A Daily Briefing on Iran: Launch Regional Initiatives

Michael Rubin, Alex Alexiev, Christopher Brown, Caroline B. Glick, Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, USAF (Ret.), Kenneth R. Timmerman, Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely, USAF (Ret.), American Enterprise Institute:

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As an essential component of America’s War Footing, political warfare must be waged in specific regional initiatives aimed at defeating the Islamofascists, neutralizing their supporters and strengthening our true allies in defense of the Free World.

The initiatives discussed in Step 9 are political and ideological rather than military, but they reflect a core strategic understanding that we are confronting a sustained and many-tentacled attack. The United States must adhere to an offensive rather than a defensive strategy if it hopes to survive and prevail in this war. READ MORE

There are a host of measures that can and must immediately be undertaken, literally all over the world, that do not require the use of American armed forces. In fact, if we wish to avoid calling on the U.S. military for further missions, these actions will be essential--in the Mideast (and its periphery) and in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Russia, and Europe.

If we fail to undertake such regional initiatives, it is almost certain that new threats to the Free World will arise in many (or all) of these quarters. The cost of dealing with such threats after they have fully emerged, measured in both blood and national treasure, may be very high. These sorts of initiatives must therefore be urgently integrated into America’s strategy for winning the War for the Free World.

A. Defend and Foster Freedom in the Middle East and Its Periphery

Any discussion of regional initiatives against terrorism must begin with the Middle East. Unlike some recent discussions of the Middle East, however, this will not be a list of potential targets for hypothetical American military strikes. Instead, it is designed to provide a truly strategic examination of the threat we face from several of the regimes in this general region and the framework for applying the political warfare strategy outlined in Step 8.

A comprehensive history of this region, or even a proper examination of the current social, political, and religious situation there, is well outside the scope of this book. However, the brief overview provided here concerning the most strategically important states in the region and nearby should suffice for the current purpose: to help Americans understand the imperative to place our country on a true War Footing and how to prevail in the current global conflict.

Iran

It is surprising to most terrorism experts that, even after four years of a global war on terror, there has yet to be any serious national debate about the need and the means to confront Iran. Consider the following:
Prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001, Iran was responsible for the deaths of more than fifteen hundred Americans--more than any other state sponsor of terror or terrorist organization in history.[1]

The U.S. Department of State has designated the government of Iran as the “the most active state sponsor of terrorism.”[2]
According to press accounts, a report by the Israeli secret service estimates that Iran has “invested more than $10 million to encourage terrorist activity against Israel.”[3]
Iran is responsible for developing Hezbollah in Lebanon, contributing training, equipment, funds, and political support. Hezbollah is by far the best organized and best developed terrorist organization in the world and the only such organization that exercises physical control over an international border (between Lebanon and Israel). Hezbollah has, moreover, followed in the footsteps of its Iranian patrons in developing strategic ties with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and others in Latin America (see Part C of this step).

There are many indicators that Iran is connected to al-Qaeda, both ideologically--despite their religious differences, they share a commitment to radicalized political Islam--and operationally.

Finally, there is the matter of Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
“Death to America”

The birth of the current Iranian regime is best remembered by Americans for the sacking of the U.S. embassy in Tehran and the subsequent hostage crisis that occurred early in the 1979 revolution. The new president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was in fact one of the leaders of the student group responsible for seizing our embassy.

It is often forgotten, however, that the Iranian revolution was originally composed of three factions: the democratic nationalists; the Soviet-backed Marxists; and the Islamists, inspired by the radical Shi’ite Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The democratic forces were quickly marginalized and then violently eliminated by the joint forces of the Marxists and the Islamists--and soon afterward, the Islamists did the same to the Marxist forces. Hence, what began as a broad-based revolution comprising many factions morphed into “the Islamic revolution.” Its transformation and success have become inspirations for Islamist movements around the world, including Sunni variants such as al-Qaeda.

Triumph of the Jihadists

Khomeini soon put into place his ideology of Velayat-e Faqih (“Governance of the Jurist”). In practice, this meant that the supreme leader (then Khomeini, currently Ayatollah Khamenei) would exercise absolute control of the Iranian government (see Figure 1). Iranian elections include only candidates preapproved by the supreme leader, through the Council of Guardians; claims of democracy in Iran are a sham.

The direct exercise of power by the clerical leaders of Iran is in fact heretical to the teachings of traditional Shi’a Islam. For this reason, Khomeini created a program to spread his own version of Islamist ideology, and to impose it on others using violence in the form of terrorism. This instrument enabled the regime first to consolidate power within Iran and then to seek power elsewhere, beginning with Lebanon.

Iran in Lebanon. In April 1983, an Iranian intelligence operative named Imad Mugniyeh organized an attack that blew up the U.S. embassy in Lebanon, killing 63 people. In October of the same year, Mugniyeh orchestrated another suicide truck attack, this time targeting the Marine barracks housing part of the U.S. peacekeeping contingent, killing 241 U.S. servicemen.[4] Almost simultaneously, another truck bomb exploded at the headquarters of French paratroopers.[5] A third suicide truck attack, against the Italian headquarters, was apparently thwarted by the dispersal of Italian forces.[6]

Interestingly, the use of simultaneous attacks was a signature technique of Mugniyeh (and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist organizations) throughout the 1980s; only later, beginning with the attack on U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998, did the technique become associated with al-Qaeda. This similarity was no accident: beginning at least in 1993, al-Qaeda operatives were receiving terrorist training from Iran, through Mugniyeh himself.[7]

This orchestrated onslaught was rewarded. The multinational military forces were withdrawn in the same year.

