U.S. Keeps Joining the Forces of Jihad

by Clare M. Lopez
June 27, 2013 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3785/us-intervention-jihad

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Libya has now become the main [North African] base for Al Qaeda. Shi'a and Sunni find common cause in hating the infidel with an even greater intensity than they hate one another. As Angelo Codevilla wrote, "They are not our friends and are unlikely to become such."

With the June 13, 2013 confirmation by senior Obama administration officials that the president has authorized sending weapons directly to Syrian rebels, there is a trend developing that can no longer be ignored. This is the third country and the third instance in which Barack Obama has leapt into the fray of revolution to the defense of al-Qa'eda and Muslim Brotherhood forces within days of an explicit call for action by Yousef al-Qaradawi, the senior jurist of the Muslim Brotherhood. While no ironclad case for linkage can be proven, even just the appearance, in and of itself, of responsiveness by the U.S. government to declared Brotherhood imperatives ought to be concerning.
Speaking on Al-Arabiya Television on June 9, 2013, al-Qaradawi called for jihad in Syria:
Jihad is now incumbent upon all Muslims, each according to his capabilities – both individuals and countries. Nobody must spare a thing in helping this country…
Four days later, on June 13, Ben Rhodes, the Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications, announced that the intelligence community had arrived at an assessment "that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year." This conveniently-timed and entirely unsourced finding set the stage for the White House announcement the next day about Obama's authorization of military aid to the Syrian rebels. The Supreme Military Council, which claims leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Free Syrian Army and is headed by BG Salim Idriss, has been selected to receive the weapons.
This pattern of an al-Qaradawi pronouncement quickly followed by White House action began in Egypt in January 2011. On January 26, 2011, speaking in an interview on Al-Jazeera television, al-Qaradawi issued an unambiguous demand that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak step down:
"President Mubarak … I advise you to depart from Egypt … There is no other solution to this problem but for Mubarak to go…"
By January 29, a mere three days later, Obama fell in line and told Mubarak that "an orderly transition must …begin now…"
It was not long afterwards—on February 21, 2011—that al-Qaradawi issued a fatwa, again on Al-Jazeera television, calling for the killing of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. The Islamic revolution against Qaddafi's regime had broken out just days before, on February 17. The news that President Obama had signed a secret order, known as a "presidential finding," to authorize covert U.S. government support for the al-Qa'eda-dominated militias then fighting to oust Qaddafi, emerged in late March 2011. Reports cited "government sources," however, who said the president had signed the finding "within the last two or three weeks." In any event, by March 14, 2011, U.S. envoy Christopher Stevens had been named official liaison to the Libyan opposition, which consisted primarily of al-Qa'eda militias such as Ansar al-Shariah, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), and Libya Shield. The president's cover story about intervening in the Libyan uprising cited a pending "massacre" in Benghazi "that would have….stained the conscience of the world." Of course, there was no such massacre in the offing, but rather the very real possibility that Benghazi, the center of the rebel uprising, might have fallen to Qaddafi's advancing forces. Had Benghazi fallen, the jihad offensive in Libya could well have been stopped in its tracks. So, once again, the U.S. administration lost no time in hopping to follow al-Qaradawi's lead after he called for another Islamic Awakening domino to fall.
