'Dahlan Involved in Poisoning of Yasser Arafat'

by Khaled Abu Toameh

A Palestinian commission of inquiry has concluded that ousted Fatah Central Committee member Mohammed Dahlan was involved in the “poisoning” of former Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat.

The commission’s report was published on Sunday by a number of Arab news web sites, including Al-Jazeera.

According to the 118-page report, which was prepared by top Fatah officials Azzam al-Ahmed, Tayeb Abdel Rahim, Othman Abu Gharbiyyeh and Nabil Sha’ath, the deposed Fatah official was involved in sending poisoned medicine to Arafat before the latter’s death.

If true, this would be the first time that the Palestinian leadership accuses a Palestinian of being behind the “assassination” of Arafat.

Until now the PA and other Palestinians had held Israel fully responsible for the mysterious death of Arafat of an unknown disease in November 2004.

PA officials in Ramallah would neither confirm nor deny the report.

However, The Jerusalem Post was told that a senior aide to Abbas had leaked the report to Al-Jazeera.

The commission of inquiry was set up to look into allegations that Dahlan had plotted to stage a coup against PA President Mahmmoud Abbas.

At the request of Abbas, the Fatah Central Committee has expelled Dahlan.

Dahlan, who has denied the charges, returned to Ramallah late last month to appeal against the decision to expel him from Fatah.

A few days after he arrived in Ramallah, PA security forces raided his villa, detained his bodyguards and confiscated their weapons and vehicles.

Dahlan was nevertheless permitted to leave to Jordan without being harassed. But a number of his top aides have since been arrested by various branches of the PA security forces in the West Bank.

Dahlan’s associates maintain that the dispute with Abbas erupted only after the former demanded an inquiry into the fate of $1.3b. that were deposited in the account of the Palestinian Investment Fund.

They claim that most of the money has gone missing ever since Abbas succeeded Arafat in January 2005.

According to Dahlan’s supporters, Abbas also holds as a grudge against him because he had been bad-mouthing the PA president’s wealthy sons.

The report, which also appeared on other Arab media web sites, claims that while Arafat was hospitalized at a French military hospital, Dahlan approached one of a senior PA security officer and asked him to burn the bottles of medicine that Arafat had been using.

The report also claims that a number of Arafat’s associates had supported this allegation during questioning.

The Fatah report goes on to accuse Dahlan of standing behind a string of assassinations of senior Palestinian officials, including Hisham Mekki, chairman of the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation and top Fatah operatives Kamal Midhat and Hussein Abu Ajweh.

The commission of said that Dahlan had also been questioned about his personal fortune and bank accounts under his name in Switzerland and the Gulf.

The commission’s report also accused Dahlan of conspiring to recruit civil servants and security officers to his camp and planting espionage devices in a number of government and security installations.

Dahlan was also accused of plotting to stage a “military coup” in the West bank against Abbas and purchasing weapons from Israeli Arab arms dealers.

In response to the publication of the report, Arafat’s relatives in the Gaza Strip issued a statement in which they strongly condemned the charges against Dahlan.

The statement said that the report was aimed at “forging the reality by accusing a patriotic personality like Dahlan while exonerating the occupation from its direct responsibility for the assassination of President Yasser Arafat.”

The statement also cautioned the media against publishing lies related to the death of Arafat and said that such reports were unprofessional and immoral and were designed to harm Arafat’s image and reputation.

Samir Mashharawi, a top Fatah operative from the Gaza Strip and longtime friend of Dahlan, said on Sunday that the dispute between Dahlan and Abbas was “personal.”

Mashharawi said that he personally asked Abbas about the dispute and that the PA president admitted to him that this was the case.

Mashharwai quoted Abbas as saying: “Your friend [Dahlan] has a long tongue and has been bad-mouthing me and my sons. He [Dahlan] has been saying that I handed the Gaza Strip over to Hamas and that I have neglected the Gaza Strip in the past four years.”

The Fatah leader said that Abbas had initiated the fight with Dahlan to distract attention from his failed policies. “Abbas wants to run away from five years of failure in running the Palestinian Authority and the political portfolio,” he charged.

Mashharawi claimed that the raid on Dahlan’s villa in Ramallah was aimed at liquidating the latter. “They wanted to initiate an armed clash with Dahlan’s men so that the police could open fire,” he said. “The goal was to kill Dahlan and then announce that he was part of a conspiracy to overthrow the Palestinian president. Fortunately, Dahlan remained very clam during the raid and did not intervene even when they searched his bedroom in a provocative manner.”

Khaled Abu Toameh

Source: http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=232834

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Syrian Tank Assaults Kill More Than 60 In Two Cities

by Reuters

AMMAN - Syrian troops killed at least 50 people in a tank assault on the eastern city of Deir al-Zor on Sunday, activists said, despite a direct UN appeal to President Bashar Assad to stop using military force against civilians.

The assault on Deir al-Zor, capital of an oil-producing province, began one week after Assad sent the army to seize control of Hama, focal point of nearly five months of protest against his autocratic rule.

In a separate tank-led attack on villages in the Houla plain north of the central city of Homs, security forces killed at least 13 people, activists said.

"The numbers of casualties are escalating by the hour," activist Suhair al-Atassi, a member of the Syrian Revolution Coordinating Committee, said by telephone from Damascus.

The Arab League, in a rare response to the escalating bloodshed in Syria, joined the international wave of criticism on Sunday, calling on authorities to stop acts of violence against protesters, the Qatar News Agency reported.

Assad defended the army campaign against what Damascus says is an armed insurrection. "Dealing with outlaws and convicts who stage highway robbery and seal off cities and terrorise the population is a national duty," state news agency SANA quoted him as telling Lebanese Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour.

An Assad adviser said neighbouring Turkey, which condemned the attack on Hama as an atrocity, should not meddle in Syrian affairs and warned Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu he would get a frosty reception when he visits Damascus on Tuesday.

Reuters

Source: http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=232832

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The Persecution of Christians in the Middle East

by Cheryl Halpern

The terrible violence in Oslo last month has brought the world's attention to the ravings of a madman and a murderer -- someone who was motivated to kill fellow Christians because he feels they had acquiesced to a takeover by Islam.

Our revulsion is appropriate -- this was the killing of innocent people in the name of religious and political hatred. However, when the roles are reversed, and Christians are in the minority and Muslims in the majority, are we equally upset by murder, intimidation and religious hatred?

Sadly, we don't appear to be. The world is standing silent as Christians living in Muslim-majority lands are killed, and their killers are venerated.

Today, Christians, regardless of affiliation, are being systematically harassed, persecuted, and murdered throughout the Middle East, the region of the globe from which Christianity first emerged. Churches have been bombed and those attending Christian services have been killed. Christian homes have been ransacked and cemeteries have been destroyed. Converts from Islam to Christianity are considered apostates and subject to severe punishment. In Iran, a man named Youcef Nadarkhani has been sentenced to hang for the state crime of converting from Islam to Christianity. His appeals for clemency to Iran's highest courts have been rejected.

The former President of Lebanon, Amin Gemayel has declared, "Massacres are taking place for no reason and without any justification against Christians. It is only because they are Christians." This can only be called religious cleansing on a vast scale.

