf holds in U.S. financial institutions and prohibits U.S. citizens and firms from engaging in any business contacts with him.

Makhluf is the first cousin of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and is considered one of the most powerful and influential businessmen in Syria. The 39-year-old controls the country’s mobile phone network, SyriaTel, as well as other lucrative businesses.

…

Bush signed the executive order on Feb. 13, one day after Imad Mughniyah, one of the world’s most wanted and elusive terrorists, was killed in a car bombing in Syria nearly 15 years after dropping from sight.

A little googling and we find some of those ‘other lucrative businesses’ include owning ports which can be used to smuggle things – like weapons.

After Bachar al-Assad used his position as a Head of State to steal the country’s resources and entrust his relatives, Rami and Mohamed Makhouf, with all big economic projects, he now wants a legal cover for his exactions. So he adopted a series of decisions that entitles the private sector to invest in the public sector; that is how Rami Makhlouf was able to rent the port in Tartous using a Filipino company he owns. And what does this mean? This means that thousands of employees would lose their jobs and that the customs officers no longer have any power on products that enter the Syrian soil. This will soon be the case of the Ladikiyyeh Port, as is today the case of all duty free markets. And you do of course know that duty free markets are the best place to smuggle high custom duties and therefore make huge amounts of illicit money.

Rami Makhlouf was also given the chance to establish his own Airline, condemning to bankruptcy the Syrian Airlines so that al-Assad’s corrupted family could then control air transport as it is today controlling all road transports.

Well it did not take much more searching to link this man who can ship material by land and sea without government interference to weapons smuggling:

Col. Hafiz Makhluf , a senior official in the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate and a cousin of Syrian President Bashar al Assad, is also revealed here as the Assad clan’s senior contact-man with the Syrian tycoon Rami Makhluf and controller of the sale and transfers of Syrian weapons to terrorists in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority.

Nice to have a brother who heads the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate. This Examiner article from 2006 was very prescient in naming names and identifying a secret Syrian nuclear program:

The Iraq Survey Group is calling for open negotiations with Syria, but new reports show that Damascus is up to no good. Indeed, while world attention is rightly focused on the nuclear capabilities of Iran and North Korea, Syria has been quietly — but quickly — advancing its own secret nuclear program.

…

But what really broke the camel’s back was a recent report from the well-informed Kuwaiti daily newspaper Al Seyassah. It quoted European intelligence sources as saying that “Syria has an advanced nuclear program” in a secret site located in the province of Al Hassaka, close to the Turkish and Iraqi borders. British sources quoted by the paper believe that “it is President Assad’s brother, Colonel Maher Assad and his cousin Rami Makhlouf, who supervise the program.”

Why is the US only now taking actions against this madman? We all know the recent news about the nuclear site Israel blew up in Syria. Also recall there were suggestions that Mughniyah was in Damascus to discuss attacks on neighboring Arab states with Iran, Syria and Islamic Jihad. This must be a warning to Assad and his cronies to step back from the brink and get control of something before things get real bad. BTW – is it coincidence that Makhlouf owns Syria’s largest mobile phone company with service into Lebanon? I think not.

North Korea helped Syria build an underground nuclear reactor in the Middle East country, a South Korean news report said Monday.

“The U.S. government has circumstantial (evidence) that the North provided technology assistance to build an underground reactor in Syria,” South Korea’s Hankook Ilbo newspaper reported, citing an unidentified diplomatic channel.

My bet is that unidentified channel leads through the South Korean government. More here on the story. But that is about all I have seen on this news. If true we have a problem I described at the time where Iran and Syria and North Korea could be performing a head fake. With all eyes on Iran and their ‘civilian’ nuclear program it seems the weapon’s program – supposedly abandoned by Iran in 2003 – may have simply been moved to Syria. One group working on the fuel (Iran) and another on the weapon design (the easier part, Syria).

To people who do not understand how nuclear weapons work it might seem backwards to say the weapon is easy once you have the nuclear material for the bomb – but the mechanisms and designs to trigger a mass of nuclear material is actually quite straightforward after the basic approach was worked out during WW II. But don’t take my word for it. David Kay, who is a UN Nuclear Inspector who searched Iraq, discusses this fact in a recent interview regarding the infamous NIE that came out about Iran’s nuclear program last fall:

There was a footnote to it that a lot of people missed if they were reading just the press reports of it. It turns out what they call a “nuclear weapons program” is just the design work on the actual warhead itself. Actually, the U.S. National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell testified this week that the weapons design work, particularly for an early- generation weapon, is the least important part of a nuclear-weapons program. What’s important is the fissile material and in the case of Tehran, the enriched uranium. That’s the real core of a nuclear-weapons program. And there’s no doubt that activity continues.

