AMERICA FIDDLES AND THE WORLD BURNS
“FROM HERE, THEY COULD HIT BEN GURION AIRPORT.”
I was standing on the mountains of Samaria—an area of Israel that the Obama administration and most of the world calls “the West Bank”—with an Israeli local who wanted to show me their strategic importance. It was early December 2012 and “Operation Pillar of Defense,” a week-long Israeli military action against Hamas terrorists in Gaza, had just recently ended. The “international community” had a solution it was touting to prevent another round of hostilities—the same one it has been demanding for decades. Israel must hand over Samaria and the neighboring area of Judea to the Palestinians. And it must do so immediately.
“You can see Tel Aviv right there in the distance,” said my Israeli guide as he motioned with his hand. “And of course, Ben Gurion Airport is there. If we hand Judea and Samaria over to the Palestinians, Hamas will move in. And instead of shooting rockets at Israel from Gaza, which is flat, they’ll be able to move their rockets onto these mountains and have a perfect view of Israel below. Tel Aviv—and Ben Gurion—will then be hit with a barrage of rockets. There is no doubt.”
Tel Aviv, Israel’s second-largest city, with over four hundred thousand residents, lies on the coastal plain where some 70 percent of the total Israeli population is situated. Ben Gurion International, which is located in Tel Aviv, is Israel’s lone commercial airport. Targeting Tel Aviv and forcing a shutdown of Ben Gurion Airport for any extended period of time would cripple the Israeli economy and ruin the country’s vital tourism industry.
Hamas is already rapidly approaching the ability to do just that from its Gaza stronghold. During its summer 2014 war against Israel, the terror group fired long-range rockets out of Gaza that reached deep into Israeli territory, well beyond Tel Aviv. When one of the rockets fell a mile away from Ben Gurion Airport on July 22, 2014, the Obama administration and some European countries temporarily canceled commercial flights to Israel, citing safety concerns. Israeli government officials were furious—some called the flight bans a victory for terror. And they were right. Hamas and other regional terror groups now realized that firing rockets that fall even a full mile away from Ben Gurion Airport is enough to make Western governments essentially abandon Israel in its time of need. Talk about psychological jihad.
The flight ban decision was particularly inexplicable given that Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system had shot down about 90 percent of all the rockets Hamas had fired at civilian and strategic areas during the conflict.1 And in any case, the Obama administration had never enacted a total ban on commercial flights—as it did with Israel—when it came to the airspace above hotspots such as North Korea, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan (the scene of attempted terrorist attacks on commercial airports in the months leading up to the Israel-Hamas war), Ukraine (where pro-Russian separatists shot a commercial flight out of the sky the very same month as the Israel flight ban), and Iraq. Warnings, yes—but not total bans. According to retired Naval Intelligence officer J. E. Dyer, “The prohibition on Ben Gurion is uniquely stringent, and inconsistent with FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] practices elsewhere. It also had to be approved by Obama. Israel is an ally, one of America’s closest partners in the world. Cutting off her commercial airport from U.S. carriers is inherently a presidential-level decision, and Obama is responsible whether he made it or not.”2
So why would President Obama, who doggedly refused to ban commercial flights into the U.S. from Ebola-affected countries in Africa, approve the FAA’s decision on Israel and defend it as “prudent”?3 Could it have been retaliation for Israel’s defiance of the Obama administration’s demands that it reach a ceasefire with Hamas—the same Hamas that had already broken repeated ceasefires during the conflict and continued to fire rocket after rocket at Israeli population centers and kill Israeli soldiers? Was the Obama administration’s move, as Republican Senator Ted Cruz suggested, tantamount to an “economic boycott” and a not-so-subtle message to Israel to fall in line and get with the Obama foreign policy program, which includes the establishment of a Palestinian state?4 Cruz, who threatened to block all State Department appointees until he got answers regarding the Israel flight ban, also pointed out that the Obama administration had recently rewarded the Palestinians with a $47 million aid package—aid, he said, that was “in effect $47 million for Hamas.”5
Rest assured that Hamas and other jihadists heard the administration’s message loud and clear: America punishes its friends and rewards its foes. As a result, the enemies of Israel—and America—were emboldened yet again.
Israel also undoubtedly got the memo—and the delicious irony is that the Obama administration’s flight ban made the Palestinian state that Obama, Europe, and the UN are demanding even less likely. After all, if one rocket out of Gaza that fell a mile from Ben Gurion International Airport can cause a commercial flight ban and harm the Israeli economy, what would thousands of rockets fired by Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups from the high ground of Judea and Samaria do? Israel, which is roughly the size of New Jersey, has seen the disastrous effects of past withdrawals from southern Lebanon and Gaza in the form of thousands of rockets rained down upon its cities by Hezbollah and Hamas, respectively. Needless to say, a new Palestinian terror state on the so-called West Bank is not a very appealing option.
