Iran Must Be Stopped

by John Bolton

Recent advances in Iran’s nuclear weapons program show that events are moving extraordinarily swiftly, as Tehran nears the end of its decades-long quest to possess a lethal WMD capability. One thing is certain: If Iran succeeds, the Middle East – and the world – will be far more dangerous and unstable, with substantially increased prospects for further nuclear proliferation. That is why we are facing difficult, risky, and uncertain decisions.

Iran has pursued nuclear weapons since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 overthrew the shah, replacing the monarchy with an authoritarian, theocratic regime.

The mullahs placed the nuclear program (camouflaged as a “civil nuclear power” project) under the increasingly powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a force independent of lran’s regular army, devoted passionately to preserving the revolution.

Iran today is the world’s central banker for internation­al terrorism. It funds and arms terrorist groups worldwide, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Shia terrorists in Iraq, and the Sunni Taliban and other radical in Afghanistan.

In February, President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified that Iran even had a “shotgun marriage, or marriage of convenience” with al­ Qaida.

Given Iran’s global sponsorship of terrorism, a nuclear Iran could easily deliver nuclear weapons via ballistic missiles (which it has developed in cooperated with North Korea) and by providing them to terrorists for use around the world.

Iran’s objectives in seeking nuclear weapons are clear.

First, Tehran prizes them as the ultimate trump card against Israel (the “little Satan” in the words of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the 1979 Revolution) and the United States (the “great Satan”). President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” and he has speculated about “a world without the United States” or Israel.

Given these plainly stated intentions, if Iran were to achieve the capability to launch what former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called a “nuclear Holocaust,” only the hopelessly naive would not see Iran as an existential threat to Israel, and as a grave terrorist menace to America. For the United States, Iran would not be a serious military risk, but it would constitute a classic example of an asymmetric threat, aimed at our innocent civilians rather than military targets.

Second, nuclear weapons would give Iran a firm foundation for Middle East hegemony, and would make it a significant global power. In the centuries-old regional struggle between Persians, Arabs, and other ethnic groups, these weapons would dramatically shift the local balance of power. The threat posed by a nuclear Iran would permit it to dominate the small Arab monarchies across the Persian Gulf, increase its already significant presence, malign influence over Iraq, and challenge Saudi Arabia for dominance throughout the entire theater. Iran’s reach would be not only political, but also economic, as its clout grew dramatically within OPEC, with potentially enormous consequences for the international price of petroleum and the West’s economy.

Third, nuclear weapons would provide Iran and its Shiite faith an enormous advantage in the struggle against Sunni Muslims for dominance within Islam. This battle is currently being fought out in Syria, where Iran’s support for the Assad family dictatorship constitutes a proxy war against the Sunni majority. In Bahrain, a small island off Saudi Arabia’s coast (and once a province of an earlier Iranian empire), the Sunni Arab king rules a population that is 70 percent Shiite. There, “democratic” reform could well bring a pro-Tehran regime to power.

Already, even before Iran acquires nuclear weapons, the Obama Justice Department has indicted IRGC officials for conspiring to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington; one can imagine what Iran’s behavior will be once it crosses the nuclear finish line.

For these reasons, Saudi Arabia and the other oil-exporting nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council do not want Iran to have nuclear weapons any more than Israel does.

Many Westerners, whether or not intending to act as propagandists for Iran, downplay the threat, contending Iran would never actually use nuclear weapons. Some argue that Iran seeks nuclear capabilities purely for defensive purposes, given America’s massive atomic arsenal, and the nuclear assets of dangerous neighbors like Israel and Pakistan.

Of course, Iran itself, by joining the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), committed to eschew nuclear weapons – one of those ‘solemn treaty obligations” rogue states violate casually and with impunity.

But even more importantly, Iran does not actually need to use nuclear weapons to change the balance of power in the Middle. East (and globally) in profound way’s.

Consider, for example, how Europe would have responded in the 1990s to the breakup of Yugoslavia, if President Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbia had possessed nuclear weapons. Merely holding such a capability gives Iran an advantage its aggressive use of terrorism and powerful conventional forces along cannot provide.

Faced with dangerous consequences of a nuclear Iran, the United States and others have tried for decades to prevent it. Nonetheless, despite rhetoric, diplomacy, and economic sanctions, Iran has .made steady progress. Tehran is now at the point where even Leon Panetta, Obama’s secretary of defense, said in January that Iran could fabricate a nuclear weapon “within about a year.”

Many analysts believe it could come sooner.

Why have we allowed Iran to come so close to its goal? Successive U.S. presidents – Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and now Obama have repeatedly put their faith in diplomacy to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

Obama said in his inaugural address, “we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” But this has always been delusional. Iran was never going to be talked out of its nuclear program, no matter how many carrots were placed before it.

Iran understood that Russia and China were fully prepared to fly political cover for it in the U.N. Security Council and elsewhere, and that it could play “the Israel card” by arguing its nuclear weapons were purely defensive, a favorite line of Iran’s Western friends.

Of course, it is more than ironic that these Westerners are justifying a “defensive” nuclear weapons program that Iran has repeatedly denied it even has.

During George W. Bush’s administration, Britain, France, and Germany repeatedly tried to persuade Iran to give up its uranium-enrichment efforts (a key element in the nuclear fuel cycle, and the route to nuclear weapons through highly-enriched uranium). Iran simply used the lengthy negotiation process to overcome the scientific and technological obstacles it faced.

In 2006, Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s former nuclear negotiator, disdain­ fully and publicly declared: “While we were talking to the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in parts of the [uranium conversion] facility, but we still had a long way to go to complete the project.

“In fact, by creating a calm environment, we were able to complete the work at Isfahan.”

Iran’s successful strategy of deception shows that negotiations have costs as well as benefits. Europe and the United States – which continuously supported and encouraged Europe’s diplomacy failed to recognize this.

Iran gained both time and legitimacy, and made progress toward obtaining nuclear weapons. In return, the West gained nothing.

By 2006, faced with the potentially catastrophic failure of these negotiations, the Europeans and the United States turned to the U.N. Security Council to adopt economic sanctions against Iran. Russia, China, and other council members, however, watered down the sanctions, rendering them weak. To be effective, sanctions must be comprehensive and swiftly applied and vigorously enforced, none of which has been true to date of the penal­ ties against Iran.

Even oil sanctions recently adopted by the Europeans, and financial- institution sanctions forced on the Obama ad- ministration by Congress, are filled with loopholes, exemptions, and waiver provisions. Many key countries with important oil and other business dealings with Iran, such as China, India, and Turkey, have essentially said they will simply ignore any sanctions not imposed by the Security Council.

Clapper testified to the Senate in January that “The sanctions as imposed so far have not caused [the Iranians] to change their behavior or their policy.” Accordingly, all the spin and hype about the impact of sanctions to date has been just that, with­ out any substance whatever.

Even now, the goal of Obama’s sanctions policy is simply to get Iran back to the negotiating table.

The administration does not even try to argue that sanctions will stop or roll back the nuclear weapons program itself. What if diplomacy did resume? It may well be in Iran’s interest to restart negotiations, given its previous successes in buying time and political legitimacy. But what is the acceptable “compromise” between Iran, clearly striving to acquire nuclear weapons, and the West, which wants to prevent just that? Iran gets to keep a, small nuclear weapons program? That is plainly unacceptable.

Iran gets to have a “peaceful” nu­ clear power program? That would be a fool’s paradise. Given its decades­ long duplicity and complete indigenous mastery over the nuclear fuel cycle, Iran could “break out” of any commitment to purely civil use with relative ease.

International monitors could not prevent cheating, as rogue states like North Korea have shown, by hiding extensive nuclear weapons programs even with U.N. inspectors in-country. And if Iran expelled the inspectors and renounced the NPT, as Pyong­yang did in 2003, what then?