Christians once represented significant populations in the Middle East; the Copts of Egypt, the Assyro-Chaldeans of Iraq, the Maronites of Lebanon, and the Southern Sudanese. Yet from the later part of the 20^th century until today, the indigenous Christians are becoming refugees in the face of Muslim violence and persecution.

Lebanon was once 60 percent Christian. Today there are only 1.5 million Lebanese Christians -- approximately a third of the country. In Palestinian-controlled Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, Christians were once 90 percent of the population, but are now a very small fraction of that. The Palestinian Authority that controls Bethlehem even banned the cross for sale as a souvenir for tourists. Samir Qumsieh, director of Al-Mahed Nativity TV in Bethlehem noted, "it is like saying that Jesus was never crucified."

Roughly only a third of all of Iraqi's Christians prior to the war remain. In 2010, Iraq's Christian leaders called off Christmas celebrations in the aftermath of a bloody assault on a major church. Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako explained, "Nobody can ignore the threats...The situation of the Christians is bleak."

One year ago, in Iskenderun, Turkey, the head of the Catholic Church in Turkey, Bishop Luigi Padovese, was repeatedly stabbed and then decapitated by his driver, Murat Altun, who shouted, "I killed the Great Satan. Allahu Akhbar." His murder garnered little outrage.

In Saudi Arabia, a Muslim nation that is making major investments in technology and higher education, a nation that purports to be America's ally, it is still a crime to hold private religious ceremonies for any faith other than Islam. It is even illegal to own Christian or other non-Muslim religious items. Violators have been sent to prison and deported.

We in the West tend to gloss over these incidents, but we should not be so dismissive. The treatment of religious minorities - or any minorities - often tells us a great deal about the majority. If Islamic majorities hear no moral outrage and receive no resistance when they harass Christians, why stop the incitement and intolerance?

The mainline Christian churches are surprisingly unalarmed by this persecution. Many U.S. and U.K. churches are more focused on boycotting and divesting from Israel, which is odd since Israel is the only country in the Middle East where the Christian population is growing in number.

There is only one historical metaphor for today's Middle East Christians: The Jews of Europe in the decades prior to the Holocaust. Like today's Christians, the Jews of Europe were a minority, once thriving and at peace with their neighbors. But they, too, were subject to discrimination by state authorities and orchestrated violence. Those who left Europe as refugees were the lucky ones; those left behind became victims of genocide.

The lesson we learn is a simple one: If we do not protect the freedom of conscience in all societies, the dark hatred of religious bigotry is sure to inflict damage on an unimaginable scale. We are seeing that today in the Middle East, in its earliest forms. And so it falls to our political and religious leaders to make clear their moral outrage, and to stand up not only to rogue terrorists but to despotic governments who have brought murder and pain into the homes of those who have chosen to pursue their alternative expressions of faith.

Cheryl Halpern is on the council of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and is former chair of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/the_persecution_of_christians_in_the_middle_east.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The Bizarre Alliance Against Israel

by Michael Curtis

The Arab Spring has lengthened into Summer. Hoped for political changes and reforms have faltered with the result that the fundamental political, economic and social dysfunction of Arab countries in the Middle East remains. The most committed idealist can find no more comfort in the present behavior of the 21 countries of the Arab League than in the past, divided as they are by civil wars and religious tensions, as daily displayed in Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and Lebanon. They are beset with Islamist insurgencies, enmity between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and even discord between mainstream and extremist Sunnis. All their governments suffer from a deficit of freedom and political rights. All are non-democratic in character, often corrupt, and are still based on systems that are autocracies, military dictatorships, hereditary family rule, presidencies for life, tribal elders, or edicts of Islamic dignitaries in a theocratic regime. This results in policies that deny basic human rights to women, minorities, and even the general population.

Yet much of the focus of European and American commentators on the Middle East remains concentrated not on the glaring problems of the Arab societies but with Israel. George Orwell offered the pertinent remark that "even an idealistic politics, perhaps especially an idealistic politics, can pervert itself." Armchair revolutionaries, in San Francisco, New York, London, and Paris, in the recent past saw Yasser Arafat as the embodiment of anti-colonial heroism, and of the ideology of third-worldism. In their common hostility to Israel, the European and American self-proclaimed idealists are now allied with Arab groups and causes, the most important of which is the condition of Palestinians. Both sides tend to see Israel as a formidable, even sometimes as the greatest, threat to world peace.

One of the many ironies in this situation is that, with the end of the hateful regime of apartheid in South Africa, radical leftists, many in the academic world, the media, and Arab spokesmen, have shifted their image of the most demonic state to Israel, which they see as an apartheid nation. The result is a bizarre "red-brown-green" alliance of Western leftists and liberals, including Christian humanitarians, anti-globalists, and environmentalists, with Islamic fundamentalists and Arab nationalists. They share a common motif, dislike, even hatred of Israel. They depict Israel as a criminal state and the accomplice or lackey of American imperialism.

This attitude goes so far that academics in European and American universities even register more support for Hamas, the ruling party in Gaza, than does the Palestinian population in the West Bank. Some of the most extreme critics have suggested not only that the actions of the Islamic suicide bombers in New York on 9/11 and elsewhere resulted from alleged control over the United States government and media by Jewish interests, but also argue that Israel provoked the wars against terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan in which the United States is involved.

The kindest thing one can say about the bizarre alliance is that it stems from an idealist ideology to rectify the wrongs of European and American colonialism, an ideology of third-worldism. Few today are likely to echo the extravagant rhetoric of the famous writer H.G. Wells that "[t]he Soviet Union upholds the tattered banner of world collectivity and remains something splendid and hopeful in the spectacle of mankind." Now that the bloodbaths of the Stalinist era and the brutal murders of 70 million Chinese people by the revolutionary hero Mao Zedong have become known, pessimistic critics of Western culture have redirected their enthusiasm for change to the cause of revolutionary insurgencies and violent energy in non-Western countries.

This ideology of third-worldism postulates a hypocritical, even violent, West eternally to be held guilty for its colonial activity that is alleged to have been destructive of non-Western indigenous cultures. It is noticeable that in this blanket condemnation the proponents of this ideology pay little attention to the important differences among the individual indigenous cultures, but rather lump them all together in one vast "third world."

The main guilty party is Israel, a country which critics see as the embodiment of present day imperialism. The essential irony is that for members of the bizarre alliance the non-West is lauded not for positive reasons, but because it is not Western and does not adhere to Western practices such as liberal democracy, an open economy, rule of law, free elections, personal autonomy, individual and sexual freedom, emancipation of women, and constitutional rights, all which Israel embodies if sometimes in imperfect form, as do all nations.

Critics of Israel and European and American values posture as idealists with high moral standards, but their actions or non-actions, reveal a lack of consistency about those standards. Western radicals have shown more compassion for Arab dictators, especially in Libya, than for democratic Israel. Western feminists and gay and lesbian groups have been silent about the place and treatment of women and homosexuals in Muslim Arab countries. No woman in an Arab country has yet been elected to a prominent position as was Golda Meir in Israel, the first female prime minister elected anywhere who was not the wife or daughter of a previous head of government.