The Islamist perpetrators were powerfully affected by the success of these attacks and their results. Take, for example, the subsequent Iran-sponsored truck-bomb attack in June 1996 on U.S. forces housed in the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. The attack killed 19 U.S. airmen. Upon learning of its success, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards told his son that Islamic Republic leaders expected that this would compel the United States to withdraw from the Persian Gulf. “If we kill just one US soldier, the others will withdraw,” he predicted, explicitly invoking the Lebanon experience.[8]

Iran versus the Free World

As these episodes make clear, Iran began to wage war against America more than three decades ago and has drawn inspiration ever since from our retreat from Lebanon. It continues to threaten us and our interests in many ways.
Iran directly supports most of the Shi’ite-based political movements in Iraq and their militias. Indeed, Iran largely created the revolt in Najaf fomented by the radical Shi’a cleric Muqtada al Sadr. (Al-Sadr’s troops were reportedly trained at camps inside Iran.[9])

The Iranians are actively supporting the flow of money, weapons, and people not only across the Iran-Iraq border but also through Syria as well.

Iranian intelligence and other elements are working to destablize the pro-Western government in Afghanistan and the regime of Gen. Pervez Musharaf in Pakistan.

Iran is the patron of Hezbollah, its radical Shi’a terrorist proxy that seeks to deny freedom to the people of Lebanon and threatens American and Israeli interests and assets.

Despite differences on some religious points, Iran also directly supports the despotic regime in Syria, as well as such Palestinian terrorist groups as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah. Iran is dedicated to helping Hamas emerge as the dominant power in the Palestinian areas as an ally with the shared goal of destroying Israel.

There are many indicators that Iran is actively supporting al-Qaeda’s operations inside Iraq, led by the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The chief Iranian terrorist operative, Mugniyeh, has reportedly recommended coalescing the operational forces of al-Qaeda with other groups inside Iraq.[10] The regime in Tehran is also providing safe haven to al-Qaeda members and leaders inside Iran.[11]

Significantly, Iran has never renounced its stated ambition to spread its Islamic Revolution throughout the Persian Gulf.
A Nuclear-Armed Iran

The most ominous development, however, is Tehran’s increasingly blatant disregard of its obligations to remain a non-nuclear weapons state under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In the context of its aggressive program for refining and deploying ballistic missiles for the delivery of nuclear arms (and possibly other weapons of mass destruction), and given the mullahs’ oft-stated determination to destroy America and Israel, this posture must be viewed as extremely dangerous.

The latest U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran, leaked to the media in August 2005, states that the Islamic Republic is unlikely to produce the fissile material it needs for a nuclear weapon until “early to mid-next decade.”[12] If correct, this time line would indicate that a nuclear-armed Iran is at least five to ten years away--a sufficiently disturbing prospect.

But administration officials who track Iran’s nuclear programs provide evidence that this time line is far too optimistic. The NIE estimate was influenced by the defensive mindset of the intelligence community, which was severely criticized for overestimating Iraq’s WMD capabilities in 2003 (see Step 2).[13]

Since late 2002, a great deal of information about Iran’s previously clandestine nuclear programs has become known. Following revelations by an Iranian opposition group, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) demanded that Iran allow international inspectors to visit undeclared sites (in Tehran, Isfahan, and Natanz) where the regime had launched a massive program to enrich uranium.

Communist China’s bait-and-switch. Particularly problematic is the nuclear-related facility that the United States attempted (as early as October 1997) to prevent Iran from building with Chinese help--successfully so, we thought initially. Indeed, the Clinton administration publicly stated that China had agreed to cancel its plans to build the “hex” plant in Iran, in exchange for a U.S. agreement to sell nuclear power technology to the PRC.[14]

Once the American government declared the “case closed,” however, the Chinese proceeded to deliver the design information for the entire facility to the Iranians--including, according to former State Department official Robert Einhorn, blueprints of equipment critical to the operation of the plant.[15] The Iranians were then able to build the facility themselves, while China ostensibly adhered to its agreement with the United States.

As a result of these sustained efforts, Iran is probably in a position to acquire nuclear weapons within a short period of time. (Some believe they may already have done so by purchasing them on the black market.) Especially in light of the mullahs’ stated willingness to “share” their nuclear technology with other Islamic countries, the threat from Iran and its activities must be viewed as a ticking time bomb--and perhaps a mortal danger.

What do we do about the Iranian threat?

Détente Is Not an Option

It is vain to hope that the existing mullahocracy will become more moderate while its power to inflict violence on others increases. The regime has tolerated no substantial political or legal reforms but rather has used misleading rhetoric to clothe one of the world’s most destructive regimes with a veneer of respectability.

Former president Mohammed Khatami--once the great hope of antiregime elements in Iran and of many of their friends elsewhere--repeatedly made clear that he favored “democracy,” but not in the traditional Western sense of that word. For example, while serving as a deputy in the Iranian parliament prior to becoming president, Khatami wrote in the official daily, Keyhan, that, because ordinary people cannot comprehend God’s will, the full privileges of democracy should only extend to those with clerical education.[16] He has never repudiated this view.