The unpleasant reality is that both diplomacy and sanctions have failed, are failing, and will fail to halt’s Iran’s steady march toward nuclearization. Indeed, the most likely outcome today is that Iran will achieve nuclear weapons, perhaps even earlier than predicted by Defense Secretary Panetta. The only surprise is that its progress has been so stately and measured, thereby showing Iran simply does not fear outside interference.

In February, on the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Ahmadinejad announced what was already suspected: advanced centrifuges were enriching uranium at the hardened . and deeply buried centrifuge halls at Fordo, near Qom, and that Iran had successfully fabricating fuel rods for the Tehran Research Reactor.

Could regime change, overthrowing the Islamic Revolution, succeed before Iran gets nuclear weapons? While it should obviously be our goal, regime change is not like turning a light switch on or off. The IRGC brutally suppressed unarmed civilians demonstrating against Iran’s obviously fraudulent June 2009 presidential elections, which gave Ahmadinejad a second term. Had earlier U.S. administrations worked more extensively and effectively to aid Iran’s opposition, President Obama might have been capable in 2009 of using the massive popular unrest in Iran to overthrow the regime.

Unfortunately, no such preparation had been made, and Obama himself, apart from rhetorical flourishes, did little to oust the mullahs. Sanctions could facilitate regime change and warrant support for that reason. But regime change will not come in time to stop Iran from crossing the nuclear finish line.

In fact, the regime is wildly unpopular. Economic mismanagement since 1979 (and not recent sanctions) has thwarted economic growth in this potentially powerful, wealthy country, creating shortages of goods and services that regularly prompt strikes and other disruptions.

Iran’s young people (those under 30 constitute over two-thirds of the total population) are educated and sophisticated, and know from foreign media and their own travels that they could enjoy a vastly different lifestyle if the Islamic Revolution collapsed.

Finally, there is widespread ethnic dissatisfaction. Persians constitute only half of Iran’s people. The Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis, and others have long chafed under discriminatory policies.

While these sources of discontent do not .coincide exactly, their very magnitude shows why the regime must cling to power through military force, which it is perfectly prepared to do. After all, the mullahs represent God’s view. Why worry about mere popular opinion? .

The unfortunate reality is that the only real alternative to a nuclear Iran is pre-emptive military force to break its control over the nuclear fuel cycle. The Obama administration has made it plain that it does not plan to take military action, which leaves Israel to take the initiative.

Israel has twice before struck preemptively against hostile governments seeking nuclear weapons, first against Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor outside of Baghdad in 1981, and then in September 2007, against a nuclear reactor in Syria being constructed by North Koreans.

If anything, Israel may have already waited too long, by allowing Iran’s Bushehr reactor to be loaded with nuclear fuel rods and operations to begin, thus potentially providing Iran with the plutonium route to nuclear weapons.

Even more seriously, Iran may already have built deeply buried, hardened facilities beyond the reach of Israel’s military capacity. Israel and the United States may be completely unaware of them.

There is no doubt that Washington could shatter Iran’s nuclear program, thus potentially buying years of valuable time. Israel acting alone, how­ ever, would be straining at the limits of its capacity. And time is growing short as the window for a military option closes.

Israel does not have to destroy Iran’s entire nuclear infrastructure, but only break it at key points. These include the little-publicized, but absolutely vital, Esfahan uranium-conversion plant, the uranium-enrichment halls at Natanz, and the heavy-water production facility and reactor under construction at Arak.

All but Natanz are above ground, and even Natanz’s buried facilities are well known, having been subject to repeated IAEA inspection.

The highly sensitive centrifuges there are the key targets, not the physical structures.

Israel knows exactly what it must do to destroy or irreparably damage the centrifuges, even if the hardened steel-and-concrete works largely survive an attack. The Fordo nuclear facility is harder, but it can be severely impaired, its tunnel entrances closed, and repeatedly closed in subsequent months and years should Iran try re­ opening them.

Obviously, everyone worries about Tehran’s potential response, and a regime not rational in Western military terms is capable of almost anything. Careful analysis, however, shows that Iran’s real options, post-attack, are limited. Retaliating against U.S. military personnel or facilities in the region (including Iraq or Afghanistan), or launching terrorist attacks worldwide, would all invite a devastating American response – as would any Iranian effort to blockade the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s most likely answer would be to unleash Hezbollah and Hamas to rocket innocent Israeli civilians, thus posing a fearful threat. That is why Israel must count on the prompt re­ supply of planes and ordnance lost or expended over Iran, so it can control the airspace over Lebanon and Gaza to thwart Hezbollah or Hamas.

While the Obama administration has implicitly threatened to with­ hold that resupply to pressure Israel against using force, Congress will overwhelmingly come to Israel’s side if it strikes Iran. Nonetheless, even the risk of a delay in replenishment causes Israel enormous concern, obviously complicating its decision on whether to attack.

Panetta’s recent prediction to The Washington Post that an Israeli attack would be in the April-June period likely shows that private pressure has failed and that, not squeamish about squeezing a close ally faced with an enormous threat, Obama has turned to pressuring Israel publicly.

Contrary to the Obama view, how­ ever, the United States can and should support Israel, and there would be enormous public support to do so. But ideology, not strategy, drives Obama, and his antipathy to Israel is strong and deep. He apparently fears an Israeli strike more than an Iranian nuclear weapon.

President Obama’s plan B is to contain and deter a nuclear Iran. This is delusional. A regime prizing life in the hereafter more than life on earth does not play by classic deterrence theories. The Soviets’ atheist mindset in the Cold War at least made them more sensitive to entering the darkness of nuclear war, a sensitivity the mullahs do not register. The complexity of deterrence strategies obviously goes beyond simple psychology, but relying on deterrence against anti­ Western religious fanatics is not a winning play.

Moreover, Obama’s decision to withdraw U.S. combat forces from Iraq and radically shortening our time horizons in Afghanistan hardly lends credence to an Obama “commitment” to long-term containment.

But even if, contrary to all the evidence, a nuclear Iran could be contained and deterred, that is still in­ sufficient. The nuclear threat doesn’t stop with Iran. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and perhaps others in the region would get nuclear weapons if Iran did.

Thus, in a relatively short period of time as these things go, five to 10 years, the volatile Middle East could have over half a dozen nuclear weapons states, an inherently dangerous and unacceptably risky outcome.

And, of course, even regime change that results in representative government in Tehran will not allay fears of a nuclear Iran in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere.

Their incentive to obtain their own nuclear weapons will persist, thus emphasizing the imperative of stop­ ping Iran from getting nuclear weapons in the first place.

We are thus down to very unattractive options. Unfortunately, the choice is not between the world as it is today versus a world after a pre- emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. That choice would be easy. Unfortunately, however, the world as it is today is disappearing, soon to be replaced by a world where Iran has nuclear weapons.

The choice in reality, therefore, is between that nightmare world, and a world after a pre-emptive strike. As dangerous and hostile as the world after a strike might be, a world where Iran has nuclear weapons would be far more dangerous and hostile.

Israel will soon have to make that choice, and America, either under Obama or under his successor, will have to deal with it.

Time will tell -and time may well be growing short.

This article was originally published by Newsmax.

John Bolton currently is a senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute and a Fox News contributor.

Source: http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/03/28/iran-must-be-stopped/

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

False Advertising: The Daily Beast and “Open Zion”

by Dovid Efune

"Open Zion" Editor Peter Beinart. Photo: JStreet.org.

Following its merger with Newsweek, The Daily Beast may be on its way to becoming something of an American news media institution. It was therefore a simultaneous source of wonder and pride to me that the paper would launch a blog entitled “Open Zion,” recently changed from “Zion Square,” and subtitled “a new conversation about Israel, Palestine and the Jewish future.”

It is not often that I end up quoting a Reform Rabbi, but Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue made a similar point in a sermon last week when he asked, “How has the New York Times become the paper of record not only for American society but the paper of record for when Jews want to speak to Jews about Jewish matters?”