Criticism of the actions of the state of Israel and its personnel is wholly appropriate, but it serves no purpose if it is based not on objective appraisal of those actions but on the endless search for new saviors of humanity who will overcome the imagined evils of Western civilization.

Michael Curtis is a distinguished professor emeritus of political science at Rutgers University.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/the_bizarre_alliance_against_israel.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

New Strategy For Ground Zero Mosque

by JanSuzanne Krasner

The Park51 project for a 15-story mosque/community center at Ground Zero, led by developer Sharif El-Gamal and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, has dwindled down to a much smaller vision, a four or five-story 'PrayerSpace' and community center. This may be a far cry from their original plan, but many are bewildered as to why they are still moving ahead with any planned mosque at this site, given the tremendous negative opinion most Americans have of its location.

Sharif El-Gamal believes in his vision and he is committed to its location at Ground Zero. He admits that the introduction of his idea to the general public was "backwards" and now he is "going back to basics." He believes that he is acquiescing to the community's desire for the building not to tower over Ground Zero and states: "If the community only wants four or five floors, it's going to be four or five floors." This new shorter version will still require El-Gamal to raise about $10 million. He believes that depending on the community board's recommendations could take as much as five years before there are any changes to the Burlington Coat Factory building site.

Meanwhile, in spite of El-Gamal's insistence that he'd like to work with the community, the chairperson of the Community Board, Julie Menin, said that he has not responded to several of her requests to meet to discuss the plans that they would like to see implemented at 45-51 Park Place. Although the community board is not as interested in the blueprints of the building, they do want to have input into the public activities the center will offer. Menin commented: "A tremendous number of young families need services, like classes, recreation and athletic centers."

Since El-Gamal's purchase of this property last year (for $4.85 million in cash) this unpopular and contentious project has undergone several important developments as a result of pressure from the neighborhood community and the American public. El-Gamal has had trouble raising the necessary $150 million to build the original planned Park51, previously known as the 'Cordoba House' Mosque/Community Center at the site that is only two blocks from Ground Zero.

Back in early January, 2011 Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and El-Gamal cut off their business ties. Rauf had taken on a greater quest, that of launching a global movement to fight misunderstanding of Islam and improve relations between people of different faiths and cultures. By late January the Park51 Group selected NYC Imam Abdullah Adhami as its senior advisor and one of several Imams who would eventually be picked to coordinate religious services in the mosque.

Americans have been able to witness the slow unraveling of a cover up by the Park51 Group to hide the radical intent of their planned Mosque. Feisal Abdul Rauf, the son of a contemporary of* the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, claims to be a moderate. Through the hard work of Pamela Geller's organization 'Stop Islamitization of America' (SIOA), and other investigative journalists, Feisal was exposed for what he truly is, a Islamic extremist and NJ slum landlord. So off he went on greater conquests.

Then the non-profit Park51 Group selected Imam Adhami, a NYC Imam who was then heard in one of his sermons to call for 'Sharia Law;' who posted his opinion on a website that people with "homosexual feelings are the result of some form of violent emotional or sexual abuse at some point in their life;" and who was also proven to have links to Anti-American Imam Al-Hajj Talib Abdur-Rashid and terror supporter Imam Siraj Wahhaj. By early February Adhami quit.

According to Sharif El-Gamal the past year has taught him that he needs a new strategy, slower and more realistic, one he should have started before going public last year. He has spent the past year traveling around the country to garner supporters and has attempted to build relationships with the residents of the neighborhood and Muslim groups in NY, NJ and CT; and he has seduced the Aunt of a 9/11 victim to his advisory board. In addition to organized prayers, he has held events in Park51's makeshift space, including various art exhibits, yoga and Brazilian martial arts classes, to Muslim holiday ceremonies and discussions on bullying with Muslim and non-Muslim children. He says all of this will provide him with a better understanding of the community's needs to aid him in formulating a better community center.

El-Gamal's new tactic is in line with the moderate, non-violent global approach for Islamic conquest of Western societies. Terrorism is the tool of choice by radical Muslims. But, under the guise of love and peace, moderate Muslims populate neighborhoods and build Mosques as the tool to take over communities, one at a time. This is what has happened in Germany with multiculturalism, as well as France, Sweden, Spain, Australia, Denmark and the UK. Neighborhood after neighborhood, Muslims build up their population to an intimidating level where police do not even enter. They build their religious centers with leaders and literature that radicalizes their membership. They demand that 'Sharia Law' becomes the law of their enclave and the original residents are either driven out or run scared.

This pattern is starting in communities in America. Dear reader, please keep your eyes open and be aware. In each of these US cities there is a growing Muslim population: Dearborn, Detroit, Tampa, Philadelphia, Camden, Wilmington, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Chicago, DC, Dallas, Houston, Ft. Worth, Atlanta, San Diego, Seattle, St. Louis, Columbus, Memphis and Miami and the residents are beginning to see a growing demand for 'Sharia Law' to take precedence over our civil courts. Look at the college campuses where the Muslim Student Association, founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, have intimidated many of our youth into silence. Understand that 'Sharia' compliant financial demands are being met on Wall Street and in public and privately owned companies. Educate yourself about the hate and justifiable murder of Infidels that is part of 'Sharia Law' and is found in the Koran. And clearly understand that Islamists want to symbolize the conquest of America with a Mosque at Ground Zero that Arabs are calling a 'Rabat' (the point of contact at the heart of the infidel's territory that had been raided).

It will shortly be ten years since 9/11 and the Park51 Rabat is still being planned in the hallowed grounds of 9/11 under the protection of the Dhimmis of NYC. Here's hoping that in the five years El-Gamal needs to actually begin building his vision the American public will wake up to the real dangers of Islamic political ideology and the Mosque at Ground Zero will just go away.

*corrected

JanSuzanne Krasner

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/new_strategy_for_ground_zero_mosque.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Declaring a Palestinian State, Yet Again

by Daniel Pipes

The Palestinian Authority's push to declare a Palestinian state is hardly a new idea. By my count, this is the fourth iteration. I described the first instance as follows:

on October 1, 1948, Amin al-Husayni, the mufti of Jerusalem, stood before the Palestine National Council in Gaza and declared the existence of the All-Palestine Government (Hukumat 'Umum Filastin). In theory, this "state" already ruled Gaza and would soon control all of Palestine. Accordingly, it was born to lofty proclamations of Palestine's free, democratic, and sovereign nature, and with a full complement of ministers. But the whole undertaking was a sham, for Gaza was run by the Egyptian government of King Faruq, the ministers had nothing to do, and the All-Palestine Government never expanded to all of Palestine. Instead, this state quickly withered into insignificance, and for the next two decades, the goal of a Palestinian state virtually disappeared.

And then:

Almost exactly forty years after the first proclamation of a Palestinian state, a second one took place on November 15, 1988, again before a meeting of the Palestine National Council. This time, Yasir 'Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), declared the existence of a State of Palestine. In some ways, this exercise was even more futile than the first, for the new state was proclaimed in Algiers, almost 2,000 miles and four borders away from Palestine; this state controlled not an inch of the territory it claimed; and this one faced a powerful Israeli adversary.