In fact, during his eight-year presidency, Khatami failed to implement a single substantive reform. Cosmopolitan Iranian diplomats and reformists may enjoy some stature in Western circles, but true power inside Iran continues to reside in an unelected supreme leader, who wields ultimate power over every aspect of Iranian policy, including the military.

Attempting to bribe or appease Tehran is not a viable alternative, either. Western think tanks, foreign policy and trade experts, and past and present government officials periodically propose “engaging” the Islamic Republic.[17] There is just one problem: Islamofascists in Iran, like their counterparts elsewhere, are deeply uninterested in peace with the West. They wish to destroy us. Their leaders have made clear that the sole purpose of negotiations with us is to buy time to realize their nuclear ambitions and to advance their jihad.[18]

Even as the European Union has sought to purchase a negotiated end to the Iranian nuclear weapons program--reluctantly supported by a Bush administration, for want of a better plan--the Islamists in Tehran have been holding their ground. The mullahs’ oppression of civil society in Iran is as intense as ever. The media, for example, is under excruciating pressure from the regime: during the past five years, Iranian authorities have closed more than fifty newspapers. According to Reporters Sans Frontières, the Islamic Republic has the second-greatest number of imprisoned journalists in the world.

Indeed, far from changing Iranian behavior, the so-called EU 3 initiative (so named for its architects: Britain, France, and Germany) merely serves to convince the mullahs that they can act without consequence. It is instructive that executions in Iran have risen proportionally with European trade. Under Khatami, capital punishment ballooned. Iranian newspapers regularly announce public executions, including those of minors.[19]

Despite all this, a fragile civil society has managed thus far to survive the brutal dictatorship of the mullahs. Students, journalists, lawyers, businessmen, and others have created pockets of resistance. They speak on behalf of the millions of their countrymen who are too cowed by the regime’s terror and repression to express their opposition openly.

What Needs to Be Done

These Iranians are desperately crying out for secular government. We should heed their call and adopt a comprehensive strategy designed to help them bring down an Islamist regime that poses a mortal threat to them and to us. Some essential components of such a strategy are the following:

1. Make freedom in Iran America’s declared policy. It must become the official policy of the government of the United States to support regime change in Iran. We must abandon approaches that rely on voluntary behavior modification on the part of the mullahs--a stance they correctly regard as a sign of our weakness.

2. Do as Reagan did. We must seek to delegitimize the Tehran regime in every possible venue. A key part of Ronald Reagan’s strategy against the Soviet Union was to deny it legitimacy by, among other things, properly calling it “the Evil Empire.” The same must now be done with the Islamist regime in Iran.

3. Pursue two tracks. The new policy would have both economic and political elements:
Economic warfare. An economic offensive would include key steps that the American people can promote, such as the energy security initiative (Step 3) and the divest terror strategy (Step 4).

Political warfare. The United States must wage total political war against the Islamofascists in Tehran, both inside Iran and from the outside. This war should be designed to keep the Iranian regime off balance (including, where necessary, through the use of covert means), with the ultimate goal of undermining its control.
By exacerbating the mullahs’ internal problems, we would also ease the burden of citizens of Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Israel, who are currently under assault from Iran and its proxies.

4. Support resistance movements. An important part of such a proactive strategy must be an immediate commitment of significant financial resources to help prodemocracy groups in Iran. The Iran Freedom Support Act, introduced by U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum in February 2005, would authorize the president to spend $10 million to support the resistance. This is a good start--but something closer to $300 million will be needed. Such a substantial expenditure would be fully justified if it would help rid the world of one of its most dangerous regimes without recourse to war.

These funds need to be spent effectively: an earlier appropriation of $3 million to promote pro-democracy groups inside Iran was still unexpended in July 2005 because of the adamant opposition of a single, low-level State Department officer named Suzanne Maloney.[20]

In particular, we need to provide resistance groups with training in the tactics and tools of nonviolent conflict. One place to do so would be through the creation of independent trade unions in Iran. Like the Communist government in Poland, the Islamic Republic seeks to regulate and control all union activity. Unions can be powerful catalysts for liberty by channeling public discontent into irresistible forces for change.
5. Develop intensive public diplomacy and strategic communications. The president should appoint a U.S. ambassador to the people of Iran, based in Washington, D.C. This ambassador would convene an Iranian-style majlis, or national congress, composed of respected leaders of various Iranian communities:
Well-known exiles who have been working against the regime for more than two decades.

Young people who led the student uprising of July 1999 or more recent protests and had to flee Iran.

Representatives of pro-democracy groups inside Iran should also be sought out and, if possible, enabled to participate safely.
This initiative must involve a no-holds-barred campaign to counteract the regime’s influence throughout the region and beyond. That will require greatly expanding the public and private means of communicating directly with the Iranian people, including U.S.-based Iranian expatriate radio networks (see Step 8).

The United States and the Free World must also help the Iranian people make their voices heard by providing the technical means (such as digital video cameras and satellite phones) to show the world what is happening inside Iran. In our cable news–driven policy debate, if an event is not seen on television, it is widely considered not to have happened.

6. Confront Iran’s nuclear threat. Last, but hardly least, the United States must come to grips with the reality of Tehran’s incipient nuclear weapons program. The Board of Governors of the IAEA agreed in September 2005 to refer Iran’s violations of its nuclear safeguards agreements to the UN Security Council for further action--but this is by no means the end of the story. We must expect that China and Russia (and perhaps others) will play the same sort of delaying game in the UN as we saw in the case of Iraq (see Step 2). Time is not on our side; we must develop political, economic, and military strategies to counter a nuclear-armed Iran.