Is it so that these subjects are of such interest and import to the American public that they demand so much attention and even the establishment of dedicated platforms in mainstream publications?

If this is the case however, it is no small travesty that the Daily Beast has done a remarkably shoddy job at delivering an even remotely accurate or fair representation of Zionist or Jewish discourse in this country and certainly in Israel. In fact after a brief review of the top listed entries, a more accurate sub label for the venture might be “an old conversation about Israeli crimes, Jewish power and the Palestinian Arab problem.”

The posts are replete with misleading references, half truths and dubious presuppositions and assumptions. Editor Peter Beinart, who has recently published a highly controversial book entitled “The Crisis of Zionism,” has not a semblance of credibility in fulfilling his self professed role of “challenging liberal Zionism from the left and the right,” as in recent years he has been trumpeting his strongly held and one-sided opinions on the subject matter from just about every soap box that will have him. He says that he aims to “launch a conversation,” but the blog reads more like a Beinart tirade.

One example of Beinart’s incapacity is his selection of – in his description – “the hawkish Israeli historian Benny Morris,” to carry the contemporary mainstream Zionist banner. However, the interesting thing about Morris is that in an interview with Haaretz in 2004, he labeled himself as left wing and was described in the introduction by Ari Shavit as follows: “Benny Morris is the dean of Israeli ‘new historians’, who have done so much to create a critical vision of Zionism – its expulsion and continuing oppression of the Palestinians, its pressing need for moral and political atonement.” Additionally as of now, he only has one blog post that appears on the site, whereas an anti-Zionist contributor like Hussein Ibish has four.

Beinart’s editorial misdemeanors are many, and one could write books on the details. Indeed, I have read a number of capable and pointed critiques of the enterprise. What I would presently like to focus on is the Daily Beast’s misleading and false portrayal of the blog’s content and focus, by allowing the title “Open Zion.”

It seems that for the most part, the overall collective definition on the platform of the term ‘Zionism,’ was best captured by “Open Zion” blogger Jay Michaelson, in a blog entitled “Can You Be a Zionist If No One Thinks You Are?” He writes, “there’s a shrinking constituency that still believes Zionism can mean what it used to mean: the ideology that there should be a national home for the Jewish people in its historic homeland. The Left equates that ideology with the Right’s iteration of it…..(this) is what the Left means by “Zionism” and why it equates the term with racism.”

The problem however with the Zionism that Michaelson iterates is that it has subjective definitions, and that is because it is not guided by a defined purpose. What does he mean when he refers to a national home? And what are the parameters of the historic homeland he speaks of? What does the cause of Zionism represent today if Jews have reclaimed ownership of their ancestral Holy Land over 60 years ago?

Historian Alexander J. Motyl describes Zionism’s purpose in the Encyclopedia of Nationalism, “as a means for Jews to be liberated from anti-Semitic discrimination, exclusion, and persecution that has occurred in other societies.”

Michaelson and his fellow bloggers on Open Zion must accept that it is this definition of the Zionist purpose that should guide the boundaries of the ideology and its modern day manifestation. Simply put, the meaning of Zionism today is to ensure that the establishment of a Jewish state does not turn out to be an exercise of geographic convenience for those that wish to annihilate the Jewish race.

It is this conversation that so desperately needs to permeate Jewish discourse, and is for the most part so glaringly absent from the “Open Zion” project. As for the Daily Beat, the publication’s flippancy in allowing for the false labeling of a dedicated blog that is neither “Open” nor “Zionist” is simply disgraceful.

Dovid Efune is the director of the Algemeiner Journal and the GJCF and can be e-mailed at defune@gjcf.com.

Source: http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/03/28/false-advertising-the-daily-beast-and-open-zion/

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

Islam's Tenuous Connection to Jerusalem

by Eli E. Hertz

The Global March to Jerusalem - Part III [1]
To see "Global March to Jerusalem - Part I click here.
To see "Global March to Jerusalem - Part II click here.

The Global March to Jerusalem, scheduled for March 30, 2012, is an anti-Israel publicity stunt that aims to have a million people marching on Israel's borders from surrounding countries - Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt - with the goal of reaching Jerusalem and highlighting the so-called "Judaization of Jerusalem."

Despite 1,300 years of Muslim Arab rule, Jerusalem was never the capital of an Arab entity. Oddly, the PLO's National Covenant, written in 1964, never mentioned Jerusalem. Only after Israel regained control of the entire city did the PLO "update" its Covenant to include Jerusalem.

Overall, the role of Jerusalem in Islam is best understood as the outcome of political pressure impacting on religious belief.

Mohammed, who founded Islam in 622 CE, was born and raised in present-day Saudi Arabia, he never set foot in Jerusalem.

His connection to the city came years after his death when the Dome of the Rock shrine and the al-Aqsa mosque were built in 688 and 691, respectively, their construction spurred by political and religious rivalries. In 638 CE, the Caliph (or successor to Mohammed) Omar and his invading armies captured Jerusalem from the Byzantine Empire. One reason they wanted to erect a holy structure in Jerusalem was to proclaim Islam's supremacy over Christianity and its most important shrine, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

More important was the power struggle within Islam itself. The Damascus-based Umayyad Caliphs who controlled Jerusalem wanted to establish an alternative holy site if their rivals blocked access to Mecca. That was important because the Hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca was (and remains today) one of the Five Pillars of Islam. As a result, they built what became known as the Dome of the Rock shrine and the adjacent mosque.

To enhance the prestige of the "substitute Mecca," the Jerusalem mosque was named "al-Aqsa." It means "the furthest mosque" in Arabic, but has far broader implications, since it is the same phrase used in a key passage of the Quran called "The Night Journey." In that passage, Mohammed arrives at "al-Aqsa" on a winged steed accompanied by the Archangel Gabriel, from there they ascend into heaven for a divine meeting with Allah, after which Mohammed returns to Mecca. Naming the Jerusalem mosque "al-Aqsa" was an attempt to say the Dome of the Rock was the very spot from which Mohammed ascended to heaven, thus tying Jerusalem to divine revelation in Islamic belief. The problem however is, that Mohammed died in the year 632, nearly 50 years before the first construction of the "al-Aqsa" Mosque was completed.

Jerusalem never replaced the importance of Mecca in the Islamic world. When the Umayyad dynasty fell in 750, Jerusalem also fell into near obscurity for 350 years, until the Crusades. During those centuries, many Islamic sites in Jerusalem fell into disrepair and in 1016 the Dome of the Rock collapsed.

Still, for 1,300 years, various Islamic dynasties (Syrian, Egyptian, and Turkish) continued to govern Jerusalem as part of their overall control of the Land of Israel, disrupted only by the Crusaders. What is amazing is that over that period, not one Islamic dynasty ever made Jerusalem its capital. By the 19th century, Jerusalem had been so neglected by Islamic rulers that several prominent Western writers who visited Jerusalem were moved to write about it. French writer Gustav Flaubert, for example, found "ruins everywhere" during his visit in 1850 when it was part of the Turkish Empire (1516-1917). Seventeen years later Mark Twain wrote that Jerusalem had "become a pauper village."

Indeed, Jerusalem's importance in the Islamic world only appears evident when non-Muslims (including the Crusaders, the British, and the Jews) control or capture the city. Only at those points in history did Islamic leaders claim Jerusalem as their third most holy city after Mecca and Medina. That was again the case in 1967, when Israel captured Jordanian-controlled East Jerusalem (and the Old City) during the 1967 Six-Day War.

[1] To see more about The Global March to Jerusalem Click Here.

For the entire Jerusalem pamphlet and notes, please Click Here.

Eli E. Hertz

Source: http://www.mythsandfacts.com

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

Kofi’s Cloak of Terror

by Farid Ghadry

A real peace plan is one that dispenses justice, fairness, and equity upon the victims and punishes severely the perpetrators of crimes.