Those two instances are ancient history but the third attempt, in 1999, uncannily resembled today's situation. As I noted at the time:

When a state is declared, the results will be severely adverse for Palestinians and Israelis alike. This flagrant breach of the Oslo accords will cause economic relations to diminish further and violence to increase. … The United States and Israel are more important in this case, as in so many others, than the other 180 nations. I hope they will not just refuse to recognize the Palestinian state by make it very clear to Arafat and the Palestinian Authority that a unilateral declaration will be costly to the Palestinians. Continued negotiations are the sensible alternative to a unilateral declaration of independence. The issues are difficult and the process protracted; there can be no arbitrary date for the conclusion of negotiations, for this merely invites Palestinian procrastination. For negotiations to succeed, the process must go on until its natural conclusion.

And now September 2011. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. (August 3, 2011)

Daniel Pipes

Source: http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2011/08/palestinian-state-yet-again

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Why Chris Christie Will Never Be President of the United States

by Daniel Pipes

Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor since 2010, has qualities and achievements that appeal to mainstream conservatives, from his direct style to his impressive budget cutting. As a result, he has won impressive support to run as a Republican candidate for president of the United States.

But Christie has an Achilles Heel that gives one pause.

He came under criticism from fellow conservatives for nominating Sohail Mohammed, an Islamist who aspires to apply Islamic law, the Shari'a, as a state superior court judge; for an outline of these concerns, see the Investigative Project on Terrorism, "Gov. Christie's Strange Relationship with Radical Islam."

In response, Christie delivered a tirade on July 26, 2011, on the topic of Shari'a:

Sharia law has nothing to do with this [i.e., the appointment of Sohail Mohammed] at all. It's crazy. It's crazy. … So, this Sharia law business is crap. It's just crazy. And I'm tired of dealing with the crazies. I mean, you know, it's just unnecessary to be accusing this guy of things just because of his religious background. [Excerpt from 2:43 on the video.]

Comments: (1) These are fighting words against fellow conservatives that will not soon be forgotten: "this Sharia law business is crap. It's just crazy. And I'm tired of dealing with the crazies."

(2) Calling critics of Mohammed "crazies" who are "accusing this guy of things just because of his religious background" reveals Christie to be a headstrong ignoramus; the IPT report on Mohammed is not about religious background but political activities.

(3) Contrarily, Christie won the hearty endorsement today of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose New Jersey branch issued a statement thanking him, applauding him, and urging a note of gratitude be sent him via the "Contact Us" page at the governor's website.

(4) Not a bad idea to contact Christie: if you live in New Jersey and wish to register your displeasure, go to http://www.state.nj.us/governor/contact/.

(5) Although still a small issue, Shari'a has grown very fast since 9/11 as a concern to Americans and should continue to do so for many years and decades to come.

(6) Conceivably, Christie could apologize for these remarks and undo much of the damage he's done himself. But, given his public persona, I doubt this will happen.

(7) Therefore, I predict that Christie's unremitting Grover Norquist-like friendly attitude toward Islamists will turn conservatives against him and sink his possible candidacy of his for higher office. (August 5, 2011)

Aug. 6, 2011 update: For a substantial reply to Christie's rant, answering him point by point, see the excellent 2,500-word analysis by Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute. Excerpts from his article, "Christie's 'Crazies': Sharia is not a figment of our imagination":

sharia concerns can't be dismissed as "crap." They help us sort out the pro-American Muslims we want to empower from the Islamists. When we dismiss these concerns, we end up building bridges to all the wrong people, as government has done, to its repeated embarrassment, for two decades. That is how we end up "partnering" with the likes of Abdurrahman Alamoudi and Sami al-Arian (both ultimately convicted, with their ties to terrorism duly exposed); Salam al-Marayati, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee leader who argued that Israel should be at the top of the 9/11 suspect list; and such Islamist organizations as CAIR and the Islamic Society of North America, which, though not indicted, were shown by the Justice Department to be co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing case.

Governor Christie would have you believe opposition to Mr. Mohammed was sheer bigotry: "It's just unnecessary to be accusing this guy of things just because of his religious background," he railed to reporters. It's a narrative Christie fans would like to help cement. It's not true. For the record, Sohail Mohammed is not just an attorney. He served as a board member for an Islamist organization, the American Muslim Union.

McCarthy concludes:

The questions about Governor Christie's appointment of Sohail Mohammed and his exertions on behalf of Mohammed's client, Mohammed Qatanani, have nothing to do with either sharia or the all-purpose smear of Islamophobia. They are about the governor's judgment. They are about a U.S. attorney with political ambitions pandering to a politically active constituency at the expense of national security and enforcement of the immigration laws. They are about his decision to award a state judgeship to an attorney who was an active and vocal board member of a very troubling Islamist organization — and who has a penchant for presuming that perfectly valid anti-terror prosecutions are, instead, anti-Muslim persecutions. Those questions are not answered by bluster.

Daniel Pipes

Source: http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2011/08/why-chris-christie-will-never-be-president

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Pakistan's Spy Game in the U.S.

by Anna Mahjar-Barducci

Relations between U.S. and Pakistan grow more and more tense. In July, the FBI arrested Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, a Kashmiri-born activist accused of participating as an agent for the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in secret lobbying efforts inside the U.S.. Fai, an American citizen living in Fairfax (Virginia), was born in the Indian-administrated Kashmir to a Muslim family, and moved to the U.S. to complete his PhD in mass communication in 1977. Along the years, he became a known Kashmiri separatist leader, allegedly advocating Pakistan's position. Kashmir is a region claimed by both Pakistan and India since it was partitioned in 1947. After his arrest on July 19, Fai was released on a $100,000 bond and is now in house detention, under electronic surveillance, pending trial. He faces up to five years in prison should the court decide to convict him.

In 1990, Fai founded a non-profit organization, the Kashmiri American Council (KAC), at the moment when Pakistan and India were at the verge of a war over Kashmir. He was charged along with Zaheer Ahmad, his American-Pakistani associate (who was not arrested and is believed to be in Pakistan), for obtaining illegal funding for KAC from Pakistan. The United States Attorney at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Neil Macbride, said that Fai is accused of a "decades-long scheme with one purpose: to hide Pakistan's involvement behind his efforts to influence the U.S. government's position on Kashmir. His handlers in Pakistan allegedly funneled millions through the Kashmir Center to contribute to U.S. elected officials, fund high-profile conferences, and pay for other efforts that promoted the Kashmiri cause to decision makers in Washington."

FBI: KAC is run by elements of the Pakistani Government

The U.S.-based Indian newspaper, India West, reports that according to the 46-page FBI complaint, Fai was arrested for lobbying for a foreign government without registering with the Attorney General, as is required by the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act. The BBC reports that KAC received since it founding $4 million from the Pakistani government to influence the US position on the disputed territory of Kashmir. The Federal Election Commission reports that Fai provided almost $24,000 in personal contributions. According to the indictment, the Pakistani government paid the Kashmiri militant approximately $500,000 to $700,000 per year.

The Times of India, reports that the Fai/Kashmir/ISI/Pakistan case was investigated by the FBI's counterterrorism division. The "star of the FBI probe" is Special Agent Sarah Webb Linden, who is trained in "identifying terrorist activity directed at the US, as well as in identifying the support network for terrorists who seek to target the interests of the US and its allies."