In the best case, this political and economic strategy would succeed in helping the Iranian people bring about regime change. Even if we start implementing it today, however, results may not be realized for some considerable period. The stakes are sufficiently high that we must also be prepared to use military force--alone if necessary, with others if practicable--to disrupt Iran’s known and suspected nuclear operations.

The United States can never win the War for the Free World as long as the most active state sponsor of terrorism is allowed to continue unchecked its support of violence against freedom-loving nations--not least, the emerging ones in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have for too long allowed Iran’s nearly three-decade war against the United States to go unanswered. And, unless we deal with it effectively in the immediate future, we will be faced with a nuclear-armed terrorist regime that has shown no reluctance to attack American citizens and American interests throughout the world.

Saudi Arabia

Officially, Saudi Arabia is represented as a society with a single ethnic group and single religious faith (namely, the state-sponsored brand of Islam, known as Wahhabism). The kingdom projects also a carefully cultivated image as an enlighted, relatively friendly despotism. If not exactly attractive, Americans have long found a level of comfort in this sort of stability. After all, we would not want to see an unstable regime sitting atop roughly $250 billion in proven oil reserves (see Step 3).

In fact, these claims are as substantial as a desert mirage--with similar potential for leading the unsuspecting traveler into danger. Saudi Arabia is in fact a nation of tribes, afflicted with the turbulent religious and ethnic complexities that we associate with the Balkans.

The Saudi royal family has deployed its peculiarly puritanical version of Islam as an instrument to seize, hold, and expand its power over the rest of its country’s people (see Step 1). Dating back only 250 years, this doctrine, known as Wahhabism, is a relatively small splinter movement; it comprises perhaps 1 percent of one school of Sunni Islam. In the view of many of classical scholars, Wahhabism is at best a small sect of Islam and at worst a cult.

Wahhabism is characterized by a nearly pathological hatred of all things that are not in keeping with its own view of Islam, as well as by an oppressive clerical/judicial authority. This Islamofascist ideology is thus in conflict with virtually the entire world. The Saudi regime’s efforts to spread its official interpretation of Islam--together with its own excesses--is now threatening, ironically, to undermine its continued control of the kingdom.

A Fractured Society

The sharp contrasts among Saudi Arabia’s five distinct geographic regions belie the official claims of homogeneity:
Central (Najd). This region, from which the royal family originates, is the locus of both the capital, Riyadh, and of the Saud family’s political/religious strength (Hanbali Wahabism).

Western (Hijaz). This region contains the two holiest sites in Islam: Mecca and Medina. It was ruled by the Hashemite tribe for approximately a thousand years, until it was conquered by the House of Saud in the 1920s. The majority of the population adheres to the relatively moderate Maliki/Shafi’i schools of Sunni Islam.

Southern (Asir, Jizan, Najran). This region is perhaps the most ethnically, tribally, and religiously diverse population of Saudi Arabia. The majority of the population has tribal and religious ties not with the House of Saud but with neighboring Yemeni peoples. This is where the central authority is perhaps the weakest and where much of the illicit arms trade and other smuggling occurs. (The bin Laden family originates from this region.)

Eastern (Al-Qatif, Al Ihsa). This region, where most of the oil is found, is home to the kingdom’s Shi’as, who constitute the majority of the local population.

Northern (Al-Jawf, Al Hudud). Bordering on Jordan and Iraq, this area is as diverse in its ethnic and religious makeup as the southern region, although not as populous.
In addition to these geographical differences, the kingdom’s population is split into three religious camps. Roughly one-third are Wahhabi (mostly in the central region); one-third Shi’a (mostly in the oil-rich eastern region); and one-third of other Sunni schools (scattered throughout the country, but most concentrated in the western region).

The royal family and the ruling elite within Saudi Arabia almost all come from the Najad region. The Wahhabi clerical system, buttressed by oil revenues, forms the basis of their power and legitimacy within the kingdom. They remain, nonetheless, the minority tribal and religious grouping.

The Saudis’ true power centers--and what gives them prominence on the world stage--are the oil fields in the eastern regions and the Hijaz, which contains Mecca and Medina. Control of these holy cities gives Wahhabism the veneer of religious legitimacy within the Islamic world.

In both of these regions, though, Wahhabism has been especially hostile toward the indigenous populations. This has, in turn, created a great deal of internal pressure that could endanger the hold of the royal family.

The Saudi Double Game

The royal family is itself divided into lineage groups. The two main factions within the five-thousand-prince Saudi royal family have pursued two very different policies to retain power, while other groups within the family ally themselves with one or the other faction. Even in an absolutist monarchy, threats from within and without create jockeying for power.

The principal rivalry is between King Abdullah--who has at least paid lip service to the idea of liberal, if limited, reforms--and his half brothers, known as the Sudeiris. The latter have aligned themselves closely with the most extreme Islamofascist Wahhabis.[21] Both sides, however, continue to make common cause with the Wahhabist clerics in the face of internal pressures.

Notable among such pressures are the increasing violent attacks within the country, engineered by al-Qaeda and its allies. These attacks vividly demonstrate how dangerous Islamist terror can prove to be even to one of its principal sponsors.

