MILNET Opinion
  Iran, Syria, and Middle East Chaos, December 03, 2006
How the forces of Islamic Radicalism Aim to Control the Middle East

Early in this decade, it became clear that a war was underway.  The U.S. CIA Director said as much to his president, and not until 9/11 did it become clear enough for the apathetic American public to finally got a clue.

Today, the entire world is focused on the Middle East and for good reason.  There lies the evil that is slowly chewing up our civilization, and doing so at an ever increasing rate.  Not because we aren't trying to slow it or stop, but because we cannot find our way clear to actually going after the disease -- we have focused only on the symptoms.

Intelligence analysts for western governments understand the disease but do not seem to be able to articulate it...perhaps wary of stepping on political shoes or revealing sources...both self-indulgent and suicidal responses to their masters.  That reluctance has to stop.  We must point out where the problem lies, throw off liberal shackles and engage in all out war to stop this disease before it crushes our civilization and creates the same chaos that threatens the Middle East.

The disease is familiar by now, Islamic Radicalism that spawns the Militant Jihadist Group which in turn exports terror in ways, we as civilized beings, cannot understand nor cope with.  If the travails of the normal citizen in Baghdad were to be overlaid on the citizens of Chicago, Illinois, then perhaps we'd understand.  Don't feel safe...that time is not too far in the distant future. 

The reason we make that judgment is that the forces of evil in the Middle East all agree that is their goal.  They are dead set on bringing the same chaos in the Middle East to the U.S. and Europe.  And they have the power to do so, unfortunately.  Why?  Because we are giving that power to them day by day.  France is seeing the result of their liberal acceptance of the Muslim unwanted and the U.S. has been allowing Muslim immigration in vast numbers as well.  Both nations have, through liberal malaise, allowed radical Muslim mosques to preach hatred of the very societies within which the mosques are allowed to exist.  Steve Emerson correctly made this call in his book, American Jihad, we have allowed the radical recruitment and prostelization to occur under our very noses under the pretext of freedom of religion.

Here is how it works. 


Step One: 

The beginning of this tale starts with the Saudis.  Perhaps not as intentional as the Saudi haters would have you believe, but it begins there never-the-less.  By exporting Wahhabism via the Muslim Mosque and its religious training centers the Madrassah, they (perhaps unwittingly) put in place the worldwide recruiting network needed by the Islamic radicals.  Not confined to the Middle East, this network of recruiting organizations exists in every corner of the world, with huge Muslim populations in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and the surrounding territories.  It exists in Europe with Muslim immigration continuing unchecked for decades and in the U.S. where arrogant and apathetic immigration policies have allowed unchecked Muslim immigration to flourish until 9/11.

By putting this network into place, we now face the prospect of every disaffected Muslim becoming a tool of our civilization's enemy.  This IS about religion.  Religious freedom is not the freedom to breed anarchists, it is not the freedom to breed those who would destroy the fabric of our civilization.  Yet, there are those in our society who would destroy Christian piety and yet permit Islamic Radicalism destroy us.  This seemingly irrational focus stems from liberalism gone crazy and this supplies the idiocy that binds our hands today.

Separation of church and state was intended to prevent the government from prohibiting the freedom of religious expression. But no government can survive a religion that fundamentally preaches the destruction of it and its leaders.  The Saudis finally understood this and we in the U.S. are now slowly coming to realize this fact today.   Our government, and its values of freedom, personal choice, and privacy is the bane of the radical Islamic interpretation of Islamic Law.  The result is the face-off we have already begun, despite claims to the contrary, we are at a war of civilization and despite the claims to the contrary, this IS a war of religions.

Be very clear.  It is us they want to destroy -- the American revolution and European strides toward freedom is what serves as the target of Radical Islam and as Osama Bin Laden has stated, we are to be destroyed and replaced with the Rule of Law, Radical Islam style.  Nothing else will do.  Subjugation or destruction, either way is okay with OBL and his friends.  And friends he has.  Lots of them.  Whether they be Sunni or Shiite, the radical Islamic Jihadist unite in that conclusion.  The "West" must be destroyed.  Not just for their support of Israel, which is the greatest sin possible, but because the West stands for the very things the Jihadists cannot abide, freedom of choice, equality for all races and women, and non Islamic beliefs that fly in the face of their credo.  They cannot exist in our world, and we must do more than realize they cannot exist in ours.


Step Two: 

The most important step in the progress of the Middle Eastern evil was the creation of the Israeli state right in the heart of the other Arab nations.  While a wonderful goal to give the Jewish people their own state, and of course Jerusalem had to be included, the arrogance and naiveté that established the nation in that location was doomed from the start.  Hours after the official declaration of the Israel nation, Arabs all around her began their attacks. 

And when, through miracle after miracle, Israel managed to survive, a tenuous peace settled over the land.  Unfortunately, the peace was short lived and an image only.  Eventually, the Israelis came to understand that only their military strength could save them. 