It might be noted that a similar sequence of events in Syria apparently precipitated the al-Qaradawi call for jihad against Bashar al-Assad and his Shi'ite Iranian and Hizballah backers as well as the U.S. administration's pledge to send weapons (openly) to the Syrian rebels. It was the fall of rebel-held Qusayr to Syrian regime forces on June 5, 2013 that seemed to spur both the al-Qaradawi jihad fatwa and Obama's decision to follow suit and expand assistance to the al-Qa'eda and Muslim Brotherhood-led rebels.
In each of these instances — Egypt, Libya, and now Syria — it is "completely clear," as Barry Rubin writes, "that the United States is backing people who hate it." It is also completely clear that, at least since President Obama green-lighted the Islamic Awakening in his June 2009 Cairo speech, U.S. policy has been turned upside-down: in very tangible terms, the U.S. government has joined the forces of jihad to overthrow the unfaithful Arab and Muslim rulers that the Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammad Badi so blatantly threatened (along with the U.S. and Israel) in his late September 2010 call for jihad. In so doing, U.S. leadership is deliberately and proactively enabling the self-declared forces of Islamic jihad and shariah, who make no secret of their enmity and loathing for the U.S. and Western civilization in general, to come to power in country after country of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
The results have been disastrous. Christians in Libya, Egypt, and rebel-conquered Syrian territory face attack, ethnic cleansing and slaughter. Strict shariah enforcement is spreading across the region. Since the fall of Qaddafi in October 2011, weapons have been flowing out of Libya in all directions, some of the weapons apparently with the active assistance of the former Benghazi U.S. mission, now closed since the al-Qa'eda attack of 11 September 11, 2012. According to a Libyan intelligence official, speaking to a reporter in a May 2013 interview, Libya has now become the main MENA base for Al-Qa'eda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). "Libya has become AQIM's headquarters," he said, adding that new AQIM terror training camps were opening in the southern part of the country. Egypt, especially in the Sinai, is in no better shape. After falling under the control of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt faces economic disaster, its Coptic Christian minority fears genocide, and its leaders call Israel and America its enemies. In Syria, intrepid reporting from the front lines confirms the jihadist objectives of the anti-Assad coalition that now includes openly pro-shariah fighters from both Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qa'eda (Jabhat al-Nusra) militias. McClatchy Newspapers' David Enders reported in December 2012 that one of these shouted, "When we finish with Assad, we will fight the U.S.!" at him when told he was an American journalist.
"We have come full circle from going after al Qaeda to indirectly backing al Qaeda," said one U.S. official, speaking about the recent decision to arm these jihadist Syrian rebels. Angelo Codevilla, professor of international relations at Boston University, a former U.S. Naval officer and State Department official, and currently senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, might well have been speaking about the entire contingent of Islamic jihadis with which the U.S. has now associated itself when he summed up the Syrian rebels, saying "They are not our friends and are unlikely to become such."
The sooner U.S. senior leadership realizes that, whether Shi'ite or Sunni, jihadis fight for the same objectives — restoration of the Caliphate (or Imamate) and enforcement of Islamic Law — the better for American core national security interests. Of course, on battlefields such as Iraq and Syria, they go after one another as they always have for the last 1300 and more years; but when it comes to the Dar al-Islam vs. the Dar al-Harb, Shi'a and Sunni find common cause in hating the infidel with an even greater intensity than they hate one another. There are battlefields where U.S. intervention can accomplish good; and there are battlefields such as Libya, Egypt, and Syria where appearing to jump to the tune of Muslim Brotherhood fatwas does no good, and arguably much harm, to U.S. interests and image.