The Saudi royals are thus in a completely untenable position. The family is the primary supporter of the religious ideology of Islamofascism--providing funds, direction, intelligence, and diplomatic cover. At the same time, they must relentlessly pursue its domestic adherents, labeling them “deviant elements.” In fact, the terrorists’ only “deviation” appears to have been their decision to challenge the ruling family’s grip on Saudi Arabia.

In short, the House of Saud labors mightily to spread an intolerant religious doctrine that manifests itself as a toxic and violent political ideology. It is blithely unconcerned about the violence thus generated--except when that violence occurs in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

What Needs to Be Done

As part of putting the United States on a War Footing, we--and other freedom-loving countries--must stop indulging this intolerable hypocrisy.

The Saudis must be made to understand that we can no longer tolerate their active support for our enemies. They must take concrete steps to curb the further spread of Islamofascism and, specifically, they must end their material role in underwriting and otherwise enabling it.

Specifically, the Saudi government must take the following steps:

1. Incarcerate Islamist clerics and scholars who justify and espouse violence against other Muslims and non-Muslims.

2. End state sponsorship of Wahhabi institutions outside of Saudi Arabia, whether direct or indirect (for example, through Saudi “charities,” business fronts, etc.). Such institutions include entities that purchase, finance, or otherwise support Islamist mosques and madrassas, as well as branch offices of Saudi and Wahhabi “charities.”

3. Close “the Islamic interests sections” in Saudi embassies and consulates around the world. These are essentially covert instruments used to support Wahhabi proselytizing and recruitment.

4. End the publication and distribution, in the United States and elsewhere, of official documents advocating jihad, intolerance, or anti-Semitic and anti-Christian behavior.[22]

5. Stop the payments made by Saudi official and other Saudi-controlled sources to families of suicide bombers and to terrorist groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.[23]

If these essential steps are not implemented, the Saudis must be put on notice that they will suffer serious consequences. In the face of continued unacceptable Saudi behavior, the United States must be prepared to impose the following sanctions:
Reduce the status of bilateral diplomatic relations, up to the closure of missions in both countries.

Place Saudi Arabia on the State Department list of state sponsors of terrorism. This would, among other things, bar U.S. military sales to the kingdom.

Freeze Saudi assets in the United States.

Work with Shi’ites in the oil-rich eastern region who seek to break away from Saudi Arabia.

As a last resort, seize Saudi oil fields and other critical energy infrastructure.
The message should be clear. These are steps we do not wish to undertake. We are fully aware that the repercussions of any such sanctions could be traumatic for both nations--and the world beyond.

We also realize that Saudi oil is a critical ingredient not only in our economy but that of many others. This is one reason why we recommend in Step 3, as an urgent national priority, reducing our reliance on such imported oil and the attendant vulnerability to political blackmail.

We recognize, too, that the likes of Osama bin Laden or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi might come to power in Saudi Arabia if the current regime falls because of U.S. sanctions or otherwise. In that case, however, it would at least be unmistakably clear that Saudi Arabia is in enemy hands, in contrast to the current, delusional belief of the U.S. government that the Saudis are our close and fully cooperative allies in the War for the Free World.[24]

That is surely not the current reality. We can no longer afford to act as though the United States and Saudi Arabia share a true alliance on this central issue. Our future, and that of our children and grandchildren, requires us to take corrective action if the Saudis will not or cannot end their support for Islamofascism.

Pakistan

Even if the Saudis renounced Wahhabism tomorrow and stopped funding its mosques, schools, and other programs around the world, it may already be too late to make a difference in Pakistan. As discussed in Step 1, Pakistan has its own Wahhabist offshoot, called Deobandism. Founded by Wahhabi missionaries in Northern India in 1867, the Deobandi school is just as vitriolic as the Saudis in its hatred of all things that do not meet its standard of what is Islamic.

The Rise of the Islamists

The Deobandis have played a pivotal, if often unappreciated, role in the history of colonial India--and particularly in the partitioning first of modern India and Pakistan and then in separating what is now known as Bangladesh from Pakistan. They were responsible for creating the world’s first truly Islamist political party, founded in 1941 in then-colonial India.[25] Called Jama’at-e-Islami, the party was founded by Sayyid Abul A’la Maududi Jama’at, arguably one of the most important Islamofascists of all time. His writings had a direct impact on Islamism worldwide through his influential followers.
Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Ayatollah Seyyed Ruhollah Khomeini, founder and chief ideologue of the modern Islamist state of Iran.

Syed Qutb, chief theologian of the Muslim Brotherhood, author of Milestones, and one of Islamism’s key ideologues.

Al-Faridah al-Gha’ibah, author of The Neglected Duty and a key founder of the Takfir wa’l-Hijra movement within the Muslim Brotherhood.

Abdullah Azzam, one of bin Laden’s primary theological inspirations, founder of Hamas and one of the original founders of al-Qaeda.

Hassan Al-Turabi, founder of Sudan’s National Islamic Front and the man who invited bin Laden to set up his operations there.

Mullar Muhammad Omar, leader of the Taliban movement.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, a leader within the Takfir movement and a second in command of al-Qaeda.

Omar Abdul Rahman, spiritual guide to Ayman al-Zawahiri, currently in U.S. federal prison for planning and assisting in acts of terrorism within the United States.
The influence of Maududi and his Jama’at-e-Islami organization was particularly great in his country of origin, which came to be known as Pakistan. And, with Saudi help, both the party and the ideology have expanded their reach dramatically over time, most notably in the Pakistani government.