However, when their strength reached a level that no military force in the region could overcome them, a new diabolical method for their eradication was created.  The formation of the Black September group and its various splinter groups which led to  Hamas and Hezbollah as creatures of death and destruction for the Jewish nation marked the beginning of the current chaos in the Middle East.

The beginning of the public acknowledgment of this step was the Munich Olympic massacre of the Israeli Olympic team, and decades of Arab terrorists and Israeli responses to that new type of warfare.


Step Three: 

Enter Syria and Iran.  Syrian agents through the Iran funded Hezbollah terrorist group, had already created a death grip on the government of Lebanon, a country perched north of Israel and indeed one of Israel's border neighbors.  Decades of Israeli and Arab conflict essentially turned Lebanon into a war zone, with only intermittent pauses.  Ever since, rubble has remained and every few years the fighting resumes. Israeli troops scoured the country for terrorists and its neighbors armies as well.  Finally it was clear some intervention was needed, Israel was on a rampage and the Lebanese were the victims.

The U.S. and the U.N. tried to intervene.  However after Hezbollah terrorists bombed a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut  in 1983, the U.S. withdrew.  The bombing sent a stinging message that the asymmetrical warfare of the terrorist is far stronger than conventional might of any nation.  This message was reiterated in another decade later when U.S. troops were attacked in their quarters in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia at the Khobar Towers.  Force protection has become the watchword for U.S. military generals -- building compounds large enough to prevent rocket fire from the outside in a conventional perimeter, and anti-terrorist measures inside to keep truck bombs away from U.S. troops.

Syria and Hezbollah and related splinter groups ruled Lebanon as a puppet government for decades after the U.S. and Israeli withdrawals in the late 1980s.  Indeed the Syrian military remained in force in Lebanon until their ouster in April  of 2005.  Constant reminders of the desires of Hezbollah's' intentions through their cooperative arming of terrorists who then fired rockets from Lebanon into Israel created numerous opportunities for Israel force extension into Lebanon on a regular basis over decades and did not abate when the Syrian military left.

Then support of so called Palestinians inside Israel's borders created more havoc, using rockets fired from Palestinian refugee camps into Israeli settlements.  The source of the munitions used by those internal to Israel was disclosed to be Hezbollah and Hamas.  Finally, Hezbollah and its great friends Fatah and Hamas began strapping on bombs to young Muslims sending them on suicide missions into Israeli cities, killing thousands over nearly two decades.


Step Four: 

The Iranian people have been at odds with the entire Middle East for most of the nation's existence.  Shiite versus Sunni has been the battle both in modern times as well as ancient times.  When the eleventh Caliph Ali disappeared, the Shi'a became tormented -- they had lost their religious way.  Unfortunately for the rest of the world, the Ayatollah Khomeni wrested control of the Shi'a faction of Islam in the last decades of the 20th century.  Unfortunate because he was also an adherent to radical muslim philosophy that thought nothing of destroying every non-believer on the planet in order to foist his own peculiar and deadly interpretation of the Koran on the rest of the world.  At that point...the elevation of the Ayatollah Khomeni to the top of the radical Islamic heap, was a turning point for the Middle East.

Prior to that, the Middle East violence was nothing more than an offshoot of the Arab-Israeli conflict -- the so called Palestinian Territory issue became a rallying cry for anti-Semitic Arabs the world over.  Interestingly enough, the people of the ancient Palestine territory were conquered in early biblical times and have long ago ceased to exist.  The only remaining true Palestine is a Jew...however, like so many intent on their own agenda, the facts of history can easily be rewritten to meet the needs of your cause.  And thus we arrive at the Arab-Palestinian.  Just as interesting is the plight of the nomadic folk who claim to be from Palestine.  Shuffled about by the Arabs at will, they have been the menials for Arab elite for centuries and have never found a home even before Israel was created, and once Israel was created, they were denied homes in the surrounding nations.  And thus their only hope for settlement is in Israel which hopes to find a place for them in their own nation.  Unfortunately this notion appears to be a non-starter.

In any case, Iran is behind Hezbollah -- the Shiite nutcases that want to rule the Middle East through chaos, and who have  built their own terrorist army in Lebanon.  And it is indeed a full fledged army with tanks, rockets and infrastructure in Lebanon.  This summer, Israel sent a token force into Lebanon to oust them and found a huge military machine facing them.  While Syria had withdrawn its forces, Iran reinforced Hezbollah creating a huge force of Jew killers the Israeli have not seen since the early years of their independence.  The Israeli forces didn't exactly come home with their tails between their legs, but it was a sobering summer foray that promises to change the face of Israeli politics for some time, and certainly has the possibility of changing the complexion of the Israeli response to future events in the Middle East.