Why would Israel hand over these strategically vital mountain areas to a Palestinian people (including Mahmoud Abbas’s supposedly “moderate” Palestinian Authority, a hotbed of anti-Semitic, pro-terror incitement) that have shown no inclination toward peace and refuse even to recognize Israel’s right to exist? Should not Jews have a right to live in the biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria, of all places, regions mentioned throughout the Old and New Testaments, where the Jewish patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived—and where King David ruled (from Hebron, in Judea) before moving his capital to Jerusalem three thousand years ago? The three hundred fifty thousand–plus Jews currently living in Judea and Samaria are called “illegal settlers”—and yet their ancestors settled those same lands thousands of years ago.
The West’s frequently condescending treatment of Israel—the only free, Western-style democracy in the Middle East and a standard-bearer for Judeo-Christian civilization in a sea of Muslim tyranny—is shortsighted and self-defeating. For years, Israel has literally been on the front lines of the struggle against the very same jihadists who have declared war against the United States and Europe. Islamic terror attacks like the ones in Paris, Ottawa, and Boston that have caused so much consternation in the West in recent years are a regular occurrence in Israel, where Palestinian terrorists practically invented the kind of “chip away,” lone wolf jihadi assaults discussed in chapter three.
Americans and Europeans may be stunned by this jihadist barbarism, but Israel, sadly, has grown quite used to it and knows exactly how to deal with it—not with rosy “Islam is peace” platitudes and half measures but with force and steely resolve. Here’s just a small sampling of what the state of Israel was experiencing at the same time that ISIS was surging across the Middle East and leaving a trail of severed heads in its wake during 2014:
• On June 12, 2014, Hamas operatives kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenagers—including sixteen-year-old Naftali Fraenkel, a U.S. citizen. The killings helped trigger the third war between Israel and Hamas in a five-year span. As we have seen, “Operation Protective Edge” was the Israeli campaign designed to stop Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket barrages against Israeli civilian centers and to neutralize a vast network of underground “terror tunnels” that Hamas had dug from Gaza into Israeli territory, some of which were reportedly designed to carry out mass terror attacks against civilians in southern Israel.6
• On August 4, in Jerusalem, a Palestinian man driving a tractor ran over and killed one Israeli pedestrian and injured several more before crashing into a public bus and overturning it. The terrorist was shot and killed by Israeli police.7
• On October 22, a Palestinian in a car careened into a Jerusalem Light Rail station, killing two people—including a three-month-old Israeli girl with dual American citizenship—and injuring several more before being shot and killed by Israeli police.8
• On October 29, in an assassination attempt in Jerusalem, a Palestinian man shot and critically wounded Rabbi Yehuda Glick, an activist who advocates for Jews to be able to pray on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism—which is now the site of the Dome of the Rock, a Muslim shrine, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the site from which Muslims believe Mohammed ascended to heaven on his Night Journey.9 They believe this despite the fact that Jerusalem is never mentioned in the Koran (while it is mentioned literally hundreds of times in the Bible).
• On November 5, in Jerusalem, a Hamas operative plowed a van into a group of Israeli Border Patrol forces and pedestrians, killing one person and injuring at least fourteen more. He was shot and killed by police, but not before exiting the van and attempting to attack more pedestrians with a metal rod.10
• On November 10, a twenty-six-year-old woman waiting at a bus stop was run over and then stabbed to death by a Palestinian man in Gush Etzion, in Judea.11
• On November 18, two Palestinian men stormed into a Jerusalem synagogue and used a meat cleaver and a gun to murder five worshipers, including three dual U.S.-Israeli citizens, before being shot and killed by Israeli police.12
Israel has been suffering through these types of atrocities on a regular basis for decades, often at the hands of Hamas. Like ISIS, Hamas is a ruthless terrorist organization that revels in the slaughter of innocent men, women, and children. And although Hamas is focused, first and foremost, on wiping Israel off the map, it shares ISIS’s goal of a global Islamic caliphate. Also like ISIS, Hamas is an avowed enemy of the United States and has murdered American citizens.13 The fact is, Israel’s enemies are the West’s enemies—we face common foes.
Indeed, Israel is the prime target not just of Palestinian terrorist groups. It is also squarely in the crosshairs of ISIS and al Qaeda, the same global jihadist organizations that are devoted to America’s destruction.
• As we saw in chapter two, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, a jihadi group based in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, along Israel’s southern border, has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and has a history of carrying out cross-border attacks against Israel.