In the FBI affidavit, Special Agent Linden, who was as well a professional staff member of the 9/11 commission, says the KAC is "run by elements of the Government of Pakistan." This investigation, she adds, "has revealed that elements of the Govt. of Pakistan, including the ISI, have been directly involved with activities of defendant Fai and that Fai has acted at the direction and with the financial support of those elements...including the ISI."

India West reports that FBI Special Agent Sarah Webb Linden stated in the complaint that Fai "had worked with Javeed Aziz Khan, who lists his employer as Pakistan's Ministry of Defense, to create a strategy and budget each year for the lobbyist's activities. Khan and Fai used the code word 'Brylcreem' – a hair-styling product - to represent $10,000 […]. 'Half a dozen Brylcreems,' thus meant a request for $60,000, according to court documents".

Pakistani government: Washington's "slander campaign" against Islamabad

The Pakistani government said that the arrest Fai is part of Washington's "slander campaign" against Islamabad. On the side, the U.S. Department of Justice says that in 2010 it sent a letter to Fai asking to register as foreign lobbyist. Fai answered that "KAC or I [sic] have never engaged in any activities or provided any service to any foreign entity. And KAC or I have never had written or oral agreements with Pakistan or any foreign entity. Therefore, this report categorically denies any connection to any foreign agent including Pakistan." However, as reported by India West, Fai's contributions to politicians through the KAC could not be all tracked, "since he was not registered as a lobbyist.".

For sure, Fai's arrest is not helping Pakistan's relations with the U.S. Some analysts are suggesting that the indictment is coming at a moment when Washington is getting tired of the ISI's double games in the war on terror.Fai's arrest has therefore been seen as Washington's payback for the ISI's behavior in putting obstacles in the way of the American policy in botj Pakistan and Afghanistan. According to the website Kashmir News Live, however, the FBI wanted to arrest Fai several times earlier this year but did not do so "following directions from the US State Department or the CIA as they feared it may further strain already frayed ties with Pakistan." The newspaper Asia Times suggests that after the latest attack on Mumbai in July, Washington is getting more frustrated, and Fai's arrest can be seen as a new Washington's "carrot and stick" approach towards the ISI. "It is however difficult," notes the Asia Times, "to estimate how far the carrot and stick approach deployed by the US will succeed in changing the hearts and minds inside Pakistan or the ISI."

Anna Mahjar-Barducci

Source: http://www.hudson-ny.org/2325/pakistan-spy-game

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The Muslim Brotherhood-Salafi Alliance

by Khaled Abu Toameh

As the world focuses its attention on the trial of ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, extremist Islamic groups are working toward turning Egypt into an Islamic Republic.

If the Egyptian authorities do not move quickly to crush the extremists and regain control, the Sinai Peninsula could soon become a separate Islamic emirate run by Salafis, Hamas and Al-Qaeda.

The Facebook folks who triggered the anti-Mubarak revolution have been replaced by Salafis and Muslim Brotherhood supporters.

The young, liberal, secular and reform-minded youths who led the revolution against the Mubarak regime have failed to win the backing of many Egyptians, who clearly have more sympathy toward the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis.

Last week hundreds of thousands of supporters of a number of radical Islamic groups gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square in the biggest show of force since Mubarak stepped down earlier this year.

The demonstrators were supporters of the extremist Salafi group, which is calling for an Islamic state with Sharia law. The group has also established a party called Al-Nour, or "The Light," to contest the next elections in Egypt.

Aware of the possibility that the Muslim Brotherhood or the Salafis would win, the Egyptian government has yet to set a date for new elections. But the government knows that it will not be able to postpone the elections for too long and will eventually be forced to succumb to the demands of the extremists.

The Salafis have become a major player in the Egyptian arena since the downfall of the Mubarak regime. Their supporters have been accused of targeting Churches and Christians, as well as secular, liberal-minded Egyptians.

What is most worrying, however, is the fact that the Salafis and their erstwhile rivals, the Muslim Brotherhood, have joined forces in a bid to form a united front against the secular movements in Egypt.

These two radical groups are now cooperating in the fight against a bill of constitutional principles that the ruling military council is planning to introduce ahead of the upcoming parliamentary election. The Islamic groups are opposed to the bill because it gives the armed forces the authority to play a political role in Egypt.

The differences between the Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood are not as significant as some Western experts on Islam have suggested. The Salafis' have always been unhappy with what they see as the Muslim Brotherhood's focus on politics rather than religion. The Muslim Brotherhood, for its part, has always maintained that the Salafis are obsessed with religious matters and fatwas, while displaying indifference to the government.

At the end of the day both parties want to see an Islamic regime in Egypt – one where democracy, moderation and pragmatism are non-existent.

Almost at the same time that the Salafis were demonstrating in Cairo, Muslim extremists attacked police stations and a gas pipe in Sinai, killing and wounding a number of Egyptian security officers.

Egypt's ruling military council has thus far been reluctant to confront the Islamic fundamentalist groups. Instead, Egyptian authorities are busy chasing journalists, human rights activists and peaceful demonstrators who are demanding reform and democracy.

Tahrir Square has already been occupied by the Islamic extremists.

It is only a matter of time before Egypt turns into an Islamic Republic that is aligned with Iran, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Khaled Abu Toameh

Source: http://www.hudson-ny.org/2330/egypt-islamic-republic

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

China: Pakistan’s True Ally

by Stephen Brown

While it blatantly betrayed America for almost a decade regarding Osama bin Laden, recent terrorist attacks by Islamists in western China reveal who Pakistan views as its true ally.

In the middle of July, “an organised terrorist attack” on a police station in western China’s restive, Muslim-majority Xinjiang region left 14 people dead. About 18 Uighurs, carrying a flag with the Arab words for “Holy War” written on it, were blamed for the deadly assault.

The Uighurs are a Muslim Turkic people, native to the region and numbering about ten million out of a population of about 22 million. Some want independence from China and have angrily opposed the influx of Han Chinese immigrants. Simmering tensions between the two ethnics groups exploded in violence in 2009 that saw about 200 people killed.

Last weekend, China experienced two more terrorist attacks in Xinjiang that left 19 dead, including five terrorists. On Saturday, an hour after two bombs exploded, a truck hijacked by two Islamic terrorists slammed into a group of people, after which they got out and stabbed innocent bystanders, causing eight deaths. The following day, after burning down a restaurant, a larger group of Uighur terrorists began to randomly stab passers-by, killing several.

Unlike with other terrorist attacks worldwide with connections to Pakistan, the Pakistani intelligence agency, the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), reacted immediately to last weekend’s Chinese incidents. That’s because a captured Uighur terrorist confessed the leaders of Sunday’s Islamist attackers had received training in Pakistan in camps of the banned extremist East Turkistan Islamic Movement. So in contrast to its stonewalling behaviour regarding bin Laden, the ISI sent straightway Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the agency’s director general, to Beijing. The Pakistani government also stated it was extending its “full support” to China on this matter.

“We cannot allow Pakistani territory to be used for any activities against any neighbour, especially a close ally like China,” said the chairman of the Pakistan-China Institute. “There are strong ties between China and Pakistan, and we are cooperating closely on this issue.”