Interestingly, the Israeli Defense Ministry has complained of ever-increasing Hezbollah strength in Lebanon and taken small actions to push it back away from Israel's borders.  This summer's foray, while stinging Israel's military pride, also proved clearly that what the Israeli hawks have been saying is true...Hezbollah has become a force to be contended with, even as a true military force as well as a terrorist organization.  This is a new wrinkle in the Middle East equation and it is Iran with the begrudging support of Syria that makes it all possible.  And while the Israelis did severe damage to Hezbollah in their summer foray, destroying some infrastructure, weapons dumps and battlements, they did not come close to irradicating that enemy.  That inability to muster the necessary will and the forces to go with it will haunt the Israeli government for some decades to come.


Step Five: 

The U.S. led invasion of Iraq became another turning point for the region.  The rhetoric quickly turned to ousting the occupiers, but underneath the real message was clear to all radical Islamic denizens.  A free and democratic Iraq was a huge threat to the foisting of Islamic Radicalism whether it be Sunni or Shi'a based.  Thus a new battle erupted inside of Iraq -- prior to elections and soon thereafter, the Sunni vs. Shiite battle of centuries ago (and more recently in the Iran-Iraq war) re-emerged.  And while the radicals claim only to be interested in forcing the U.S. to go home, it is very clear now that Iraqis are dying at the hands of sectarian radicals of the Sunni and Shiite factions of the Islamic Jihadists.  The U.S. soldier is killed today by wandering across those radicals engaged in killing their foes or innocent Iraqis.   The war between Shiite and Sunni will not stop when the U.S. leaves, it will only become more intense as Iran and Syria fight it out to see who will be the leader of the Middle Eastern chaos. 

And hopes that Iraqi army or police can contain this sectarian violence are misplaced.  If the Iraqi forces don't succumb to fear tactics (their families are routinely targeted) they will succumb to their ideology which matches one or the other faction.

Recently, the Lebanese ousted the Syrian military and terrorist forces, only to be replaced by the even more vicious Hezbollah of Iran.  And when it became clear that the murder of the former prime minister of Lebanon was to be investigated and most likely would lead to Hezbollah's complicity, the Hezbollah withdrew from the government and not so coincidentally the first of expected many new assassinations began.  Clearly, Lebanon is headed for yet another collapse and Iran and Syria could not be happier.

Their friend is chaos.  Because in chaos, the milder, more moderate people of the nation are frightened by their radical brethren.  The people of Lebanon have suffered greatly from war after war and will continue to do so as long as the radicals continue to overpower their government.  When the current Lebanese government collapses, there will be little left to hold off the battle between Shiite and Sunni there, and the more moderate Muslim and Christian peoples will suffer anew.

Chaos works well for Iran and Syria in Iraq as well.  With chaos comes dissatisfaction with the government in power.  The fact that the government in Iraq is attempting to democratize that nation is not lost on Iran and Syria and its collapse would be a welcome addition to the chaos that would lead to one or the other faction (Sunni or Shiite) gaining control of the chaos that eventually leads to an nation subscribing to radical Islamic Law.  To the Iranians in particular, this is the holy of holiest goals...make all nations look like Iran.

Both Iran and Syria are arrogant enough to believe that once the chaos is at its high point, and the governments have collapsed, then one or the other will step in and return the nations to some semblance of governance.  They will worry about which faction runs the government then -- battling the last battle in relative unhindered violence -- let the best faction win.  They don't care what this does to the people or the nations themselves, only that the battle will be on their terms and one of the other will win.  Allah be praised. 

If you recognize this kind of thinking, you are right, it is a direct reflection of the days of the Crusades and is well documented in history.


The Future: 

A step six is waiting in the wings.  Israel, having been stung this summer, will look at the Lebanese collapse as a final straw in the collapse of their own dome of security.  The collapse of the Lebanese government will mark the beginning of the collapse of Israeli security to the North, and Israel, a nation which long ago realized only they can control their own security will once again foray into battle. This time, however, they will not do so with some token force.  Moreover, they will not stop in Lebanon.  There is a target clearly marked on the map, put there by that nation's own leaders. 

That nation is Iran.  Iran's President Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel and has pledged that Iran will be the deliverer of that destruction.  His flogging of the effort to build "peaceful nuclear power" has been interpreted by Israel as a nuclear weapons program.  Israel's intelligence agencies see the evidence and are in belief that time is running out before Israel faces a nuclear foe in the Middle East, more radical and under no controls like Pakistan, and clearly aimed at the destruction of the Israeli state. 

It is MILNET's opinion that Israel is on a short leash, and the time is running down before Israel's security apparatus springs into action to eliminate both threats -- the chaos in Lebanon, and the threat of Iranian inspired Hezbollah, and direct action from Iran against Israel.  The military calculus already points to Israeli direct action in both nations, and not coincidentally, along a land bridge that finds itself stopping at the northern border of Iran.



© Copyright 2006, Michael G. Crawford