The Islamist “Death Spiral”

One indication of this growing influence is the equivalent status now assigned to degrees from madrassas (Islamic schools), placed on a par with secular academic programs for gaining admission into the military, intelligence service, and civil service. This equivalence, in turn, has fundamentally altered Pakistan’s society over the years--and especially its governing institutions. It has also done potentially irreparable damage to the country’s economy, given the narrow religious and ideological scope of the madrassa education.

As a result, what was once among the most promising of developing nations has been reduced by Islamofascism to seemingly unending poverty and despair.

The grim economic realities feed into the death spiral typical of Islamist societies. Young people are subjected to what amounts to ideological indoctrination, in Koranic madrassas and, recently, in formerly secular public schools. As discussed in Step 1, they graduate ill equipped for employment other than to pursue jihad at home or abroad (in Kashmir, Afghanistan, India, and, most recently, Britain). The economy continues to nose-dive, creating still fewer alternatives to the opportunities afforded by terrorist recruiters.

Jama’at-e-Islami’s current theologian is Khurshid Ahmad. Although virtually unknown to most American policy makers, he is one of the most influential contemporary Islamist ideologues. In a 2002 book titled Amrika: Muslim Dunya ki Bey-Itminan (America and Unrest in the Muslim World), Ahmad suggested the need for a Sino-Islamist alliance against the United States.

Even though many experts tend to dismiss the possibility of such an arrangement between atheistic Communist China and the Islamofascists, if the Islamists have taught us anything during this War for the Free World, it is that the only real limit to our enemies’ malevolence is their own imaginations. We need to recognize, more specifically, that China has played a central role in assisting in the development of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, which role dates back to the 1970s (see Part C of this chapter).

What Needs to Be Done

Pakistan’s leader, Gen. Pervez Musharaf, has taken some steps that have been helpful to the war effort, notably by arresting foreign al-Qaeda members (see Step 1). But America’s long term security, as it relates to a nuclear-armed, Islamist-dominated Pakistan, cannot be based solely on a relationship with that country’s current president. Furthermore, given the pace and extent of radicalization of the military and security organizations within Pakistan, it is very much an open question who the country’s next leader will be and whether he will have a favorable or hostile attitude toward the United States.

In particular, there are many uncertainties about Pakistan’s national commitment to a final victory by the Free World over Islamofascist groups like al-Qaeda. Quite apart from the ideological solidarity felt by many Pakistanis for their soulmates, there are tangible economic, political, and military benefits for a destitute country to be on the front lines of this war.

Nonetheless, several steps need to be taken while the opportunity exists.

1. Cut off Saudi funding for Islamist operations in Pakistan, as an essential first step.

2. Support a serious effort by General Musharaf to rebuild--outside of the government’s control--Pakistan’s former civil and democratic society.

3. Press for a government-wide effort to purge itself of Islamists, including a serious examination of the military and intelligence organization and a reversal of the practice of installing officers and officeholders who lack a truly secular education.

4. Finally, in Pakistan, as elsewhere, a proper U.S. political warfare strategy must be designed and implemented to counter the domestic appeal of the Islamist message (see Step 8).

Turkey

During the Cold War, the United States and its European allies had no more important strategic partner than Turkey. If anything, Turkey’s role in the War for the Free World could be even more vital were it to serve as a democratic Muslim bulwark against Islamofascism. Yet, we now seem poised to lose that ally.

In a process with parallels to Pakistan (and reminiscent of other totalitarian hijackings of democratic governments), an fascistic takeover is under way in Turkey. It is being orchestrated by the Islamist AK Party (AKP), led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is systematically turning his country from a secular democracy with a Muslim society into a state governed by a radical Islamic ideology hostile to Western values and freedoms.

The evidence of such an ominous transformation is not hard to find.
Turkey is awash with billions of dollars of what is known as “green money,” derived apparently from funds withdrawn by Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states from the United States after September 11. U.S. policy makers are concerned that this unaccountable cash is being laundered in Turkey and used to finance businesses and generate new revenue streams for Islamist terrorism. It is certain at least that Erdogan’s Islamist agenda is being lubricated by these resources.

Turkey’s traditionally secular educational system is being steadily supplanted by madrassa-style “imam hatip” schools and other institutions, where students are taught only the Koran and its interpretation according to the Islamists. The prime minister is himself an imam hatip school graduate and has championed lowering the age at which children can be subjected to this form of radical religious indoctrination, from twelve years old to four. In 2005, 1,215,000 Turkish students are expected to graduate from such schools. As we have seen elsewhere, the products of such schools emerge ill equipped for anything besides implementing the Islamist program of Erdogan’s AKP.

Tens of thousands of these madrassa graduates have already received government jobs, replacing experienced, secular bureaucrats with ideologically reliable theo-apparatchiks. In addition, an estimated four thousand madrassa graduates have packed Turkey’s secular courts, in effect transforming them into instruments of Shari’a religious law.

Religious intolerance is also on the increase. The one-third of the population known as Alevis observe a strain of Islam that retains some of the pre-Islamic traditions. Regarded as “apostates” and “hypocrites” by Sunni fundamentalists, they are subjected to increasing discrimination and intimidation. Other minorities, notably Turkey’s Jews, are apprehensive of receiving the same treatment.