• ISIS sympathizers are also active to Israel’s north, in Lebanon, and to Israel’s south, in Gaza—where some Palestinians are reportedly leaving Hamas to join what they view as the more extreme Islamic State.14
• In December 2014, three local jihadist groups based in southern Syria reportedly pledged allegiance to ISIS, meaning that “For the first time since the Syrian civil war began in early 2011, Islamic State . . . has gained a presence near the border with Israel on the Golan Heights.”15
• Likewise, the al-Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, also controls territory along the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, on the Israeli border.16
• Israel also faces a growing number of ISIS sympathizers within its borders. In November 2014, Israeli authorities arrested three members of an ISIS-linked terror cell operating in the city of Hebron in Judea.17 Israeli security services believe that over thirty Israeli Arabs have left the country to join ISIS.18
From ISIS to al Qaeda to Hamas to Hezbollah, tiny Israel is encircled by terrorist groups encamped on its borders and committed to its destruction. As we have seen, these existential enemies of Israel are also America’s enemies, not to mention Europe’s. You’d think that obvious fact—along with our shared Judeo-Christian heritage and democratic ideals—would be more than enough reason for Western governments to express solidarity with the Jewish State. Yet on November 18, 2014, just hours after the deadly attack by two Palestinian terrorists on worshipers in a Jerusalem synagogue, lawmakers in Spain’s lower parliament voted overwhelmingly to recognize a Palestinian state—despite the Palestinians having proven again and again, through numberless acts of terror and incitement, that they are far from ready for, or deserving of, statehood.19 Nevertheless, in a sign of naked antagonism toward Israel, the European Parliament and national legislatures in Britain, Ireland, France, and Sweden have joined Spain in recognizing the state of “Palestine.”20
As for the Obama administration, it has at times shown the Israelis open hostility, culminating in December 2014 with reports that it was even considering sanctions against Israel for continuing to build homes in Jerusalem (in areas of the city that the White House believes should be part of a future Palestinian state).21 Ordering Israelis not to build homes in Jerusalem—considered by the Jewish people to be their eternal capital for the past three thousand years—is like forbidding Americans from buying property in New York City or Washington, D.C.
But for the Obama administration, when something goes wrong in the Middle East—which is often, particularly since President Obama took office—it’s invariably somehow Israel’s fault. Incredibly, the administration has even found a way to blame Israel for the rise of ISIS. At a White House ceremony marking the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha in October 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry suggested that the lack of a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians was helping to fuel ISIS recruitment. “As I went around and met with people in the course of our discussions about [building a coalition against ISIS],” Kerry said, “. . . there wasn’t a leader I met with in the region who didn’t raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians, because it was a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation that they felt they had to respond to.”22 In other words, America’s top diplomat believes thousands of jihadists from around the world are flocking to Syria and Iraq and chopping off the heads of Christians, Yazidis, and Kurds partly because they’re angry that there is no Palestinian state.
Kerry is far from the only administration official wallowing in ignorance when it comes to the ISIS threat. On June 29, 2011, CIA Director John Brennan—who at the time was a senior adviser to President Obama—declared, “Our strategy is . . . shaped by a deeper understanding of al Qaeda’s goals, strategy, and tactics. I’m not talking about al Qaeda’s grandiose vision of global domination through a violent Islamic caliphate. That vision is absurd, and we are not going to organize our counterterrorism policies against a feckless delusion that is never going to happen. We are not going to elevate these thugs and their murderous aspirations into something larger than they are [emphasis added].”23
Except that al Qaeda’s vision of a caliphate did happen. And ironically enough, as terrorism expert Thomas Joscelyn pointed out in the Weekly Standard, it all came to fruition on June 29, 2014—exactly “three years later to the day” after Brennan had said the revival of the caliphate was an “absurd” pipe dream.
Major General Michael K. Nagata, who commands U.S. Special Operations forces in the Middle East, convened a diverse panel of experts over the summer of 2014 to try to understand what makes ISIS so successful. His concern: “We do not understand the movement, and until we do, we are not going to defeat it. We have not defeated the idea. We do not even understand the idea.”24
Nagata’s admission was stunning. We’re a full fourteen years from the 9/11 attacks, yet Nagata and other leaders and decision makers in the United States still don’t understand “the idea” behind the Islamic State? A major reason for this lack of understanding is a knee-jerk refusal to acknowledge any connection between Islamic terror and Islam. President Obama leads the way (for once) in this regard with his repeated declarations that ISIS is “not Islamic.” But he is far from alone on the political left. After Islamic terrorists with links to al Qaeda and ISIS slaughtered seventeen people in separate incidents over three days in France in January 2015, former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean appeared on MSNBC (a fitting venue) and declared, “I stopped calling these people Muslim terrorists. They’re about as Muslim as I am. I mean, they have no respect for anybody else’s life, that’s not what the Koran says. . . . I think ISIS is a cult. Not an Islamic cult. I think it’s a cult.”25 Thus sayeth Howard Dean, professor of Islamic Studies and Koranic expert (not). This is a man whose religious knowledge is so profound that he once said his favorite book in the New Testament was the Book of Job. (Only, the Book of Job is found in the Old Testament.)26
In completely disassociating acts of Islamic terrorism from Islamic teachings, Dean, President Obama, and their far left, progressive ilk not only violate the first rule of war—know your enemy—they take things a dangerous step further by refusing even to identify who the enemy is. For example, in the wake of the jihadist attacks in Paris, President Obama announced plans to hold a “Summit on Countering Violent Extremism” in February 2015. The title of the event perfectly encapsulates the West’s head-in-the-sand approach to the problem. “Violent extremists” have not declared war on the United States—Islamic jihadists have. Being able to admit that fact is a start. Getting around to educating the American people about the jihadist threat and preparing them for a difficult struggle against it would be the next step, because if you don’t understand your enemy—its strengths, weaknesses, and ideology—you cannot defeat it. Uniting the American people and laying out a clear strategy to defeat jihadism would follow. It’s called leadership. Unfortunately, that’s a quality currently in very short supply in Washington, D.C.