A real peace plan separates two sides but does not provide the possibilities of more terror and more tyranny.

A real peace plan is struck between two groups or countries because they are convinced of its utilitarian purpose in the service of BOTH interests.

What elementary school did Kofi graduate from?

Does anyone Have Kofi’s email to thank him for perpetuating terror against Syrians and calling himself a man of peace?

To get a clear picture of what his plan will produce, a good reading is the latest from David Schenker on the CNN Blog.

Kofi’s negative effect is multi-fold. One can start with this broad stroke title:

Kofi single-handedly forgives Assad for his Genocide, sparks more religious extremism, secures more terror in the future, demoralizes victims of terror, pats himself on the back and goes home with the west leaving Syrians and others to be slaughtered.

That pretty much sums-up Kofi Annan and his plan. Thank you Ghana for producing a son who confuses peace with terror.

There are those who have begun questioning whether the Assad regime will fall or stay in power. Some base their analysis on information related to the negotiations between the Obama administration and the Khameini regime of terror, which may have ushered Kofi into the picture; some are just plain mercenaries of the pen campaigning for their terror master Assad, and some have this uneasy déjà vu written all over their sad faces, especially the Lebanese who can see this dark shadow on the horizon in the form of a monstrosity some in the west are willing to defend and protect.

How cowardly are our leaders when they cannot muster the courage to protect a whole region from a known terrorist and work behind the scenes to extend his life at everyone’s expense?

Even though our revolution is young, the sturdiest of revolutions have a certain shelf life.

In 1921, when the sailors of Kronstadt, after defeating the Whites in support of the Bolshevik Red Army, attempted to start a third revolution against Lenin for betraying the principles of the first anti-Romanov revolution, the Russian people were too tired, after almost five years of fighting, to come to their aid. Their lack of will helped usher the most horrific form of governments ever to exist and the most abhorrent men of violence the world has ever witnessed.

As the world paid a heavy price for the Bolsheviks, the highest price remains to be paid if Assad is kept alive. When just revolutions fail, they produce the most inhuman actors.

Assad is 43 years old. To those western leaders and policy makers unable to turn simple math into reality, it means Assad has another 30 years ahead of him to punish, to take revenge, to kill, to terrorize, to kidnap, to bomb, to torture, and to commit more Genocides if necessary. I pity the Lebanese and all those whom he will start targeting from the ruinous mount called Syria.

In spite of these odds, our people are not quitting and are as determined as ever in spite of the fact they lack paper and steel. Syrians are more resourceful than the world expects us to be, more stubborn than the world has tolerance for, and more oxygenated by the air of freedom than the world apparently wishes for us. To the mercenaries of the pen and to the men with an angled, one-way peace plan, I say we will shatter your plans into dust and we will spoil your inglorious agendas.

The serenity of knowledge has no foes. In the case of the Syrian people, serenely silent for 41 years in the face of atrocities and tyranny very few in the world have witnessed, many know today there is no turning back. Kofi or no Kofi, his plan of terror will fail miserably.

In fact, I am of the belief that Kofi just merged the majority of the Syrian population with al-Qaeda. Instead of helping people achieve their most basic of rights for freedom under whatever human rights laws we apply, Kofi just delivered Syria to religious extremism.

This is real terror cloaked as peace.

Farid Ghadry

Source: http://ghadry.com/2012/03/28/kofis-cloak-of-terror/

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

Final Blow to Anti-Israel Linkage Myths?

by Omri Ceren

Of the two pivots in debates about Middle East geopolitics – which side is responsible for continued Israeli-Palestinian hostilities, and in which direction does the “linkage” between those hostilities and Iranian-driven instability run – the Obama administration entered office taking an anti-Israel position on both.

The White House immediately identified the Israelis as the intransigent party. The president put the onus for new concessions on Jerusalem, established “daylight” between the U.S. and the Jewish State, and demanded that Israel implement a full construction freeze beyond the Green Line. Built as it was on shrill ideology rather than sober analysis, that diplomatic offensive failed to the tune of detonating the peace process. The White House eventually grudgingly reversed course.

“Linkage” is an analytic disagreement over direction and a pragmatic question of sequencing. Meeting with Obama in 2009, Netanyahu insisted no progress could be made on Israeli-Palestinian peace as long as Iran had a free hand regionally, since the mullahs would always use their Hamas and Hezbollah proxies to spoil negotiations. Obama answered by explicitly declaring “if there is a linkage… it actually runs the other way,” and that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations built on Israeli concessions were necessary for mobilizing a regional coalition against Iran.

It used to be that these competing theories were up for debate, with at least coherent arguments on both sides and insufficient evidence to choose one over the other. Not so much any more.

We’ve known since WikiLeaks the Obama administration and its water carriers were more or less lying about Sunni unwillingness to endorse anti-Iran efforts in the absence of Israeli concessions (or at least administration officials were more or less lying; foreign policy experts in think tanks and media outlets may just have been casually inventing anti-Israel and pro-Iran pseudo-sophistication out of habit). Saudi officials were in fact aghast at the president’s naive confidence in Iranian engagement and his languid approach to Iranian nuclearization, seeing him as a blustering amateur stumbling into one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.

And now we know that, for their part, the Israelis were right about the role that Iran plays as a spoiler:

Iran paid the Islamist group Hamas to block a deal with the rival Fatah movement that would have ended a five-year rift between the two main Palestinian factions, a Fatah spokesman said on Tuesday… “We have information that Iran paid tens of millions of dollars to Zahar and Haniyeh in their visits to Iran,” said Ahmed Assaf, referring to Hamas leaders Mahmoud al-Zahar who visited Tehran last week and Ismail Haniyeh who was there in February.

Ironically, even if the president was right at the outset, his public linkage declaration guaranteed he would become wrong (a neat little example of Heisenbergian dynamics in international diplomacy: leaders aren’t free to analyze global affairs without changing them). By signaling that Israeli-Palestinian progress was a prerequisite to regional action against Iran, he incentivized Tehran to either begin or continue interfering in the peace process. Under the oft-repeated assumption the president is a Spock-like Grandmaster playing 3-Dimensional Geopolitical Chess while the rest of us struggle to follow along, he must have known as much. Maybe he just couldn’t help himself.

Omri Ceren

Source: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/03/28/blow-to-anti-israel-linkage-myths/

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

Hamas' Parent Comes to America

by IPT News

Get caught providing aid to Hamas and you'll find yourself hauled into federal court where a lengthy prison sentence awaits. Win elected office in Egypt as part of the Muslim Brotherhood's political party – the parent organization of Hamas – and you'll find yourself flown to Washington to be feted by academics and government officials.

Such is the case on April 4, when an "Official delegation of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and its Freedom and Justice Party (FJP)" is slated to visit Washington, D.C. at the invitation of Georgetown University's Saudi-funded Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.

The visiting Egyptians, whose party won strong pluralities in recent parliamentary elections, also are expected to meet with U.S. government officials.

Although Georgetown quickly sent out an updated invitation to the event declaring that the MB would not be in attendance, it does not change the fact that the FJP is the Muslim Brotherhood. A few Copts have been interspersed in the group's leadership, the bulk of those setting the party's agenda and the agenda itself are Brotherhood. The FJP is a new political player in Egypt, but its support for terrorism and violence is indisputable – which is perhaps the reason for the duplicitous invite from Georgetown – promote the FJP while distancing it from its real roots and MB agenda.

The invitation seems to fly in the face of Hamas' strong relationship with the Brotherhood and the FJP. Hamas was created as Brotherhood offshoot. The group reinforced that connection in December by declaring itself "a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood – Palestine."

"Our alliance with the Brotherhood threatens the Israeli entity," Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister in Gaza, said in December during a visit to Cairo. Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie said his group viewed Hamas as a role model and "has always embraced issues of liberation, foremost the Palestinian issue."