It’s unfortunate, however, that America does not get the same consideration and “full support,” especially when it comes to jihadists using Pakistani soil to launch attacks against NATO and Afghan troops in neighbouring Afghanistan.

“The United States rarely gets that level of cooperation when it presses Pakistan on militants operating in its border regions,” wrote one analyst.

No kidding. Despite paying Pakistan $1 billion in aid annually for the last ten years to battle the terrorist groups operating on its soil, America still cannot persuade the Pakistani military to invade North Waziristan where the most hard-line Islamist organizations are located. Moreover, the Pakistanis have always prohibited the American military from going in there and doing the job itself.

The main reason for Pakistan’s preferential treatment of China over America is that the Pakistan military has always regarded India as its primary enemy rather than the Islamic terrorists on its territory. This attitude was evident only days after 9/11, when then-Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf​, said in a speech on television: “We are trying our very best to come out of this critical situation without any damage to them [Pakistan and the Taliban].” Musharraf never condemned either terrorist organization in his address.

Musharraf, who set the lackadaisical Pakistani policy in the War on Terror until he was replaced in 2008, was never a staunch ally of the United States, as the media portrayed him after he resigned in 2008. Unlike America and her allies, he never regarded the Taliban and al-Qaeda as enemies of civilization that had to be destroyed, but rather as tools to be used in Pakistan’s showdown with arch-enemy India, with whom it has fought three wars. In her book Pakistan: In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan, Mary Anne Weaver wrote Musharraf, whom she interviewed, spent his entire adult life “battling India.”

Many in Pakistan’s military also shared Musharraf’s view regarding India as their country’s main enemy – and still do. They have always envisioned using the jihadists in Pakistan’s tribal territories directly against the Hindu foe in the next war as well as in Afghanistan to expand their influence there. Pakistan had used Islamic fighters from its tribal regions in its 1947 war against India when, led by Pakistani army officers, they almost conquered Kashmir. For this reason, Pakistani authorities are only battling those jihadists, like the Pakistani Taliban, who are threatening the Pakistani state and leaving those who fight against NATO in Afghanstan, like the Haqqani organization in North Waziristan, in peace.

But to confront India’s military superiority, Pakistan requires more than just irregular tribal fighters; it needs China’s help. China, which has also fought one war in 1961 against India, has responded, seeing in India its biggest and most dangerous rival in Asia. The Chinese are currently Pakistan’s biggest weapons supplier and have invested tens of millions of dollars in its ally. One of those investments was the Karakoram highway, the highest paved road in the world, which connects the two countries. A large free trade deal also came into effect between China and Pakistan in 2007. China currently also has “several hundred” military engineers working in Pakistani Kashmir.

So it is no surprise that China was the first country the Pakistani leaders ran to after they were discovered harbouring bin Laden. In mid-May, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousef Gilani went to Beijing “to show it has another major power to turn to,” since relations were souring with the United States. While there, Gilani was promised “an urgent delivery” of 50 advanced Chinese fighters.

But this week is not the first time Pakistan has responded with unaccustomed speed to a terrorist incident involving China. The government attack in 2007 on the extremist Red Mosque in Islamabad, located only 400 meters from Musharraf’s offices, which resulted in the deaths of 80 people, was most likely also owed to Chinese influence.

While the world media praised Musharraf for cracking down on the extremist mosque, he had done nothing for years to shut down this “ideological heartland” of the Taliban until mosque Islamists kidnapped several Chinese women. The mosque’s sharia court intended to put them on trial as prostitutes. The Chinese government, apparently, was not amused and conveyed its unhappiness to Musharraf. Interestingly, three Chinese nationals, and no other foreigners, were murdered in Pakistan’s tribal territories in response to the Red Mosque attack.

The recent terrorist attacks in China may also be an attempt by the jihadists battling the Pakistani state to undermine its alliance with China. Since Pakistan cannot afford to harbour a too-strong extremist movement, as that would alienate its main ally, it will definitely move to eliminate the training camps of the Uighur Islamists.

But that is all. No Pakistani military steamroller will cross North Waziristan, ending the terrorist threat to the world once and for all. America has turned the money supply to Pakistan back on, and nothing has yet come of President Obama​’s promise to investigate whether anyone in Pakistan had anything to do with protecting bin Laden. And no one is questioning whether America should withdraw financial support, or at least arms transfers, to Pakistan, since it is getting closer to China.

So with things back to normal, why would the Pakistani military destroy completely the jihadists who are bringing in so much American money? Such exertions, after all, are only made for Pakistan’s true ally.

Stephen Brown

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/08/05/china-pakistan%E2%80%99s-true-ally/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Qaddafi Claims Alliance With Islamists

by Ryan Mauro

Muammar Qaddafi​’s son, Seif al-Islam, has announced that the regime has struck a deal with its Islamist opposition to turn Libya into a Sharia state and crush the secular rebels. This comes as the top rebel commander, Abdel Fateh Younes, was murdered, possibly by Islamists. The Islamist opposition, however, says Qaddafi is just trying to divide the rebels. Libya is now facing a civil war between a dictator who seeks Islamist support, and rebels with Islamists among them.

Seif al-Islam claims that a joint statement between the regime and its new Islamist friends will soon be released. He said that the agreement was reached when the regime agreed to make Sharia the law of the land. The rebel city of Darna will become “like Mecca” and has already become “Waziristan on the Mediterranean.” After winning the war, he said that “Libya will look like Saudi Arabia, like Iran.” As for the secular rebels, “The liberals will escape or be killed…We will do it together.”

The announcement comes on the heels of the assassination of the top rebel commander, Abdel Fateh Younes. A minister with the opposition’s National Transitional Council claims that a rebel-allied Islamist militia called the Obaida Ibn Jarrah Brigade was responsible. However, others suspect that the Katiba Yussef Shakir militia was behind the murder. The group recently attacked a prison in Benghazi and freed 300 inmates that were on the side of the regime. The rebels have since battled the militia, accusing it of being a “fifth column” that infiltrated their ranks on behalf of Qaddafi.

The Islamist identified by Seif al-Islam as the regime’s new ally, Ali Sallabi, says the regime is lying. He says he supports a civil constitution, and is committed to overthrowing Qaddafi. Indeed, the Islamists have invested their hopes in the rebel cause. The Muslim Brotherhood​ is active in rebel-controlled Libya now, and Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi has issued a fatwa permitting the killing of Qaddafi. Al-Qaeda is against Qaddafi, and members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group are in the fight. There are also indications that Hezbollah is helping the rebels, but the terrorist group denies this claim.

If it is true that Qaddafi has mended ties with some of the Islamists by offering to make the country a Sharia state, it wouldn’t be surprising. The regime orchestrated numerous terrorist attacks in the 1980s, such as the 1986 disco bombing in Germany and the Lockerbie bombing of 1988. In 2003, Qaddafi used an American member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Abdurahman Alamoudi​, to reach out to Al-Qaeda. He was used to pay the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia $1 million to kill then-Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia​ following a public spat. The plot was foiled before the attack took place. In recent years, the regime tried to bury the hatchet with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, saying it wanted to “end a tragic period.”