On January 11, 2014, over forty world leaders, including British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, King Abdullah II of Jordan, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, gathered in Paris to join French President Francois Hollande and well over one million French citizens (seven million including other locations nationwide) in a massive solidarity march against Islamic terrorism.27 Yet the man who is supposed to be the Leader of the Free World was conspicuous by his absence. President Obama not only skipped the Paris rally—he didn’t even bother to send a top administration official such as Vice President Joe Biden or Secretary of State John Kerry to represent the United States (Attorney General Eric Holder was actually in Paris during the event yet did not attend).28 Sending a high-level American official to the march would have been a forceful statement by the president that America fully realizes that the West is locked in a generational struggle against the rapidly growing threat of radical Islam—and a declaration that the most powerful country in the world will stand together in solidarity with its allies to defeat the jihadist enemy, no matter the cost. Instead, President Obama and his cabinet were glaringly, embarrassingly MIA. It’s not hard to figure out why.
For starters, any rally that spotlighted the menace that Islamic terrorism—not “violent extremism”—posed to the world didn’t pass the president’s “Islam is peace/the terrorists are not Muslims” test. Obama had spent years assuring us that al Qaeda was decimated, that Iraq was pacified, and that the world was, in his words, “less violent” and more stable, safe, tolerant, and peaceful than it has ever been.29 He had even given a speech at the National Defense University in May 2013 declaring that the “Global War on Terror” was essentially over.30 Besides, it was his second term—meaning he only had a short time left to focus on domestic issues and complete the task of “fundamentally transforming the United States of America,” something he vowed to do before being elected in 2008.31 Then along came the ISIS juggernaut, a resurgent al Qaeda, and a steady wave of deadly jihadist attacks on Western soil. All of a sudden, it was painfully clear that the president had been wrong all along. The Islamic terrorist threat was not receding—it was metastasizing in every corner of the globe, thanks in part to his policies. And he had no coherent strategy—and worse, no desire—to lead the fight against it. In other words, forget Paris.
“I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution.”
Coming from the Muslim head of state of the most populous and influential Arab nation, the words were nothing less than earth shattering. On January 1, 2015, at a prestigious, high profile venue that some have called the “Muslim Vatican,” Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi gave one of the most courageous and visionary speeches in recent memory. The event at Cairo’s famed al-Azhar University commemorated the birthday of Islam’s prophet Mohammed. Al-Sisi used the occasion to directly challenge Egypt’s top Islamic authorities, who were in attendance, to lead what the civilized world (including some secular Muslims) has been calling for ever since 9/11—a reformation of Islam:
I am referring here to the religious clerics. We have to think hard about what we are facing—and I have, in fact, addressed this topic a couple of times before. It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma [Islamic world] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible!
That thinking—I am not saying “religion” but “thinking”—that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the centuries, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. It’s antagonizing the entire world!
Is it possible that 1.6 billion people [Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants—that is 7 billion—so that they themselves may live? Impossible!
I am saying these words here at Al Azhar, before this assembly of scholars and ulema—Allah Almighty be witness to your truth on Judgment Day concerning that which I’m talking about now.
All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective.
I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move . . . because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.32
Finally. A prominent Muslim leader, caretaker of what is arguably the most prominent Muslim nation, stands up and tells the unvarnished truth about the state of his religion. And he does so in front of a roomful of powerful imams and Islamic religious scholars at al-Azhar University, considered the most influential educational institution in the Muslim world (and a hotbed of anti-Western and anti-Semitic thought).