In the name of internationally mandated “reform” of Turkey’s banking system, the government is seizing the assets and operations of banks run by businessmen associated with the political opposition, even in the face of successive rulings by Turkey’s supreme court explicitly disallowing one such expropriation.

The AKP-dominated parliament has enacted legislation modeled after Nazi Germany’s “kinship laws”--statutes that allow even distant relatives of business owners to be prosecuted for the proprietors’ alleged wrongdoings. Among the beneficiaries of such shakedowns have been so-called Islamic banks tied to Saudi Arabia, some of whose senior officers now hold top jobs in the Erdogan government.

By expropriating assets--or threatening to do so--the government has managed effectively to take control of the Turkish media. One conglomerate friendly to the Islamists now owns upward of 90 percent of the nation’s press outlets. Combined with the increasing self-censorship of reporters, the result has been to deny prominent vehicles for the expression of mainstream views opposing the government.

Thanks in part to Erdogan’s domination of the press, Turkey has seen an inflaming of public opinion against President Bush and the United States. In 2005, a novel describing a war between America and Turkey and the nuclear destruction of Washington became a runaway bestseller, even in the Turkish military.

The Islamists have also made substantial inroads in the Turkish armed forces--traditionally the guarantor of the secular, pro-Western Muslim state created by modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

The army must increasingly fill its ranks with conscripts who are products of an Islamist-dominated educational system.

With Erdogan’s “zero-problem” policy toward neighboring Iran and Syria, the Turkish military no longer provides a check on the regional drift toward Islamism.
What Needs to Be Done

1. As elsewhere in the Mideast and its periphery, the United States must help those moderate Muslims and others in Turkey who are bravely resisting the Islamists and their policies of political repression, religious intolerance, and economic impoverishment.

2. Turkey would also benefit, in the long run, from a cutoff of the green money and other subversive funding from Saudi Islamists. Turks would be better able to resist the Islamofascist onslaught if the United States begins to wage effective political warfare on behalf of freedom, in Turkey and in the region.

3. The West, however, has one other extraordinary opportunity to have an impact on Turkey’s future course. Millions of Turks want to become part of the European Union, recognizing that membership will open up enormous economic and other opportunities.

The Europeans should make it clear that Erdogan’s Islamist takeover makes Turkey’s EU bid a nonstarter. The AKP program will render Turkey ineligible for membership on the grounds that it will inevitably ruin its economy, radicalize its society, and eliminate Ankara’s ability to play the constructive role made possible in the past by Turkey’s geographic position in the “cockpit of history.” Such a message could prove decisive in pulling Turkey back from the abyss and restoring to the Free World a valued ally.

Israel

An ally no less critical to the War for the Free World--and similarly on the front lines of that conflict--is the Middle East’s only genuine democracy: Israel.

Some have mistakenly claimed that the Islamists’ hostility toward the United States is due to America’s support for Israel. According to this theory, if America would only abandon the Jewish State, the Muslim world’s hostility toward this country would dissipate.

The facts are very different. As we have seen in Step 1, like all other totalitarian ideologies, Islamofascism needs a scapegoat to account for failures within the communities it seeks to dominate. For the Islamists, Israel provides one near at hand. But make no mistake: the Islamists’ ultimate enemy is the one nation most capable of thwarting their designs--the United States of America. For example, in the notorious October 26, 2005, address given by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president not only called for Israel to be wiped from the map, he also declared: “Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism? But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved.”[26]

Indeed, it is not Israel that is labeled the “Great Satan” by the Islamists. That distinction is reserved for the United States. Israel is rather seen as a creation of the West, as a nation used by the United States to control the entire region; it is therefore referred to as the “Little Satan.”

Both Islamists and secular Arab dictatorships throughout the Middle East have cultivated this preposterous claim for decades, as an excuse for the failure of the Arab countries to provide for their own people. This is one of the reasons why many Arab leaders have no interest in a permanent solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The fact is that Israel is an asset in this war, not a liability. It is in a unique position to assist the United States in surviving and prevailing.

What Needs to Be Done

1. As a relatively young, but highly advanced state, Israel is an example of what is possible in the region for a free and democratic nation. Unless and until Iraq provides an Arab example,[27] Israel remains the only nation in the Middle East that demonstrates what people can do if afforded political and economic freedom. The United States should highlight this model, as a contrast to the dismal fate of countries subjected to Islamist misrule (see Step 8).

2. Thanks to Israel’s geographic location and experience, it is in a unique position to provide both a physical platform for American operations and--one of the most important resources for this war--human intelligence (see Step 2). For instance, since its founding, Israel has been fighting for its very survival against many of the same forces we now face. As such, they have developed sources and methods of intelligence gathering that can be simply invaluable. In addition, for decades their security and intelligence services have had to be intimately familiar with Arabic.[28] The fact that Israel shares our Western values and interests makes it possible for us to take full advantage of such help.

3. Finally, Israel is an island of democracy surrounded by varying shades of tyranny. At a time when we are trying not only to defend the Free World but also to expand it, America’s interests are best served by firmly aligning ourselves with the forces of freedom and democracy throughout the world, including in Israel.

In Step 2, we discussed the necessity of ensuring that freedom is consolidated in Iraq and the calamitous implications of abandoning that effort. It would be even more damaging for the United States to acquiesce in--let alone preside over--the dismantling of an existing outpost of the Free World. Such a step would be more than a tragedy for the Jewish State. It would also be a body blow to America’s own security. Having finished off the “Little Satan,” emboldened Islamist terrorists would surely come gunning for the “Great Satan.”