Related Topics: Clare M. Lopez

Is Hamas Losing Power?

by Khaled Abu Toameh
June 27, 2013 at 4:30 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3791/hamas-losing-power

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The only way to undermine Hamas is by offering the Palestinians a better alternative to Hamas. Many Palestinians do not regard Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah as a better alternative to the radical Islamist movement.

Recent developments on a number of fronts in the Middle East suggest that Hamas is beginning to lose both power and popularity among Arabs and Muslims.
Of course this is good new for moderate Arabs and Muslims, as well as for stability in the region.
This change does not, however, mean that Hamas will vanish sometime in the near future. Nor does it mean that peace will prevail tomorrow between between Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and Israel.
The only way to undermine Hamas is by offering the Palestinians a better alternative to Hamas. Many Palestinians still do not regard Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction as a better alternative to the radical Islamist movement.
In recent weeks and months, Hamas has found itself embroiled in a number of local and regional disputes that seem to have had a negative impact on its standing among Palestinians and Arabs.
After losing the backing of Iran and Syria because of its support for the rebels fighting against the regime of Bashar Assad, Hamas has now lost its key supporter and financier in the Arab world, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani of Qatar.
Khalifa's decision to hand powers to his son, Sheikh Tamim, has left many Hamas leaders worried about the future relations between their movement and Qatar.
Noting that Qatar had long embraced and supported Hamas, leaders of the movement voiced hope that Sheik Tamim would follow in the footsteps of his father.
Under Hamad bin Khalifa, Qatar was the first Arab country to receive Hamas leaders after they were expelled from Jordan by the late King Hussein in the late 1990's.
Khalifa was also the first Arab ruler to visit the Gaza Strip earlier this year and offer hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the Hamas government.
Hamas leaders said this week that they are now not sure whether the new ruler of Qatar will fulfill his father's financial pledges.
Meanwhile, Hamas seems to have gotten itself into trouble with many Egyptians, who accuse the movement of meddling in their internal affairs.
Egyptian media reports and politicians say Hamas has been dispatching weapons and gunmen to Egypt to support Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi, who is facing growing discontent at home.
When Hamas leaders visited Cairo last week, they were forced to flee the hotel where they were staying after hundreds of angry Egyptian demonstrators protested their presence on Egyptian soil.
Hamas's support for the anti-Assad rebels in Syria has also resulted in a crisis between the movement and the Iranian-backed terror group Hizbullah in Lebanon.
Some Lebanese have accused Hamas of arming anti-Assad radical Islamists and setting up terror cells in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.
Unconfirmed reports said that Hizbullah has asked Hamas leaders based in Beirut to leave the country.
Musa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, this week made a secret visit to Beirut in a bid to defuse tensions between his movement and Hizbullah.
Hamas is also facing many problems at home.
Hamas's relations with other terror groups in the Gaza Strip have also recently witnessed a serious deterioration.
The Islamic Jihad organization decided this week to sever ties with Hamas over the death of a top Jihad operative, Raed Jundiyeh.
Jundiyeh was killed when Hamas policemen tried to arrest him last weekend, sparking a sharp crisis between the two parties.
In addition, Hamas has been forced to deal with Al-Qaeda-affiliated Salafi followers who think that the Hamas leadership is not radical enough, especially with regards to imposing strict Islamic laws and fighting the "Zionist enemy."
Hamas officials admit that all these these developments have had a negative impact on their movement's standing among Palestinians and Arabs.
Hamas's failure to improve the living conditions of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip has also driven away an increased number of Palestinians -- in addition to reports about fierce internal squabbling among Hamas's top brass and the absence of a unified policy toward many controversial issues plaguing the Palestinians and the Arab world.
In a move reflecting Hamas's growing predicament, the movement was forced this week to welcome Palestinian singer Mohamed Assaf, who won the popular Arab Idol contest held by Saudi Arabia's MBC TV station.
Although Hamas leaders have condemned the contest as "anti-Islamic" and "morally corrupt," they were forced to voice their support for the 23-year-old Assaf in the wake of the overwhelming and unprecedented support he received from Palestinians.
When Hamas leaders begin to "sweat," it should be seen as a positive development in the Palestinian arena. It now remains to be seen whether Palestinians will take advantage of the situation and turn against Hamas.

Related Topics: Khaled Abu Toameh

"Sunrise" over Istanbul

by Robert Ellis
June 27, 2013 at 2:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3793/sunrise-over-istanbul

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It might not have occurred to the AKP government that unless it changes course, it could suffer the same fate as other regimes.