Islam expert Raymond Ibrahim, an Egyptian-American Coptic Christian, explained the significance of al-Sisi’s statements: “. . . one must appreciate how refreshing it is for a top political leader in the heart of the Islamic world to make such candid admissions that his Western counterparts dare not even think let alone speak. And bear in mind, Sisi has much to lose as opposed to Western politicians. Calls by the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists that he is an apostate are sure to grow more aggressive now.”33
To label someone an “apostate” in the Islamic world is to mark him for death. Al-Sisi, a practicing Muslim, knows this. He has already drawn the eternal ire of Egypt’s Islamists for his sweeping crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. But that hasn’t stopped him from smashing the Brotherhood, working closely with Israel, cracking down on Hamas’s smuggling tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border, and calling for the aforementioned Islamic reformation. Just days after his groundbreaking speech at al-Azhar, al-Sisi again made history—and angered Islamists everywhere—by becoming the first Egyptian president to attend mass at a Coptic Christian church. His appearance alongside the Coptic Pope came as Egypt’s Copts were celebrating their Christmas Eve. Al-Sisi told the congregation, “It’s important for the world to see this scene, which reflects true Egyptian unity, and to confirm that we’re all Egyptians, first and foremost. We truly love each other without discrimination, because this is the Egyptian truth.”34
Sounds like the kind of Muslim leader the West has been waiting for, right? Bold, reasonable, and forthright. Yet the mainstream media in the United States virtually ignored al-Sisi’s al-Azhar speech for days. And the Obama administration, instead of holding up al-Sisi’s statements as a model for Muslims everywhere to emulate, had not a word to say about it, at least publicly. Because the Obama White House does not like al-Sisi one bit. It balked when al-Sisi led a popular coup against Mohammed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood regime in July 2013—despite the fact that Morsi was clearly taking the country in a disastrous Islamist direction, and that some thirty million Egyptians were in the streets demanding his ouster. And the administration has decried al-Sisi’s subsequent harsh crackdown on the Brotherhood, which has seen the Islamist movement crippled in its Egyptian birthplace thanks to mass arrests and trials of its members by the al-Sisi government.
You’d think a U.S. president would consider the weakening of the Muslim Brotherhood—an anti-American, anti-Semitic organization that spawned al Qaeda, Hamas, and the entire modern jihadist movement—a good thing. The Obama White House, however, has made clear that it is deeply unhappy with al-Sisi’s moves against the Brotherhood, to the point that it suspended much-needed military aid to Egypt—aid that would have been used, no doubt, to bolster the Egyptian military’s fight against terrorism on its soil, including the jihadist hotbed of Sinai.35 As of this writing, it appeared that the aid would be restored by Congress.36 But the damage to the U.S.-Egypt relationship has been done. I’ve spent time with Egyptian officials who are perplexed by the Obama administration’s continued defense of the Muslim Brotherhood. Why, they wonder, is President Obama going to the mat for a caliphate-craving organization that hates America and whose ideology has inspired terrorism throughout the world? It’s tough to find an answer. Rest assured, without the creation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928, there would be no ISIS today. And while al-Sisi may not be a Western-style democrat, he’s clearly the best option, by far, in a chaotic Egypt, and a man with whom the West—and Israel—can do business.
Still, one gets the distinct feeling that the Obama administration would be thrilled to see Mohammed Morsi—who, as of this writing, was awaiting trial in Egypt for murder and other charges—back in power.37 As I documented extensively in my 2013 book, The Brotherhood, the Obama administration has been advised by radical Islamist organizations including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which have been tied to the Muslim Brotherhood by federal prosecutors.38 In November 2014, CAIR, along with another U.S-based Brotherhood front, the Muslim American Society, were named terrorist organizations by the United Arab Emirates, ostensibly for their ties to the Brotherhood (which the UAE also designated as a terror organization).39 The Obama administration, predictably, decried the move and pressured the UAE to reverse it.40 After all, it doesn’t look good for the president when Islamic groups whose members have been frequent visitors to the White House are branded terrorist organizations—and by a Muslim nation, to boot.41
Then there are Turkey and Qatar, the world’s two biggest backers of the Muslim Brotherhood—and, incidentally, two of the Obama administration’s closest allies in the Middle East. Turkey’s Islamist president (formerly prime minister) Recep Tayyip Erdogan has demanded that Morsi be put back in power—no surprise, given that Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is essentially the Turkish Muslim Brotherhood.42 And prior to Morsi’s ouster, Qatar was seen as the Brotherhood’s biggest cheerleader and backer in the region. Both Turkey and Qatar have also been staunch supporters of the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch, Hamas. Qatar has been the terror group’s main financier and played host to its political leadership43 while Turkey has given safe haven to top Hamas operative Salah al-Arouri—who has allegedly directed Hamas terror attacks against Israeli civilians from his Turkish safe haven.44