It also may not be a big challenge to build the nuclear trigger if rumors are true that Bill Clinton’s bungling administration actually gave Iran plans to build the trigger – which means they have the pieces they just need to see if they can design a version that flies on a missile.

An alliance of Syria, Iran and North Korea working together to arm the Middle East with nuclear weapons (and area fond of ‘martyring’ its people to prove a political point) would demonstrate an alliance as dangerous as the Nazi-Italian-Japanese Axis of the 1930′s and 1940′s, which gave us WW II. To try and obtain those kinds of weapons in a coordinated inter-state manner like the one I described would be a very serious threat to the world. And it seems the region knows it is a threat:

Syria is facing turbulent times in its relations with the outside world and its place in a region where rival powers have been competing for power and influence.

It is technically in a permanent state of war with one of its neighbours and has seen wars rage in two of its other neighbours lately.

Its closest ally is often threatened with war over its nuclear programme and its relations with the Arab world’s heavyweights have been far from cordial.

…

Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia look at Syria’s relations with Iran with deep concern, and their leaders have at times spoken publicly about it. This has even been reflected in news media affiliated with the governments of the trio, which have harshly criticised, and at times attacked, the Syrian government and its top officials.

Given al-Qaeda’s endless blood lust and willingness to massacre Muslims it would unnerve anyone to contemplate these brutal savages looking to martyr themselves armed with nukes of any variety. What I fear is how the world will test the next President and Congress – which seems to regular right of passage for each of our elections. For the Democrat Congress we saw the bloodshed in Iraq skyrocket so they would perform as al-Qaeda wanted and would run in full retreat. It was a test they failed and Bush won, because it is now al-Qaeda who is the enemy of Islam in Iraq, not its future. I am sure the next round of tests for the free world will be even more difficult to pass.

But it just might be coming soon. The assassination of long time Hezbollah terrorist Mughniyah in Damascus Syria this week brought another groups of thugs into the limelight and political debate in the Middle East. In response to the assassination Hezbollah is preparing for war with Israel, being the country Hezbollah thinks took out their head thug:

The Lebanese newspaper A-Safir reported Saturday that the Lebanon-based guerilla group Hezbollah has deployed 50,000 “activists” along the southern border with Israel and declared a state of high alert in southern Lebanon.

According to the report, the organization has also evacuated all buildings in the area designated for social or political purposes in recent days, in preparation for a confrontation with Israel in the wake of the assassination of Hezbollah terror chief Imad Mughniyah.

Mughniyah, the organization’s deputy secretary general, was killed in a blast in an upscale Damascus neighborhood late Tuesday. On Thursday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah blamed Israel for the assassination and vowed to retaliate. Israel denied any involvement in the incident.

As I noted in previous posts Mughniyah was apparently meeting with Iranian, Syrian and Islamic Jihad elements to plan an attack on a neighboring Arab State. I believe this would be Iraq as a last ditch attempt to destabilize that budding democracy in the heart of the Middle East. And this collusion appears to be continuing, as Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claim Hezbollah will soon destroy Israel:

Mohammad Ali Jafari, whose cadre is the elite force of Iran’s ruling mullahs, said in a letter published Monday that last week’s assassination of Hezbollah’s terrorist commander Imad Mughniyeh was the beginning of the end for the Jewish state.

“In the near future, we will witness the destruction of the cancerous existence of Israel by the powerful and competent hands of the Hezbollah fighters,” Jafari wrote.

Of course the Surrendercrats under Pelosi in The House of Representatives picked now to blind our intelligence capabilities in the NSA by putting a judge in the role of commander-in-chief or general to fight our war on terror and protect our forces in Iraq and our ally Israel. Given Iran’s nuclear program now is not a good time to lose track of whacked Hezbollah martyrs lining up on the border of Isreal. Something is coming to a head in the ME – and we all know what the Surrendercrats will answer with – “runaway”.

But I am not so sure the pending showdown will go Hezbollah’s way (if we are lucky) and it will not re-enforce support for Jihad and other bloody madness. All the decades of bombings have brought nothing to the Palestinians or the thugs in Iran and Syria. For example, look at how things played out in Kuwait regarding the assassination:

The Kuwaiti government called on rival Muslim factions to show restraint on Monday after a rally by minority Shiites to mourn the slain commander of Lebanon’s Hezbollah took a sectarian turn.

“I call on the media and citizens to leave this issue to the government,” said government spokesman Faisal al-Hajji, adding that the cabinet had taken legal measures to ensure “the security and stability of Kuwaiti society” but without giving details.

His comments follow a Shiite rally at which Imad Mughnieh was lauded as a “martyr hero” by Shiite MP Adnan Abdulsamad. The rally was condemned by Sunni MPs and organisations, who in turn branded Mughnieh a “terrorist” and a “criminal”.

They described Saturday’s rally as a “provocation” to the Kuwaiti people.