In an August interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, FJP Vice Chairman Essam el Erian called Hamas a "resistance group fighting for freedom and liberation of their lands from occupation." He also stated that "the West must revise their knowledge about Hamas, [so] that war and terrorism will come to an end. And mixing cards and putting [designating] Hamas and other resistance groups among terrorist groups, this was a fatal mistake of the West."

Support for Hamas has been illegal in the United States since 1995, when President Bill Clinton signed an executive order decrying "grave acts of violence committed by foreign terrorists that disrupt the Middle East peace process" and threaten American national security.

In addition, the United States has had no formal dealings with the government in Gaza since Hamas took control there in 2007.

But the Brotherhood/Hamas connection does not appear to be a consideration in granting the FJP members visas to visit the United States. Nor does FJP's rhetoric, which often is hostile toward the United States and its interests. For example, we have not granted visas to other political organizations like the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood or their South Asian equivalent Jamaat-e-Islami, despite their strong role in their nation's civil societies.

"It is no secret that the events of contrived sectarian strife and the numerous security breaches which occur from time to time in Egypt, in an almost organized and suspicious form, are unequivocally masterminded through the work of intelligence by the United States and Israel," claimed an October article on the FJP website. The piece goes on to blame a secretive "Western and Zionist intervention" that would not "leave the Egyptian revolution alone or let the Egyptians enjoy their revolution, which affects their [American] interests in the region, without ruining their [Egyptian] lives for them!"

The administration has chosen to ignore remarks like those, in favor of the ones they want to hear. By January, the FJP was singing a different tune to visiting American officials, promoting better relations between the United States and providing them with an overview of their political plans. Some Egyptian papers even claimed that the United States would help the FJP develop an economic program to secure the country and to keep the Islamist party in power.

Most of the hateful and violent rhetoric of the FJP is regurgitated from the 80-year-old ideology of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which formed the party. Just as the MB often says one thing in English and another in Arabic, the FJP has followed suit by saying the right things to American visitors and something completely different to party members and average Egyptians.

As the largest party represented in Egypt's parliament, the FJP will be the dominant coalition partner for any future Egyptian government, giving it enormous weight in shaping Egypt's new constitution and future.

The party has also shown a strong desire to move beyond rhetoric and into formal pro-terrorism indoctrination in Egyptian society. A study appearing on the group's webpage last July, and drafted by FJP member Abdul Muti Zaki, advocates "fostering the spirit of jihad in the nation" through a nationwide program of conscription and ideological indoctrination. The program declares goals like:

- "continuing intellectual and psychological preparation to encourage Jihad and awaken a desire for it."

- "the imposition of compulsory conscription on all the youth of the nation and training them in the latest types of weapons."

- "linking jihad to the ideology that the nation believes in and lives for, and in whose way death is pleasantness… The doctrine of our nation is Islam. Therefore it has only succeeded in its history by jihad 'in the way of Allah.' The messenger of Allah explained the meaning of 'in the way of Allah' saying 'he who fights that the word of Allah be supreme, he is in the way of Allah.'

The group's 2011 election platform also embraced anti-Western terrorism, referring to it as "resistance," particularly against America and Israel. As part of its intention to play an "active and influential" role among the Arab states, the group promoted:

- "Affirming the rights of the Palestinian people to liberate their land, and highlighting the duty of governments and people of the Arab and Muslim countries, especially Egypt, to aid and support the Palestinian people and the Palestinian resistance against the Zionist usurpers of their homeland."

- "Providing all means of support for the Iraqi people until the last soldier of the U.S. occupation departs, until Iraq's national decisions are free from foreign interference, until Iraqi safety and territorial integrity are secured, and until Iraq is rid of violence and sectarian strife."

The platform also gave FJP's reasons behind its support for terror, by blaming Egypt's current weakness on supporting the United States' vision of the Middle East. "Indeed, Egypt turned against its own history and powerful potential. It started supporting occupiers and colonizers, through its presence in the so-called axis of moderation, which is sponsored by the United States," the document stated. "Egypt laid siege to resistance, freedom-fighters and revolutionaries. Hence, our program seeks to restore glory and leadership and status to Egypt, under the banner 'Indeed, this nation of yours is but one nation' [Quran Chapter 21, Verse 92]."

The FJP has also met with Hamas several times and advocated for them abroad. "I want an office of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas to be opened in Cairo and I would very much welcome it," FJP Chairman Muhammad Mursi said on Feb. 29. "Support for the Palestinian cause is a duty upon us [which] we will discharge. In fact, the Egyptian role for Gaza and Hamas after the revolution is a distinct one."

The FJP's website even carried an article about how the party's secretary Mohamad Katatni preached violence against Jews last August.

At the demonstration, the crowd roared chants of "Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jew, the army of Muhammad is right here," and "Patience, patience, Jews. The Egyptians will dig your grave."

Katatni told the demonstrators, "The Egyptian revolution represents the beginning of the end of the Zionist entity, stressing that the strength of Islam is only one capable of eliminating the Zionist entity and liberating Palestine." Where the Jews had defeated the Arabs time and again in pre-Islamic times, he claimed, Islam provided a new strength. "The Arabs were only able to defeat them after Islam came, and the Arabs and Muslims began to confront the Jews with the strength of faith," he told the crowd.

IPT News

Source: http://www.investigativeproject.org/3504/hamas-parent-comes-to-america

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

Assad Targeting Children - UN Rights Chief

by Rick Moran

I didn't bother covering the "acceptance" by Syria of a "peace plan" for the simple reason that it isn't news. Assad can accept peace plans from here to next Tuesday and the violence would continue. The opposition has rejected any plan that does not include Assad's departure, so what's the point except that it makes the do-gooders at the UN feel like they're doing something.

One of those do-gooders, UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay, revealed that Assad is targeting children in his crackdown.

BBC:

Ms Pillay said she believed that the UN Security Council had enough reliable information to warrant referring Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

I feel that investigation and prosecution is a crucial element to deter and call a stop to these violations," she said.

She listed what she called "horrendous" treatment of children during the unrest.

"They've gone for the children - for whatever purposes - in large numbers. Hundreds detained and tortured... it's just horrendous," she said.

"Children shot in the knees, held together with adults in really inhumane conditions, denied medical treatment for their injuries, either held as hostages or as sources of information."

Ms Pillay said anyone who committed such violations would be held to account.

"There is no statute of limitations so people like [Mr Assad] can go on for a very long time but one day they will have to face justice."

On Tuesday, Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN special representative for children and armed conflict, said they had received claims that the rebel Free Syrian Army was using children as fighters.

Both sides are rather unlovely characters. Hard to know who to root for.

Meanwhile, the opposition supposedly endorsed the Syrian National Council as the group that would act as representative of the Syrian people. Within a half an hour, the opposition was back to sniping at each other, walking out, and generally proving that they are a long way from uniting behind any one group.

Rick Moran

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/03/assad_targeting_children_-_un_rights_chief.html

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

Olmert's "Peace Partner" Cannot Deliver and Has No Mandate

by Abdel Karim Shalabi

If Abbas were really a "partner for peace," how come he did not accept the generous offer -- which even included the division of Jerusalem -- he received from the Olmert government in 2008?

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert insisted this week that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is a "partner for peace."

"No one can say to me after hundreds of hours of discussing peace with Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] that he is not a partner because he doesn't want peace," Olmert said in a speech at J Street's annual conference. "He wants peace with Israel and he accepts the existence of Israel as Israel declares itself to be."

But if Abbas were really a "partner for peace," how come he did not accept the generous offer he received from the Olmert government in 2008?

At that time, Olmert presented Abbas with a map that would have given the Palestinians control over most of the West Bank, and that also included the transfer of 327 square kilometers of territory from inside Israel to the Palestinians. In return, Israel would have annexed 6.3% of the West Bank to Israel.