As of this writing, there are signs that Qatar, which has seen the Muslim Brotherhood movement severely weakened throughout the region since 2013, may be changing its tune and distancing itself from the Brothers while attempting a rapprochement with its Gulf neighbors and al-Sisi’s Egypt.45 How a potential Qatari realignment will turn out remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that Turkey remains unrepentant and continues to openly embrace Hamas.46
But Hamas isn’t the only reason a bipartisan group of two dozen members of the U.S. Congress have called for Turkey and Qatar to be sanctioned over support for terrorism.47 Both countries have also poured untold amounts of money (and in Turkey’s case, arms) into Syria to help rebel groups fighting against the Assad regime. Some of the reported recipients of that Turkish and Qatari assistance are terrorist groups—the al Qaeda–affiliated al-Nusra Front chief among them.48 And ISIS may also be benefiting. According to the Wall Street Journal, “The U.S. Treasury [Department] . . . has increasingly voiced concerns about the alleged flow of Qatari money to Mideast militants, including Islamic State, Nusra Front and al Qaeda. . . . The Obama administration hasn’t publicly charged Qatar’s government of directly making these payments, but rather says it has been lax in regulating the finances of Qatari nationals, charities and Islamic organizations. Treasury officials allege one wealthy Qatari businessman late last year transferred $2 million to a senior Islamic State commander in Syria who was in charge of recruiting foreign fighters.”49
Nevertheless, “The Obama administration has made Qatar one of its closest diplomatic partners” in the Middle East.”50 Ditto for Turkey, which, along with Qatar, was the Obama administration’s preferred mediator (despite Israel’s strenuous objections and Turkey’s clear pro-Hamas sympathies) to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas during the summer of 2014.51 To say that Turkey, a NATO member, is also playing a problematic role in the fight against ISIS would be an understatement. An extensive November 2014 report by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies called “Bordering on Terrorism: Turkey’s Syria Policy and the Rise of the Islamic State” laid out the ugly details:
The IS [Islamic State] crisis has put Turkey and the U.S. on a collision course. Turkey refuses to allow the coalition to launch military strikes from its soil. Its military also merely looked on while IS besieged the Kurdish town of Kobani, just across its border. Turkey negotiated directly with IS in the summer of 2013 to release 49 Turks held by the terrorist group. In return, Ankara reportedly secured the release of 180 IS fighters, many of whom returned to the battlefield. Meanwhile, the border continues to serve as a transit point for the illegal sale of oil, the transfer of weapons, and the flow of foreign fighters. Inside Turkey, IS has also established cells for recruiting militants and other logistical operations. All of this has raised questions about Turkey’s value as an American ally, and its place in the NATO alliance.52
With friends like these, who needs enemies? In the upside down world of President Obama, fire-breathing, terror-sponsoring radical Islamists like Turkey’s President Erdogan can be reasoned with and allied with to fight against terrorism.
It’s a strange principle, but how else to explain the Obama administration’s receptivity to the world’s number one state sponsor of terrorism pitching in to help battle ISIS in Iraq? Yes, Iran has undergone quite the image rehabilitation during President Obama’s time in office. Mind you, the Iranian regime continues to brazenly support U.S.-designated terrorist groups of all shapes and sizes, from its chief proxy Hezbollah to Hamas to Palestinian Islamic Jihad to al Qaeda and the Taliban.53 Tehran’s support for Islamic jihadists worldwide stretches across the Sunni-Shia divide and bridges any ideological or theological differences for the greater “good” of destroying the “Little Satan,” Israel, and the “Great Satan,” the United States—goals to which Iran remains rabidly committed. To drive that point home, an Iranian general said in January 2015, “Our ideal is not [nuclear] centrifuges but the destruction of the White House and the annihilation of Zionism [Israel].”54 As for the said centrifuges, Iran also refuses to relinquish its nuclear program, which has placed the terror regime on the threshold of acquiring a nuclear bomb.55
The Obama administration’s response to this Iranian intransigence has been not only to give Iran repeated, undeserved extensions in ongoing nuclear talks with the P5+1 nations (the U.S, Britain, France, China, Russia, and Germany) but to raise hopes that Iran—which is clearly buying time and hoodwinking the West as it inches ever closer to nuclear weapons capability—can be a responsible actor on the world stage, despite every indication to the contrary. In a December 2014 interview with National Public Radio, President Obama said of the possibility of re-opening a U.S. embassy in Tehran, “I never say never, but I think these things have to go in steps.” He then went a step further, stating, “[The Iranians] have a path to break through that isolation and they should seize it. Because if they do, there’s incredible talent and resources and sophistication . . . inside of Iran, and it would be a very successful regional power that was also abiding by international norms and international rules, and that would be good for everybody.”56