The cabinet, following its weekly meeting, condemned organisers of the rally for glorifying a “terrorist whose hands were stained with the blood of innocent martyrs and who was behind many terrorist and criminal attacks”.

The cabinet also accused Mughnieh of hijacking a Kuwaiti passenger plane in 1988 that led to the killing of two Kuwaiti men whose bodies were dumped on the tarmac of Larnaca airport in Cyprus.

Don’t forget the Shiites in Iraq, as well as the Sunnis, have taken the brunt of al-Qaeda’s butchers. It is one thing to champion a fight against the evil and decadent west, it is another to suffer the jackboot and bombs of fanatics. Clearly something is going to happen soon if Hezbollah and Iran can be taken at their word – but I am not sure it will play out as conventional wisdom once expected. And who knows, maybe some people who have grown tired with the endless bloodshed will step forward and provide intel that will defuse what is coming.

Mike McConnell, head of National Intelligence, has this to say about the dangers the democrats have put us in by allowing all the changes we have made to FISA since 9-11, which have kept us safe, to lapse and be undone in one sad day of political opportunism:

Some have claimed that expiration of the Protect America Act would not significantly affect our operations. Such claims are not supported by the facts. We are already losing capability due to the failure to address liability protection. Without the act in place, vital programs would be plunged into uncertainty and delay, and capabilities would continue to decline. Under the Protect America Act, we obtained valuable insight and understanding, leading to the disruption of planned terrorist attacks. Expiration would lead to the loss of important tools our workforce relies on to discover the locations, intentions and capabilities of terrorists and other foreign intelligence targets abroad. Some critical operations, including our ability to adjust to dynamic terrorist threats that exploit new methods of communication, which sometimes requires assistance from private parties, would probably become impossible. And the difficulties we face in obtaining this essential help from private parties would worsen significantly if the act expires or is merely extended without addressing this issue. Without long-term legislation that includes liability protection, we will be delayed in gathering — or may simply miss — intelligence needed to protect the nation.

These circumstances can be avoided. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, after an in-depth review of our operations, recognized on a bipartisan basis the importance of providing liability protection to those who assisted our nation in a time of great need. The committee’s report stated that “without retroactive immunity, the private sector might be unwilling to cooperate with lawful government requests in the future without unnecessary court involvement and protracted litigation. The possible reduction in intelligence that might result from this delay is simply unacceptable for the safety of our Nation.”

Emphasis mine, but the statement comes from a Democrat led Senate committee and had overwhelming support from both Dems and Reps. Clearly there is concern that we just had a blindfold put over our eyes by a shrill and politically paranoid House Leadership who spend more time and energy fighting George Bush than al-Qaeda and terrorists. My previous thoughts on this debacle are here and here.

But right now is a really bad time to be blinded or delayed in getting our eye (or ears) on targets. That is because something is brewing in the ME with the assassination of a Hezbollah leader who is touted as the original Bin Laden. I discussed this horrific nexus of events in a previous post which showed why having the Democrat led House impair our defenses was putting our forces in Iraq and around the world at grave risk.

The news surrounding the result of this assassination are disturbing. First off we see Syria meeting with terrorists groups right after the assassination – why would they meet with all these groups which were reported to be preparing attacks on neighboring Arab states? One target could be Iraq and our forces there.

We see Jews around the world on high alert for an attack, which could set the ME back into conflict.

And Hizbollah forces are now on high alert preparing for a war with Israel.

Given all these threats to our forces overseas and our allies in the ME one would think the Democrats could put aside their Bush Derangement Syndrome and wake from their silly delusional paranoia that the entire US military complex is focused on defeating liberals here in the US. But somehow they cannot wake up from their little fantasy world were the US is at war with them and not with al-Qaeda. If they can pull themselves together and focus on the real enemy overseas then America will relegate them to the dustbin of history – gladly.

A Kuwaiti newspaper reports that Hizbullah terrorist chief Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in a car-bomb attack in Damascus on Tuesday, was in the midst of planning major terrorist attacks in moderate Arab countries when he was killed.

Al-Watan reports that American intelligence had learned that Mughniyeh arrived in Damascus three days earlier with instructions from, and in coordination with, the Iranians. His objective was to meet with Hizbullah leaders and coordinate a mass attack, for which he was to receive help from Syrian intelligence.

…

Another Kuwaiti newspaper, Al-Siasa, reports that Mughniyeh took part, shortly before he was killed, in a secret meeting in the Iranian School in Damascus. Also participating in the meeting were Syrian Intelligence Chief Gen. Aisaf Shwackath, Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal, and an Islamic Jihad representative. On the agenda: planned attacks in Arab countries that refuse to take part in the coming Arab League summit in Damascus.