Few countries, in the Mideast or elsewhere, have more to offer the United States as it moves onto a War Footing than the tiny state of Israel, a nation that has had to remain on such a footing ever since its founding fifty-seven years ago.

Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at AEI.

Notes

1. Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al-Qaeda: Global Network of Terror, Berkley Publishing Company, 2002, p. 197.

2. See http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/45392.htm.

3. Uri Dan, “Terror Trail of Cash Leads to Iran, Saudis,” New York Post online edition, October 1, 2005.

4. Rex Hudson, “The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?” Federal Research Service at the Library of Congress, September 1999, Washington, DC.

5. Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al-Qaeda Global Network of Terror, Berkley Books, 2002, p. 196.

6. Ibid.

7. For an in-depth look at the ties between al-Qaeda and Iran, see Christopher Brown, “Ties That Bind: Iran and Al-Qaeda,” Hudson Institute Briefing Note, July 5, 2005.

8. Kenneth R. Timmerman, “Unlimited Offense: Iran’s Response to the Missile Threat,” Paper presented at Military Strategy in the Age of Ballistic Missiles, co-sponsored by the U.S. Army War College, the Jewish Institute for National Security, and the Boeing Corporation, February 23, 1999, Washington, DC.

9. “Iran’s Al-Quds Corps Chief Reportedly Admits Providing Facilities to Al-Zarqawi,” Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, August 11, 2004.

10. Ibid.

11. Robert Windrem, “Al-Qaida finds safe-haven in Iran,” MSNBC News, July 24, 2005.

12. Dafna Linzer, “Iran is judged 10 years from nuclear bomb,” The Washington Post, August 2, 2005.

13. Jed Babbin, “Midwives to nuclear terror,” The American Spectator, August 15, 2005; “The Post’s dubious slant on Iran,” The Washington Times, August 8, 2005; Kenneth R. Timmerman, “Nuclear dance of 1,000 veils,” The Washington Times, August 5, 2005.

14. Kenneth R. Timmerman, “China backs off from Iran--maybe,” The Iran Brief, November 10, 1997.

15. Einhorn was assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation. His comment on Isfahan can be found in Kenneth R. Timmerman, Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran, Crown Forum, 2005, p 159.

16. Ladan Boroumand and Roya Boroumand, “Illusion and Reality of Civil Society in Iran: An Ideological Debate,” Social Research, Vol. 67, No. 2.

17. See, for example, Suzanne Maloney, Iran: Time for a New Approach, Council on Foreign Relations Press, 2004. Maloney, until recently a Middle East policy advisor for ExxonMobil, has now taken up a position on the State Department’s policy planning staff as an Iran expert, where she has helped to sabotage the Bush administration’s efforts to bring real pressure to bear on the Iranian regime (see note 21).

18. Hosein Musavian, Chief Iranian Negotiator on Nuclear Affairs, appearing on Channel 2, Iranian TV, August 4, 2005 (translated and reproduced by the MEMRI TV Project).

19. For example, Jomhuri Islami, February 14, 2004; Sharq, February 18, 2004; Jomhuri Islami, February 25, 2004.

20. The role played by Ms. Maloney in blocking the prodemocracy grants was detailed by J. Michael Waller of the Institute on World Politics. See “Junior State Department official and Kerry partisan blocks Iran democracy funds,” available at http://fourthworldwar.blogspot.com/2005o07o01ofourthworldwaroarchive.html.

21. Michael Scott Doran “The Saudi Paradox,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2004.

22. See Freedom House’s excellent January 2005 study of the jihadist publications placed in American mosques and Muslim schools by the Saudi embassy (Washington, DC). Available at
http://www.freedomhouse.org/religion/publications/Saudi Report/FINAL FINAL.pdf.

23. For specific examples of Saudi payments to the families of suicide bombers and a more general overview of Saudi government support for worldwide jihad, see Kenneth R. Timmerman, Preachers of Hate: Islam and the War on America, Crown Forum, 2003, pp. 115–150.

24. Note, for example, Under Secretary of State Karen Hughes’ statement in September 2005: “I salute the Kingdom’s efforts to work with us to combat terrorism. I am proud of the excellent relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States and the exceptional cooperation between the two countries. Despite occasional disagreements, we have much in common.”

25. Although the Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by philosophical cousins of the Wahhabis in Egypt, it was originally intended not as a political party but as a social movement with a political agenda.

26. See http://www.memri.org/bin/openerolatest.cgi?ID=SD101305 and http://www.isna.ir/Main/NewsView.aspx?ID=News 603386.

27. As discussed in Step 2, the enemies we are fighting in Iraq today are making such a determined effort to sabotage democracy there precisely because it would fundamentally undermine their entire ideological claim and discredit their vision.

28. In the United States prior to September 11, 2001, there was not much demand for specialists in Arabic. The resulting shortfall in reliable, competent translators is one of our most acute counterterrorism challenges (see Step 10).

This essay is the ninth chapter of "War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take in the War for the Free World," edited by Frank J. Gaffney and published by the Naval Institute Press.

Related Links

Chapter 2 of "War Footing"

Chapter 10C of "War Footing"

This essay is the ninth chapter of "War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take in the War for the Free World," edited by Frank J. Gaffney and published by the Naval Institute Press.

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