Olmert's peace plan would have involved the evacuation of dozens of settlements and the creation of a safe passage route connecting the West Bank to the Gaza Strip via a highway. But as Abbas never responded to Olmert's plan, the negotiations between the two sides ended.

Olmert's plan was the most generous offer the Palestinians had ever received from an Israeli prime minister. Yet, Abbas the "peace partner," chose to ignore Olmert's plan even though it had included the division of Jerusalem into two cities.

The question today, however, is not whether or not Abbas is a peace partner. Rather, what Olmert needs to ask himself is whether the Palestinian president can deliver or not. The answer is very simple and clear. Even if Abbas wanted to deliver a peace deal, he cannot. Abbas's term in office expired in January 2009, but, because the US Administration wanted him to stay in power, he remained. The result is that he is seen by many Palestinians as an illegitimate leader. No Palestinian leader has a mandate to make any concessions to Israel in return for peace.

It is also not clear how Abbas is supposed to implement any peace agreement with Israel when he can not even visit the Gaza Strip, which Hamas ordered him to leave in 2007.

Abbas has no direct control over the more than 1.4 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. He also does not enjoy the backing of millions of Palestinian refugees living in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Most of these refugees are strongly opposed to any compromise that does not secure the "right of return" to their former villages and homes inside Israel.

Further, It is even not clear today whether Abbas enjoys the full backing of his own Fatah faction. A growing number of disgruntled Fatah officials are beginning to challenge Abbas's policies, with some going as far as calling on him to step down and pave the way for some new, emerging younger leaders.

Abbas's actions and words in the past few years show that he is a peace partner not for Israel, but for Hamas. Instead of returning to the negotiating table to talk with Israel, he has been talking with Hamas, which seeks the destruction of Israel, about ways of achieving "reconciliation" and forming a Palestinian unity government.

Just as Arafat dismissed the generous offer he received from former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak during the failed Camp David summit in 2000, Abbas rejected Olmert's plan because it did not offer all of the Palestinian leader's demands. Perhaps one of the biggest problems is also what happened during Israel's negotiations with us in Egypt: Egypt got from Israel 100% of what it asked for; how, after that, can any Arab leader ever settle for anything less?

Abdel Karim Shalabi is a journalist based in Cairo.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2976/olmert-abbas-peace-partner

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

The Muslim Brotherhood Reborn: The Syrian Uprising

by Yvette Talhamy

As Syrian president Bashar al-Assad struggles to contend with a massive popular uprising, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (SMB) is poised to dominate whatever coalition of forces manages to unseat the Baathist regime. Though in many ways the Brotherhood's official political platform is a model of Islamist moderation and tolerance, it is less a window into the group's thinking than a reflection of its political tactics. Unlike its parent organization, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which often kept its ideological opponents at arm's length, the SMB has repeatedly forged alliances with secular dissident groups even as it secretly tried to negotiate a deal with the Assad regime to allow its return from exile. Since the moderation of its political platform over the past two decades has clearly been intended to facilitate this triangulation, it does not tell us much about the ultimate intentions of the Syrian Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood's Background

After the secular, nationalist Baath party took power in 1963, tensions between it and the Muslim Brotherhood ratcheted up, culminating in the February 1982 bombardment and massacre by the regime at Hama, a Brotherhood stronghold. Here, Baath soldiers stand over a body in Hama.

The SMB was established in 1945-46 by Mustafa as-Sibai as a branch of Hassan al-Banna's Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Though favoring the establishment of an Islamic state in Syria,[1] it participated in parliamentary elections after the country gained independence in 1946 (winning 4 seats in 1947, 3 seats in 1949, 5 seats in 1954, and 10 seats in 1961) and even had ministers in two governments.[2]

When the secular, nationalist Baath party took power in 1963, it quickly moved to weaken the SMB and the urban, Sunni merchant class that supported the movement. The group was outlawed in 1964, and its leader Isam al-Attar was exiled. That same year, a revolt led by the SMB erupted in the city of Hama and was quelled by force.[3] During the 1970s, relations between the SMB and President Hafez Assad (r. 1970-2000) deteriorated into large-scale violence.

Although the Brotherhood's opposition to Baathist rule was expressed ideologically in polite company, there was a deep sectarian undercurrent, as the Assad regime was dominated by Alawites, a schismatic Islamic sect viewed as heretical by religious Sunnis. Armed elements of the SMB assassinated government officials and carried out bombings of government buildings, Baath party offices, and other targets associated with the regime.[4] In 1979, the SMB carried out a massacre of eighty-three unarmed Alawite cadets at an artillery school in Aleppo. In June 1980, it is said to have made an assassination attempt against the president, who allegedly retaliated by ordering hundreds of captured SMB prisoners gunned down in their cells. Although the SMB has always maintained that it had no connection to underground, armed factions responsible for violence,[5] few take the claim seriously.

In 1980, the Assad regime issued Law No. 49, making membership in or association with the SMB a crime punishable by death.[6] In December 1980, the SMB issued a manifesto that included a detailed program for the future Islamic state in Syria.[7] It continued to work clandestinely in predominantly Sunni, urban centers outside of Damascus, particularly in the city of Hama, and it was there that the Assad regime is reported to have notoriously massacred tens of thousands of people in February 1982, effectively bringing armed resistance to a halt.[8]

The SMB was no longer able to work openly inside Syria, and its leadership was dispersed in exile. As its influence in the country diminished, SMB leaders increasingly sought alliances with secular opponents of the Assad regime.

Alliances and Triangulation

Shortly after the Hama massacre, the SMB began working to forge a united opposition front with secular dissidents. In March 1982, it joined with the pro-Iraqi wing of the Baath party and other militant, secular opposition groups to form the National Alliance for the Liberation of Syria.[9] This alliance called for a constitutional, multiparty democracy with Shari'a (Islamic law) as the basis of legislation.[10] In 1990, the SMB and a broader array of opposition groups met in Paris and formed the National Front for the Salvation of Syria with similar declared objectives.

With the election of Ali Sadr al-Din al-Bayanouni as general supervisor in 1996, the Brotherhood began secret negotiations with the government, which for its part felt more secure in offering greater accommodation of religious groups after its suppression of the Islamist uprising of the early 1980s.[11] After the ascension of Bashar al-Assad, the regime released several hundred Brotherhood members from prison.[12] Some SMB figures were allowed to return to Syria (most notably Bayanouni's brother, Abu al-Fatih), and the regime also allowed the publication and sale of some previously blacklisted books by SMB founder and ideologue Mustafa as-Sibai.

After these gestures, the SMB began to rapidly shift its political platform. It firmly renounced violence, implicitly recognizing the legitimacy of Assad's rule.[13] However, Assad refused to grant Bayanouni's three core demands: the release of all SMB members from prison, permission for all exiles to return home, and a lifting of the government's ban on the Brotherhood.

Meanwhile, the SMB continued its outreach to other opposition groups. In August 2002, it met with several opposition factions in London and issued what was known as the National Pact in Syria. This pact further refined the SMB's new vision of citizenship, rule of law, democracy, pluralism, equality, and nonviolence.[14]

In December 2004, the SMB published a program for the creation of a modern civil state under the title, "The Political Project for the Future Syria."[15] It is characterized by the rule of law, pluralism, civil society, and the peaceful alternation of political power. The SMB emphasized that it was undergoing a process of self-revitalization through reconsidering the past, the present, and the future.[16]

Islam is enshrined as "a code of conduct for the devout Muslim," a "civilizational identity" for all Syrians, the official religion of the country, and the highest source of legal authority, yet such liberal principles as democracy, pluralism, and tolerance were also affirmed.[17] The SMB also called for the acknowledgment of other principles such as coexistence, human rights, and nonviolence.