You know that if this is a valid story that the NSA surveillance played a huge role in getting the intelligence on this attack before it happened. What a grand day for the Democrats to tie the hands of our surveillance efforts overseas by not renewing the FISA changes that have kept this nation safe from attack ever since 9-11 (something most people would have said would be impossible at the time of 9-11). And if there is any doubt this is a valid story then one only needs to look at brand new sanctions on Syria coming out of the White House:

Meanwhile, US President George W. Bush has ordered stricter economic sanctions against Syria, the White House announced in an executive message to Congress.

The order to freeze the assets of people held responsible for actions that “undermine efforts to stabilize Iraq” came Wednesday, the day before Mughniyeh’s burial.

What we seem to have detected here is an Iranian/Syrian/Hezbollah/Islamic Jihad plot to attack neighboring nations – maybe even Iraq. The Surrendercrats desperately need some excuse to cut and run from Iraq and hand the place over to Bin Laden so he can wage his now-declared war on Israel.

Many Americans may not remember but the current, soon to expire, fixes to FISA were due to a FIS Court judge trying to expand the powers of the judiciary and requiring proof of threat and warrants to monitor just people overseas (forget about the original FISA-NSA dust up about how to handle leads on terrorist cells in the US detected by NSA monitoring of overseas threats). This kind of threat against our forces in Iraq was fair game prior to 9-11, but the idiots on the left are so damn paranoid (like anyone cares what the babble on about?) they have moved to make ALL surveillance illegal in case they may be caught up in the intel net (which is what happens every day in this country with warranted surveillance – innocent people get listened in on). Why should this nation cater to these paranoid delusions and let our military forces be at risk of an attack?

The liberal left is going for broke on this in an election year when they had a chance at the WH. It will soon become evident they have nothing but paranoid delusions and the WH has years of foiled attacks to show why we need to keep an eye on our enemies who have sworn to die trying to kill us in large numbers. And if you want more evidence the threat is real and we need our defenses at full capability just realize the nation is now on alert for attack – while Dems try and blind us to pending attacks:

The FBI put its terror squads on alert for attacks against Jewish targets after a Hezbollah leader died in a car bomb blast in Syria.

The FBI said Thursday that it had instructed its Joint Terrorism Task Forces in 101 communities across the United States to ask Jewish institutions to look out for signs of heightened dangers.

Hezbollah blamed Israel for the killing this week of Imad Mughniya, a terrorist believed responsible for hundreds of American, Israeli and Jewish deaths dating back to the 1980s.

Want to know how suicidally stupid Pelosi and liberal friends are – they also see the same intel reports as the President.

A Hezbollah commander suspected in some of the deadliest terrorist attacks of the last 25 years and a reputed role model for Osama bin Laden has been killed in Syria, Hezbollah TV said Wednesday.

Imad Mughniyeh died in an explosion in a residential section of the Syrian capital, Damascus, said Hezbollah’s television station, Al-Manar.

…

Western intelligence agencies long suspected Mughniyeh in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, that killed 63 people, according to a 2001 CNN report. He also was suspected in the truck bombing that year of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, an attack that killed 241 people and preceded the U.S. military withdrawal from Lebanon.

Before the September 11 terrorist attacks, U.S. officials had blamed Mughniyeh for the deaths of more Americans around the world than any other terror suspect, CNN reported in 2001. A month after the attacks in the U.S., the FBI debuted its Most Wanted Terrorists list with Mughniyeh on it.

Good riddance to the scum.

The first consists of facts on the ground: Hezbollah lost some 500 of its fighters, almost a quarter of its elite fighting force. Their families are now hounding Nasrallah to provide an explanation for “miscalculations” that led to their death.

Throughout southern Lebanon, once a stronghold of Hezbollah, pictures of the “martyrs” adorn many homes and shops, revealing the fact that many more Hezbollah fighters died than the 110 claimed by Nasrallah. What angers the families of the “martyrs” is that Hezbollah fighters had not been told that the sheik was starting a war to please his masters in Tehran, and that they should prepare for it.

The fighters found out there was a war only after the Israelis started raining fire on southern Lebanon. In fact, no one – apart from the sheik’s Iranian contacts and a handful of Hezbollah security officials linked to Tehran and Damascus – knew that Nasrallah was provoking a war. Even the two Hezbollah ministers in the Lebanese government weren’t consulted, nor the 12 Hezbollah members of the Lebanese National Assembly. The party’s chief policymaking organ, the Shura (consultative assembly), hasn’t held a full session since 2001.

Add to this the fact a majority of the non-shiite population of Lebanon had nothing to gain and everything to lose in this fight (as I noted previously) and you see why Nasrallah is now saying his the victory was more a near fatal mistake. There may be a leadership purge in Hezbollah after this one. Nasrallah has a lot of fanatical families aiming at him for the loss of their loved ones – for nothing.