Yes, I’m sure that the Israelis—not to mention Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt—believe that having (unapologetically genocidal, jihadist) Iran as a “very successful regional power” would be just grand. Don’t look now, but that’s exactly the reality the Obama administration seems determined to create—to the point that it has tacitly accepted an Iranian role in the fight against ISIS. According to the Washington Post, “the two nations’ arms-length alliance against the Islamic State is an uncomfortable reality”:
Iranian military involvement has dramatically increased in Iraq . . . as Tehran has delivered desperately needed aid to Baghdad in its fight against Islamic State militants, say U.S., Iraqi and Iranian sources. In the eyes of Obama administration officials, equally concerned about the rise of the brutal Islamist group, that’s an acceptable role—for now. . . . A senior Iranian cleric with close ties to Tehran’s leadership, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss security matters, said that since the Islamic State’s capture of much of northern Iraq in June, Iran has sent more than 1,000 military advisers to Iraq, as well as elite units, and has conducted airstrikes and spent more than $1 billion on military aid.57
Iran is not opposed to the Islamic State out of any sort of noble indignation over ISIS’s brutality or tactics (Iran itself executed 852 people during one recent eleven-month span).58 Rather, Iran sees ISIS as a direct challenge to its goal of regional supremacy—particularly since ISIS is hell-bent on removing any trace of Iran’s Shia brand of Islam from the Middle East. Iran, just like ISIS, desires to lead a confederation of Islamic nations (in Iran’s case an “Imamate,” or Shia-style caliphate, led by the Iranian Supreme Leader) that would confront Israel and the West. At the end of the day, ISIS and Iran, despite profound differences in some areas, are both notorious purveyors of terrorism that essentially want the same exact thing. Yet the Obama administration, by employing an all-carrot-and-no-stick strategy with Iran that would make Neville Chamberlain blush, has in effect decided to hand the keys of the Middle East over to the terror masters in Tehran—while conceding whatever territory Iran doesn’t gobble up to what has become Washington’s chief ally in the region, the Muslim Brotherhood. The MB movement across the region has unquestionably taken massive hits since 2013, and it is on life support in Egypt. But like jihadi vampires, the Brothers, throughout their bloody history, have always seemed to find a way to rise from the dead.
And the Obama administration’s policies may one day help them to do exactly that.
President Obama’s isolation of Israel and Egypt and embrace of Turkey, Qatar, and Iran is instructive as we consider the future of ISIS. If the United States, under the Obama administration, cannot distinguish between the enemies of Islamic terrorism and its supporters, little promises to change before the president leaves office in 2016. Indeed, the ISIS crisis—and the broader assault by global jihadists against the West—promises only to intensify in President Obama’s remaining years in office. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen repeatedly on the president’s watch, when it comes to matters of national and global security, a great amount of damage, some of it irreversible, can be inflicted in a short amount of time.
Here are some trends to watch for in the near future as ISIS continues its march across the Middle East—and its supporters multiply here in the West:
• “Lone wolf” jihadi terrorism carried out by ISIS and al Qaeda sympathizers will remain a persistent and deadly problem for Western democracies. At the same time, Western citizens who have trained with ISIS in Syria and Iraq could very well return home under the direction of their terror overlords and conduct increasingly professional attacks against soft civilian targets as well as harder targets, including law enforcement and the military. The January 2015 terror attacks in France—carried out, in part, by two brothers who had trained with al Qaeda in Yemen—is a frightening glimpse of what could be in store. Following those attacks, ISIS embarked on a wide-ranging social media campaign glorifying the carnage in France and calling on each Muslim in the West “to act as a ‘city wolf’ and kill co-workers and fellow commuters.”59 In other words, random attacks against random civilians in Western cities. Clearly, the eventual goal of the jihadists is nothing less than a full-scale guerilla war on Western soil.
• If, as seems probable, terrorism in Europe increases and European governments continue to refuse to take the necessary steps to combat it, European citizens will become increasingly outraged. The culture clash between Europe and Islam could, in some cases, descend into violence between Europe’s large Muslim immigrant communities and the indigenous populations. Anti-Semitic violence in Europe will also continue to worsen, much of it at the hands of Muslim immigrants. And as European leaders show a lack of will to combat this ancient poison, Jews will leave the continent in increasing numbers. The exodus from France has already begun.
• ISIS, while consolidating most of the areas already under its control, will continue to explore ways to expand its caliphate. Look for continued incursions into Lebanon and probing along the Jordanian and Saudi borders (which, as we saw in chapter two, is already happening). Jordan and Saudi Arabia would be tough nuts for ISIS to crack, and they can count on strong support from the U.S. (and Israel, in Jordan’s case) were the Islamic State to make serious moves inside their territory. Yes, even the impotent Obama administration would have no choice but to intervene (with no ground troops, of course) to stave off an ISIS advance if Jordan or Saudi Arabia were threatened. After all, the Democrats have an election to win in 2016.