In 2008, one of Qaddafi’s sons, Hannibal, said, “If I had an atom bomb, I would wipe Switzerland off the map” after Swiss authorities arrested him for assault. Qaddafi then used the Swiss ban on mosque minarets to declare jihad “by all means.” “Those who destroy God’s mosques deserve to be attacked through jihad and if Switzerland was on our borders, we would fight it,” he said. Qaddafi later said he was only asking for non-violent retaliation. That same year, Iraqi officials stated that Seif al-Islam was sending suicide bombers to their country.

In February 2010, Qaddafi gave a pro-terrorism speech, saying, “They [the West] want to prevent Muslims from undertaking jihad which means ‘struggle’ by calling it terrorism.” He justified attacks on Israel and violence to “defend” Muslim land from occupation. “We will not abandon jihad because it is Islamic duty,” he vowed. Since the civil war in Libya began, Qaddafi said he’d wage jihad alongside Al-Qaeda, and warned the days would return “where we bomb our cars or put explosive belts around our beds and around our women.”

It is still difficult to see the Islamist opposition switching sides and fighting on behalf of Qaddafi, given the atrocities of the regime and the fact that the rebels are still the most likely victor. Seif al-Islam may very well be simply trying to scare the West, and to divide the ranks of the regime’s enemies. After all, a clash within the opposition is inevitable. On the one hand, the vice chairman of the National Transitional Council flatly states, “There is no place for an Islamic state in Libya.” On the other, some rebel commanders like Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi have waged jihad and fought the U.S. in Iraq. He said that “members of Al-Qaeda are good Muslims and are fighting against the invader.”

On Sharia law, al-Hasidi said, “No Islamist revolution has ever succeeded. Only when the whole population was included, did we succeed and that means a more inclusive ideology.” That does not mean that he is against Sharia-based governance, but that he views democracy as a means to attaining a popularly-supported Sharia state. In any case, there cannot be a long-term reconciliation between the goals of the Islamists and the rebel leadership. A break is inevitable, and Qaddafi is likely trying to make it happen as soon as possible.

The Islamists suddenly find themselves in a strong position. If the rebels win, then they can become a part of the new Libyan government. If Qaddafi wins, he will seek their support to stabilize his rule and hunt down his liberal opponents. It’s a good time to be an Islamist in Libya.

Ryan Mauro

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/08/05/qaddafi-claims-alliance-with-islamists/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Mixed Response in Iran

by Ali Alfoneh

It is too early to tell whether the revolutions sweeping across the Arab world will prove the long awaited "third wave of democratization" or will merely substitute Islamist totalitarianism for the existing secular, authoritarian regimes. It is clear, however, that no regional regime is immune to their impact, not even the self-proclaimed vanguard of permanent world revolutions, the Islamist regime in Tehran.

Perceptions in Iran of the nature of the "Arab Spring" vary. While describing it as an "Islamic awakening" inspired by Iran's 1979 revolution, the clerics have not failed to indicate their determination to suppress future dissent and to rebuff any foreign intervention. By contrast, despite tracing the Arab revolts to Iran's June 12, 2009 presidential elections, the opposition has thus far refrained from publicly challenging the regime though more radical forms of resistance may be brewing beneath the surface. Thus, the winds of change have apparently radicalized both rival sides.

People Power Is Good for Some Arabs …

Both regime and opposition responses to the Arab upheavals have varied from case to case, but there has been a clear consistency in the opposition's moral support for all pro-democracy movements whereas the regime has endorsed "people power" only in countries allied with the United States but not in those aligned with Tehran, such as Syria. There was also a great deal of caution in both the regime's and the opposition leadership's responses during the first phase of the uprisings though ordinary opposition members found quick inspiration for their cause as the events unfolded in the region.

Public protests against Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali broke out on December 17, 2010, and by January 15, 2011, the Saudi government announced that it was hosting the former Tunisian president and his family for an unspecified period of time.[1] The first official Iranian coverage of the Tunisian events appeared on the Islamic Republic's Arabic language al-Alam TV on December 28, eleven days after the protests had begun.[2] The first newspaper editorial on Tunisia appeared in the January 4 edition of Iran, more than three weeks after the beginning of the Tunisian uprising.[3] On January 16, the day after Ben Ali's arrival in the Saudi capital, Ali Larijani, speaker of parliament, made the first official comment on the situation, accusing the United States and the West more generally of being "behind repression and pressures imposed on the people of Tunisia under the rule of its former president."[4] Surprisingly, the otherwise opinionated President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made no comment on Tunisia before January 19[5] while Supreme Leader Ali Khamene'i made his position known on February 4. Addressing the people of Tunisia and Egypt in Arabic after delivering the Friday prayer sermon in Tehran, Khamene'i portrayed himself as "your brother in religion," described President Husni Mubarak as a "traitor dictator," and said that the events in Tunisia and Egypt were "natural extensions of Iran's Islamic revolution in 1979."[6]

The Islamic Republic's official responses to the Egyptian revolution were swifter than in the Tunisian case. The first protests in Egypt started on January 25, 2011, and on February 11—the anniversary of Iran's 1979 revolution—Mubarak resigned his post and handed over power to the Supreme Military Council.[7] Again, Larijani was the first official to refer to the situation, toward the end of January[8]—two weeks after the protests had begun but well before Mubarak stepped down. Khamene'i's statement of February 4, which also preceded Mubarak's resignation,[9] shows that the Islamic Republic had an easier time taking a position on Egypt. A few hours before Mubarak announced his resignation, Ahmadinejad, addressing the crowds on the occasion of the anniversary of the 1979 revolution, claimed ownership of the revolutionary movements in the entire region.[10]

Yet from Tehran's point of view, people power is good for some Arabs but not all Arabs. Though there was little love lost between the Islamist regime and those in power in Libya and Yemen, Ramin Mehmanparast, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, condemned NATO's airstrikes, which aimed at defending the very same people to whom Tehran had extended its rhetorical support, catching the regime in a bit of a contradiction.[11] As for Damascus, it was completely exempted from the regime's rhetorical support for people power as there were no commentaries and very little press coverage of the Syrian protests, which began on January 26.[12] Instead of supporting the protesters, Larijani met Syrian prime minister Muhammad Naji Otri on March 10 to discuss the regional developments.[13]

Though Bahrain, with its majority Shiite population, had long been claimed by Tehran as its own, official Iranian responses to the crisis in the emirate were generally more cautious than the regime's reactions to the Egyptian and Libyan crises, with Washington—rather than Riyadh, which had sent troops to suppress the protests—being accused of a "violent crackdown of the popular uprisings."