Ironically, as Syrian society was growing more deeply religious (as seen in the far greater prevalence of veiling today compared to twenty years ago), the Brotherhood was growing more outwardly secular. Some staunch secularists saw this transformation as a ruse. Wafa Sultan, a psychiatrist and Syrian expatriate residing in the United States, published a June 2005 article on the reformist Annaqed website cautioning liberal opponents of the Syrian regime about the SMB's ostensible embrace of pluralism and democracy:

Do they have the courage to openly declare their new beliefs and apologize for their past so that we won't need to dig up their past? They are calling [now] for a pluralistic, democratic society ruled by the principles of justice and equality. On what basis are they going to build this society?... Have they changed their fundamental beliefs? Why don't they give an answer to this question?... They used to commit crimes [and then] escape to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or Jordan [in order to find] a safe haven, and now they are planning to return from these safe havens to the scene of their crimes to participate in building a democratic, pluralistic society based on justice and equality?![18]

Although Sultan is no friend of the Assad regime, her views on the SMB correspond with those held by many in the Syrian government.

In October 2005, the SMB joined five secular opposition parties and independent political figures in signing the Damascus declaration.[19] While emphasizing the role of Islam as the "ideology of the majority" and "prominent cultural component in the life of the nation and the people," the declaration called for the "establishment of a democratic national regime." Moreover, reflecting the sensibilities of dissidents inside Syria who fear being arrested, the declaration pointedly called for a reform process that was "peaceful, gradual, founded on accord, and based on dialogue and recognition of the other"[20]—that is to say, led by the regime.

The National Salvation Front

A few months later in March 2006, the SMB aligned itself with former vice president Abd al-Halim Khaddam, one of the most powerful figures in the Assad regime until his defection in late 2005. In Brussels, Khaddam and Bayanouni joined a host of less illustrious Syrian exiles in establishing the National Salvation Front (NSF). Unlike the signers of the Damascus declaration, NSF members explicitly called for regime change, albeit through peaceful means.[21]

The SMB alliance with Khaddam was deeply unpopular among the movement's rank and file and was roundly criticized by prominent Damascus declaration signatories. Riyad at-Turk lambasted Khaddam for his involvement in crimes committed by the Assad regime and warned that this alliance would cause internal disputes within the opposition. Some exiled opposition figures, such as Farid al-Ghadri, also objected.[22]

Bayanouni brushed aside the complaints in a June 2006 interview:

We are members of the [Damascus] declaration and members of the NSF, and we asserted that membership in the NSF does not conflict with membership in other alliances or fronts… We are now in the midst of a peaceful opposition to bring about democratic change in the country, and we are willing to partner with all the national groups.[23]

But Bayanouni's commitment to the NSF was uneven. As the front was called into being, the SMB issued "an appeal to the free of the world to abolish Law No. 49,"[24] the implication being that it was still willing to return amicably to Syria in exchange for a full amnesty and legalization of its activities. During the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, when Syria and Hezbollah were winning plaudits in the Arab world, Bayanouni announced that the SMB had decided to freeze its activities against the regime temporarily.[25] A year later, however, he was back to calling on Assad to step down and threatening to launch a campaign of demonstrations and civil disobedience.[26]

Bayanouni seems to have believed that the SMB's alliance with Khaddam, who has long-standing ties to the Saudis and the family of the late Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, would open up channels with Washington and facilitate defections from the Syrian regime. He claimed that there was pervasive dissatisfaction among the military and intelligence forces and that these forces would move against the regime if they had international support. "When there is a favorable international position sympathetic to the Syrian people, they will arise and move," he said.[27]

In his efforts to appeal for Western sympathy, Bayanouni went so far as to say that Islamist movements in the Arab world should be willing to accept the election of a woman or a Christian as president.[28]

However, the NSF failed to deliver. The alliance with Khaddam damaged the SMB's credibility in the eyes of many Syrians, and for very little return. By the fall of 2008, it was clear that Western and Arab governments were committed to reengaging the Assad regime.

In the wake of Israel's military campaign in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip during the winter of 2008-09, Bayanouni began to triangulate yet again. As in 2006, the SMB announced that it would suspend its opposition activities against the Syrian regime, which sponsored Hamas—the Palestinian offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. In April, the SMB formally withdrew from the NSF, and Khaddam accused the group of seeking a rapprochement with Damascus and meeting with agents of the regime.[29] A statement on the withdrawal of the Brotherhood by the remaining members of the NSF general secretariat was thick with suspicion:

The MB suspension of their opposition activities against the regime has nothing to do with the Palestinian cause… why, after long years of conflict, has the MB elected to stand by the Palestinian people today? And has the Syrian regime already liberated the Golan and are its armies about to finish the job of the liberation of Palestine?!... The NSF believes that the worst form of weakness and inability is ceasing opposition activities and aligning one's position with the regime, the same regime that murdered and killed scores of MB members and thousands of other Syrian citizens.[30]

For his part, Bayanouni accused Khaddam of adopting an opinion similar to that of Israel regarding the war in Gaza and cited this as the reason for the SMB's withdrawal from the NSF.[31]

The SMB waited for the regime to reward its about-face. In a November 2009 interview, Bayanouni stressed that the group's suspension of opposition activity was conditional upon a positive response from the regime. "There were several general positive promises made by the regime to some mediators, which we welcome, but we still wait for actions. Until now, nothing has changed, and this shows that the problem is with the regime, not us," he said.[32]

In July 2010, the General Council of the SMB gathered in Istanbul and elected Muhammad Riad al-Shaqfa to succeed Bayanouni as supervisor general.[33] Many expected Shaqfa to take a less compromising position toward Assad as he was from Hama and had played an active role in the SMB insurrection before leaving Syria in the late 1970s.[34] His deputy, Muhammad Farouq Tayfor, is also from Hama and also took part in armed struggle during the 1970s.[35] A month after being elected, however, the new general supervisor affirmed that the SMB would continue to suspend opposition activities against the Syrian regime.[36]

After Shaqfa's election, Muhammad Said Hawwa, son of the former SMB leader Said Hawwa (d. 1989), wrote a letter to the Brotherhood outlining a "road map" to rebuild its relations with the regime. He argued that in order to end this historical crisis, the SMB must "handle the consequences of its historical, political, philosophical, and military mistakes" and "the leaders who were involved in the past historical mistakes should give up all their posts since they led the SMB into the dark tunnel." He stressed that the SMB should accept the regime's offer to allow the return of some individuals without blood on their hands. Given the present political situation and the declining influence of the SMB, it should not expect more. Hawwa also noted that certain Muslim Brotherhood leaders demanded the impossible and attempted to impose their own conditions as if they were the victors. Instead, they should accept the regime's offers as a starting point for negotiations between the two and later on expand them to include more SMB demands.[37]

This view was endorsed by Kamal al-Halbawi, a London-based Muslim scholar and former SMB spokesman, who wrote an article in al-Quds al-Arabi calling on the new SMB leadership to work toward ending its historic dispute with the Assad regime. He urged the SMB to go back to working within Syrian social institutions, rather than letting new generations bear the brunt of a feud in which they had no part.[38]

A more significant influence on Shaqfa's thinking was the SMB's increasingly close relations with Turkey's Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), which also enjoyed warm ties with Assad. According to Shaqfa, there were several mediation attempts between them and the Syrian regime, but they all failed due to the regime's refusal to fully lift restrictions on the SMB. "Bashar is softer than his father, and he talks to mediators... but he always says 'now we are busy,'" remarked Shaqfa. "We would like the Turkish government to intervene to solve the problems," he said in October 2010.[39] In a November 2010 interview, Shaqfa said that the SMB was even willing to stop calling itself the Muslim Brotherhood if allowed to go back "home" and if the regime met its long-standing conditions.[40]

A Game Changer

The proliferation of popular protests across the Arab world during 2011 changed much. When initial calls for demonstrations in Syria in February fell flat, the SMB remained cautious in its statements about the regime. By March, however, the contagion had hit Syria with a vengeance, and its streets swelled with citizens calling for freedom and democracy. The regime accused the SMB of collaboration with Western countries in steering these demonstrations and fomenting armed attacks against the security forces.[41]

Though the SMB openly declared its support for the protests, it denied responsibility for organizing them. The demonstrations "are not led by the SMB or any other party or group," said Shaqfa.[42] "We are supporters, not creators. The voice of the street is a spokesperson for itself," explained SMB spokesman Zuhair Salim.[43] The SMB might have been willing to reconcile with Assad had the Syrian president been willing to abolish Law No. 49 and lift other restrictions on the movement's activities, but no such concessions were forthcoming. "If I go back to Syria, I could be arrested," Shaqfa complained in June.[44] Worldwide support for the uprisings and Assad's recalcitrance led the SMB to fall back on its old demand for the toppling of the regime. Although Salim said that the Brotherhood "would consider dialogue with the Assad government, under certain conditions, if the violence against protesters were to stop,"[45] he was surely aware that the Syrian president could not end the repression without inviting a tsunami of mass mobilization against the regime.