By now, it must have dawned on even the most dim-witted European politician that there is a discrepancy between Turkey's rhetoric and performance -- at least, as far as Europe is concerned. Turkey's EU Minister Egemen Bağış has from time to time entertained us with his various distortions of reality, including his recent claim that "the sun of Europe rises from Istanbul every morning nowadays." But the events that have unfolded in Turkey in recent weeks present a different picture.
In 2006 Turkey and the US agreed that Turkey's EU accession is a strategic priority for both countries, and three years ago the UK renewed its strategic partnership agreement with Turkey. On this occasion, David Cameron underlined that the UK would remain Turkey's "strongest possible advocate" for EU membership. A recent photo posted on the Twitter account of the Turkish Ambassador to Washington, Namık Tan, showing US Secretary of State John Kerry, with his hand on British Ambassador Peter Westmacott's shoulder, talking with Namık Tan, indicates that the three are still hugger mugger.
Whatever Turkey might profess, the drift of Turkey's foreign policy, not to speak of its domestic policy, is towards the Muslim world and the Middle East. In an interview with the Cairo Review in March last year, Foreign Minister Davutoğlu explained that Turkey's policy of strategic depth, which has been dubbed "neo-Ottoman," rests on an engagement with countries with which Turkey shares a common past and geography as well as shared interests and common ideals. He envisaged Turkey utilizing its geopolitical position in the midst of Afro-Eurasia to set the parameters of a new global order.
In a speech made last April at a Justice and Development Party [AKP] congress in Konya, Davutoğlu was more specific and spoke of the party's historic mission to create a new world order [nizam-i âlem, the Ottoman concept of a world order under Islam] with the emergence of Turkey as a global power.
This hangs together with Davutoğlu's Sarajevo speech in October 2009, where he made clear that the goal of Turkish foreign policy was once again to make the Balkans, the Caucasus and Middle East, together with Turkey, the center of world politics. This March, in an address to the party faithful in Bursa, the Foreign Minister stated that the last century was a parenthesis and that Turkey would again unite Sarajevo with Damascus and Benghazi with Erzurum and Batumi.
This theme was echoed by Prime Minister Erdoğan recently, when on his return from North Africa he sent greetings to Istanbul's brother cities Sarajevo, Baku, Beirut, Skopje, Damascus, Gaza, Mecca and Medina, but with no mention of Europe. According to Nuray Mert, Associate Professor of Political Science at Istanbul University, who has previously clashed with Erdoğan, many observers have failed to recognize that neo-Ottomanism is an irredentist version of Turkish nationalism.
In a keynote speech at the Istanbul Forum last October, Erdoğan's chief advisor Ibrahim Kalın spoke of a new geopolitical context and of a conscious decision by Turkish policy-makers to redefine Turkey's strategic priorities in the 21^st century. According to Kalın, Turkey is beginning to read history from a non-Eurocentric point of view: the European model of secular democracy and pluralism has little traction in the Arab and larger Muslim world.
In a television interview early this year, Prime Minister Erdoğan mentioned that he had told Russian President Vladimir Putin that if Turkey were admitted to the Shanghai Five [Shanghai Cooperation Organization], they would say goodbye to the EU: "The Shanghai Five is better and more powerful and we have common values with them."
After the clashes between demonstrators and police around Gezi Park in Istanbul, the European Parliament a fortnight ago passed a strongly worded resolution, expressing not only deep concern at the disproportionate and excessive use of force by the Turkish police but also reiterating the rules of the club that Turkey ostensibly aspires to join.
The resolution pointed out that freedom of assembly, freedom of expression and freedom of the press are fundamental principles of the EU and reminded Turkey that in an inclusive, pluralist democracy all citizens should feel represented. Furthermore, Prime Minister Erdoğan was urged to take a unifying and conciliatory position.
Apart from agreeing to abide by the decision of Istanbul's administrative court on the future of Gezi Park, and, if necessary, to hold a plebiscite, Erdoğan's response was predictable. He refused to accept the European Parliament's decision; he said it was both not binding for Turkey and "anti-democratic." Characteristically, he added, "Is it your place to pass such a resolution?"
The EU's decision to open one more negotiating chapter with Turkey, but to postpone the opening until October, means that there is still a slender thread binding Turkey to the EU. But Prime Minister Erdoğan's response to the demonstrations could usher in a new era of intolerance and repression.
At a number of mass rallies under the slogan "Respect for the National Will," Erdoğan has claimed that the widespread unrest is the result of an conspiracy between "the traitors inside and their partners outside" to destabilize the Turkish economy and the government's achievements. More specifically, he has accused "the interest rate lobby," which is understood to be a reference to the Jews. Yeni Şafak, an Islamist daily, has even alleged that the protests are an American Jewish plot organized by the AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] and the American Enterprise Institute.
A round-up of protesters has already begun and the Turkish intelligence service [MIT] has launched an investigation into foreign links. Moreover, Interior Minister Muammer Güler has spoken of the need for a regulation to take action against those who provoke the public via the social media. A number of television channels have also been fined for their coverage of the Gezi Park protests, as the Radio and Television Supreme Council [RTÜK] consider this "harming the physical, moral and mental development of children and young people."
Foreign Minister Davutoğlu in his interview with Cairo Review said that history is replete with examples of regimes failing to survive when they lost their legitimacy in the eyes of their people. It might not have occurred to the AKP government that unless it changes course, it could suffer the same fate.
Robert Ellis is a regular commentator on Turkish affairs in the Danish and international press.

Related Topics: Turkey | Robert Ellis

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