Official Iranian responses to the crisis in Bahrain came fast but were generally more cautious than reactions to the Egyptian and Libyan crises though some Iranian authorities have claimed the tiny Persian Gulf emirate, with its majority Shiite population, as Iranian territory. Kayhan editor Hossein Shariatmadari, Khamenei's unofficial spokesman, has on several occasions described Ahmadinejad's trip to Bahrain as "a provincial trip."[14] The Bahraini opposition declared February 14 an anti-government "Day of Rage," and by March 16, the Bahraini security forces, supported by Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) units, had succeeded in suppressing the opposition.[15]

The first Iranian editorial on Bahrain appeared in the February 16 issue of Quds, which stressed the need for reforms in the emirate.[16] Stepping up the criticism, on February 17, an unidentified source at the Iranian Foreign Ministry described, in an interview on the English language Press TV, the developments in Bahrain as an "internal affair" but called on Manama to "exercise restraint."[17] On February 19, Amir Abdollahian, the Foreign Ministry's director-general for the Persian Gulf and Middle East, stressed that "the demands of Bahraini people can be achieved by democratic and peaceful means; it is regretful to see that the police have resorted to violence in that country."[18] Again, Larijani took the official lead by accusing Washington of complicity in a "violent crackdown of popular uprisings" in Bahrain while addressing the parliament on February 20, 2011.[19] He was followed three days later by 191 Iranian parliamentarians who issued a statement condemning the "merciless massacre of Muslim people in Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and Morocco."[20] On February 27, 2011, Hassan Firouzabadi, chief of the General Staff, attacked the United States as well, calling it "the flag-bearer of neo-racism."[21] Khamene'i, however, did not comment on Bahrain before his March 21 New Year address.[22]

… But Bad for Iranians

The Islamic Republic may, at least rhetorically, support the idea of people power for the Tunisians, Egyptians, the Bahrainis, and the Yemenis, but Iranians apparently belong to the same category as the Syrians for whom people power is bad.

On February 6, Mehdi Karrubi and Mir-Hossein Mousavi in a joint letter asked the Interior Ministry for a permit to demonstrate "in solidarity with popular movements of the region, especially the liberation seeking revolts of the people of Tunisia and Egypt."[23] Not surprisingly, the permit was denied, and the two opposition leaders, together with former president Mohammed Khatami, were put under house arrest.[24] As the state-controlled media pounded the opposition movement as "seditionists," Basij militia chief Mohammed-Reza Naghdi warned that the "Western spy agencies are trying to find a mentally degenerate person [to] self-immolate in Tehran so they can liken this with the beginning of the events in Tunisia and Egypt."[25]

Ignoring the demonstration ban, the opposition rallied on February 14 and March 1 with slogans connecting the fate of the Tunisian and Egyptian dictators with Supreme Leader Khamene'i: "Mubarak, Ben Ali, it is now the turn of Seyyed Ali [Khamene'i],"[26] "Khamene'i, Mubarak, congratulations with your marriage!"[27] and "Those in Iran with motorcycles or those in Cairo with camels, death to the dictator."[28]

Although limited to the major population centers and incapable of mobilizing the millions who had joined the protest movement in the immediate aftermath of the 2009 elections, the anti-regime demonstrations unmasked the duplicity and double standards of the Islamist regime: People power is good for some Arabs but not for Iranians.

Lessons Learned

The regime has concluded that it must decisively suppress dissent to prevent it from snowballing into a major crisis yet seems neither willing nor capable of liberalizing the political system once the crisis is over. Khamene'i's March 21 speech in Mashhad derided the opposition forces in Iran as "[Western] agents, weak, ghoulish individuals who are prisoners of their egos."[29] Such words leave little room for mutual accommodation.

The regime's analysis of the Libyan experience has also strengthened its resolve to pursue its nuclear goals as well as its intent to shape regional developments according to its worldview. In his address, Khamene'i specifically referred to Libya's cooperation with the West, which he believed had led to Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi's problems: "In recent years, he did a great service to the West, which realized that a very simple threat drove this gentleman to dismantle his nuclear capabilities." Khamene'i continued:

Take a look at the position of our nation and the position [the Libyan regime] finds itself in. Our nation witnessed a U.S.-led offensive against Iran's nuclear quest, making military threats, pledging an attack, and what not. The Iranian authorities not only did not retreat when confronted by the enemy, but every year they increased their nuclear capabilities. Over there [in Libya], the people saw that the regime, in the face of Western threats, or Western incentives as they call it, gave the orders to dismantle its nuclear capabilities. Like putting a sour lollypop or chocolate into a child's mouth, they gave them incentives, and they lost everything forever! Well, the nation sees this, its heart bleeds, and its pride is wounded. This can be seen in all the countries in which the people revolted.[30]

Such statements do not provide much hope for a peaceful solution to curbing the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions. Khamene'i also indirectly warned Washington's allies of U.S. perfidy:

These countries [the United States and its allies] have always supported the dictators. They supported Husni Mubarak to the last possible moment, but upon realizing that he could no longer be saved, threw him away! Let this be a lesson to the heads of state dependent on the United States. When they are no longer useful, it will throw them away just like a piece of old cloth and will ignore them![31]

The opposition, however, may also have learned at least one lesson: the need for a division of labor, or even a split, between such reformists on the one hand as Mousavi, Karrubi, and Khatami, who against all wisdom continue to call for reforming the system, and on the other hand, a clandestine, radical opposition, which no longer believes the regime is capable of self-reform and, therefore, might pursue revolutionary goals.

Conclusion

The winds of change sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa have indeed reached the shores of Iran though at no point did the 2011 anti-government demonstrations threaten the regime's survival. Better geared to suppressing internal dissent than other regional dictatorships, the clerics probably have better prospects of weathering the current crisis, but as long as they are unwilling or incapable of liberalizing the political system, increased repression may result in the surfacing of more radical opposition movements inside Iran.

[1] Al-Jazeera TV (Doha), Jan. 23, 2011.
[2] BBC Monitoring (London), Dec. 28, 2010.
[3] Ibid., Jan. 4, 2011.
[4] Ibid., Jan. 16, 2011.
[5] Ibid., Jan. 19, 2011.
[6] Ibid., Feb. 4, 2011.
[7] Al-Jazeera TV, Feb. 14, 2011.
[8] The New York Times, Jan. 29, 2011.
[9] The Christian Science Monitor (Boston), Feb. 4, 2011.
[10] Ibid., Feb. 11, 2011.
[11] Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting World Service (Tehran), Mar. 21, 2011.
[12] Reuters, Mar. 30, 2011.
[13] BBC Monitoring, Mar. 10, 2011.
[14] Asr-e Iran (Tehran), Nov. 20, 2008.
[15] Reuters, Mar. 16, 2011.
[16] BBC Monitoring, Feb. 16, 2011.
[17] Ibid., Feb. 18, 2011.
[18] Ibid., Feb. 19, 2011.
[19] Ibid., Feb. 20, 2011.
[20] Ibid., Feb. 23, 2011.
[21] Ibid., Feb. 27, 2011.
[22] "Payam-e Nowrouzi-ye 1390," Office of the Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khamene'i (Tehran) Mar. 21, 2011.
[23] Rah-e Sabz (Tehran), Feb. 6, 2011.
[24] Bloomberg News (New York), Feb. 28, 2011.
[25] Asr-e Iran, Feb. 13, 2011.
[26] "Mubarak, Ben Ali. Now It's Time for Seyyed Ali," YouTube, Mar. 1, 2011.
[27] Iran Press Service (London), Feb. 14, 2011.
[28] Ibid., Feb. 14, 2011.
[29] "Bayanat Dar Haram-e Mottahar-e Razavi Dar Aghaaz-e Sal," The Office of the Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khamene'i, Mar. 21, 2011.
[30] Ibid.
[31] Ibid.

Ali Alfoneh is resident fellow at American Enterprise Institute.

Source: http://www.meforum.org/3006/mixed-response-in-iran

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.