Shaqfa has been far more concerned with shoring up the SMB's primacy over other opposition factions. When the Syrian opposition held a four-day conference in Turkey at the end of May, SMB delegates "made sure their presence was noted by arriving late for the opening ceremony, noisily chanting 'God is great,'" noted The Washington Post.[46] However, it is not such displays of religiosity that lead many secular opposition leaders to distrust the Brotherhood but its long history of mercurial political shifts over the past three decades. "Those thirty years destroyed their organization, and they lost their legitimacy because they changed positions so much without explanation over the past five years," said Burhan Ghalioun, a prominent dissident and scholar at the Sorbonne in Paris.[47]

In October 2011, a Syrian National Council, comprising seven opposition factions including the SMB, was formed in Istanbul. Elected as council leader, Ghalioun reassured The Wall Street Journal that there was no real chance of an Islamist takeover since the SMB's thirty-year-long exile had deprived it of a solid domestic base.[48] The SMB, however, was more upbeat. "I believe that the Assad regime will collapse within the next few months... the regime's days are over," Shaqfa prophesied, stressing that the SMB was sufficiently rooted in Syria as to make this long-cherished dream a reality.[49] Whether this prediction will come to pass remains to be seen.

[1] Raymond A. Hinnebusch, "The Islamic Movement in Syria: Sectarian Conflict and Urban Rebellion in an Authoritarian-Populist Regime," in Ali E. Hillal Dessouki, ed., Islamic Resurgence in the Arab World (New York: Praeger, 1982), p. 151.
[2] Hanna Batatu, "Syria's Muslim Brethren," MERIP Reports, Nov.-Dec. 1982, p. 17.
[3] Hinnebusch, "The Islamic Movement in Syria," p. 157.
[4] Batatu, "Syria's Muslim Brethren," p. 20.
[5] "Al-Mashru as-Siyasi li-Suriya al-Mustaqbal," The Arab Orient Center for Strategic and Civilization Studies (London), Dec. 19, 2004.
[6] R. Hrair Dekmejian, Islam in Revolution: Fundamentalism in the Arab World (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995), p. 109.
[7] Umar F. Abd-Allah, The Islamic Struggle in Syria (Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1983), pp. 201-67.
[8] Middle East Watch, Syria Unmasked: The Suppression of Human Rights by the Assad Regime (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), pp. 17-21.
[9] Thomas Collelo, ed., Syria: A Country Study (Washington: Library of Congress, 1987).
[10] "Syria: National Alliance for the Liberation of Syria (1980-1990)," Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, SYR32163.E, June 1, 1999.
[11] Eyal Zisser, "Hafiz al-Asad Discovers Islam," Middle East Quarterly, Mar. 1999, pp. 49-56.
[12] "Syria Profile," BBC News, accessed Dec. 21, 2011.
[13] Sami Moubayed, "No Room for Political Islam in Syria," Asia Times (Hong Kong), May 10, 2010.
[14] "Al-Mithaq al-Watani fi Suriya," Syrian Human Rights Committee, London, Feb. 11, 2004.
[15] "Al-Mashru as-Siyasi li-Suriya al-Mustaqbal," Dec. 19, 2004.
[16] Najib Ghadbian, "Syria's Muslim Brothers: Where to Next?" The Daily Star (Beirut), Sept. 17, 2010.
[17] "Al-Mashru as-Siyasi li-Suriya al-Mustaqbal," Dec. 19, 2004.
[18] "Syrian Expatriate Asks: Who Are the Muslim Brotherhood Trying to Fool?" The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Washington, D.C., Aug. 3, 2005.
[19] Middle East Transparent, Oct. 16, 2005; Damascus declaration, Oct. 16, 2005.
[20] Damascus declaration, Oct. 16, 2005.
[21] "Conference Final Statement: Founding Conference for the National Salvation Front for Syria," Free Syria (London), June 5, 2006.
[22] Elaph (London), Mar. 19, 2006.
[23] "Bayanouni interview (6/7)," The Syria Monitor, Center for Liberty in the Middle East, Washington, D.C., June 8, 2006.
[24] "An Appeal to the free of the world to abolish rule 49\1980 that legalizes crime," Free Syria, Apr. 22, 2006.
[25] "News Round-Up (8\29-9\1)," The Syria Monitor, Sept. 28, 2006.
[26] Reuters, Mar. 16, 2007.
[27] Ibid.
[28] "Al-Bayanouni lays the foundations of the modern concept of citizenship among the Muslim Brotherhood," Free Syria, Nov. 1, 2007.
[29] Asharq al-Awsat (London), Apr. 5, 2009.
[30] "Statement by the General Secretariat of the National Salvation Front in Syria: On the Withdrawal of the Muslim Brotherhood from the National Salvation Front!" Free Syria, Apr. 11, 2009.
[31] Al-Intiqad (Beirut), June 6, 2008.
[32] "Bi-Wduh," al-Hiwar TV (London), Nov. 15, 2009.
[33] "Muhammad Riyad ash-Shaqfa," www.IkhwanWiki.com, Feb. 20, 2011.
[34] Al-Arabiya News Channel (Dubai), Sept. 8, 2010.
[35] "Ikhwan Suriya… Shaqfah Muraqiban Aman Khalafan li-l-Bayanouni," Islam on-Line, Aug. 2, 2010.
[36] "Muhammad Riyad lil-Sharq al-Awsat: 'Mawjudun fi Aghlab al-Duwal al-Arabiya wa-l-Natadakhal fi-l-sha'n al-Dakhili wa-Natawasal abr al-Internet,'" Muslim Brotherhood Movement in Syria, Aug. 8, 2010.
[37] "Najl al-Rahil Sa'id Hawa Yaqtarih Kharitat Tariq baynaha Hal al-Jama'a wa-l-Awda ila al-Bidaya," Syrian Observatory Human Rights (London), Aug. 10, 2010.
[38] "Al-Hilbawi yadu ila Fak al-Ishtibak bayn jama'at al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin wa-l-Nizam fi Suriya," Syrian Observatory Human Rights, Aug. 15, 2010.
[39] BBC Arabic, Oct. 27, 2010.
[40] Ash-Sharq (Doha), Nov. 16, 2010.
[41] The Wall Street Journal (New York), May 17, 2011; FrontLine (Chennai, India), Dec. 17-30, 2011.
[42] Al-Rai (Kuwait City), May 29, 2011.
[43] The Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2011.
[44] France 24 TV (Paris), June 11, 2011.
[45] The Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2011.
[46] The Washington Post, June 2, 2011.
[47] The Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2011.
[48] Ibid., Dec. 2, 2011.
[49] Asharq al-Awsat, Dec. 5, 2011.

Yvette Talhamy served for three years as a teaching fellow at the University of Haifa's department of Middle Eastern studies. She is the author of articles published in the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, and Chronos History Journal.

Source: http://www.meforum.org/3198/syria-muslim-brotherhood

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