• Again, especially if ISIS continues to stall in northern Iraq, look for it to embark on new adventures elsewhere, whether in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia (Mecca, Medina, and all that Saudi crude would suit the caliphate just fine), Jordan (all that separates ISIS from Israel), and Syria (as of this writing, ISIS continues to advance around Damascus and near the Israeli border). In addition, ISIS’s fierce battle to control Iraq’s Anbar province could be crucial in its plans to eventually turn its sights on Baghdad. In October 2014, ISIS made it within 15.5 miles of the Baghdad International Airport before being turned back60—and it promises to continue to soften up the Iraqi capital through a campaign of shelling and suicide bombings.
• Iran and the Iraqi Shia militias under its sway would fiercely resist any ISIS encroachment on the historic city, and they could count on heavy U.S. air support. Baghdad, needless to say, would be another very tough nut for ISIS to crack. But given the recent history of the Middle East, “never say never” is a good rule of thumb. It’s a safe bet that no one—save a gaggle of “experts” inside the Beltway—will be completely shocked if the black flag of ISIS was one day flying above Baghdad.
• Look for ISIS to make a concerted effort to target U.S. forces in Iraq and shoot down Coalition planes in an attempt to nab hostages for propaganda value. As of this writing, ISIS was holding a Jordanian pilot whose plane had been shot down above Syria.61
• As the Obama administration withdraws U.S. troops from Afghanistan, it’s a good bet that the country will descend into Iraq-style chaos, with jihadists running amok. Ominously, in January 2015 a group of Pakistani and Afghan jihadists who formerly belonged to the Taliban beheaded a captured Afghan soldier in a gruesome video in which they pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.62 As of this writing, ISIS supporters had also reportedly made inroads in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province.63 As we saw in chapter two, declarations of loyalty in diverse places around the world enable ISIS to establish caliphate satellites outside of its primary sphere of influence in Iraq and Syria. And as ISIS continues to achieve success, more followers will come.
• The cyber-jihad against the West will intensify, especially as ISIS and other jihadi groups continue to draw in tech-savvy Western recruits. On January 12, 2015, ISIS sympathizers were apparently able to hack into social media accounts of the U.S. military’s Central Command, “posting threatening messages and propaganda videos, along with some military documents,” including “contact information for senior military personnel.”64
• The intensity and savagery of Islamic terrorism will descend to increasingly demonic depths. ISIS’s audaciously violent emergence has seemingly inspired other Islamic terror groups to engage in greater and more shocking acts of carnage, including the Pakistani Taliban’s slaughter of 150 schoolchildren in December 2014 and the Nigerian terror group Boko Haram’s murder of some two thousand people in attacks across northern Nigeria in early January 2015.65 Jihadists clearly do not believe in limited rules of engagement.
The strategies we should be implementing against ISIS and the global jihadist movement—both at home and abroad—remain depressingly similar to the solutions I suggested in the conclusion to my 2013 book, The Brotherhood, with some obvious updates. One thing has not changed: the extreme unlikelihood of any of these changes being enacted prior to President Obama’s leaving office. Nevertheless, it’s important for well-informed and patriotic Americans to resolve to take the steps we must eventually take if the global jihad embodied today by ISIS is to be defeated:
• Completely destroy ISIS militarily in Iraq and Syria so that it can never pose any semblance of a threat ever again. This would not only eliminate the most powerful terrorist movement in history—it would send a clear message to jihadists everywhere that the United States was through pulling punches and playing nice. I am not a military strategist. What I do know is that every credible military strategist I have spoken to, both on and off the record, over the past two years has told me unequivocally that ISIS cannot be totally defeated militarily without some level of involvement from U.S. ground forces—and in more than just an “advisory role.” Whatever it takes.
• Educate the American people about jihadism and the nature of the threat ISIS poses and why it is absolutely crucial for America to defeat this movement at any cost. Start by naming the enemy—Islamic terrorism—and then take it from there.
• Revoke not only the passport but the citizenship of any American who fights for ISIS or any other terrorist group overseas so that he is never able to reenter the United States.
• Secure America’s borders, particularly the egregiously porous southern border, which is like an E-ZPass for criminal elements who wish to enter the United States, including terrorists.
• Review and revise America’s Visa Waiver program with Western European countries that have become hotbeds of Islamic terrorists.
• Bolster cooperation with Europe, Canada, Australia, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and any other nation—Muslim or non-Muslim—that shows a sincere and committed desire to root out Islamic extremism.
• Isolate and pressure supposed “allies” that do not share that commitment—Turkey, Qatar, and Pakistan chief among them. Dishonorable mention goes to the Palestinian Authority and Saudi Arabia, whose help in the fight against ISIS and global jihadists should not be welcomed until they renounce their own shameful ongoing legacies of supporting terrorism when it suits their interests. I’m not holding my breath waiting for that unlikely day to come, and neither should you.
• Make clear to the Iranian regime that it is not an ally or friend, in the fight against ISIS or anywhere else. Actively work to foster regime change in Iran, the world’s number one state sponsor of terrorism, through a variety of overt and covert means. And stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon by any means necessary.
• Stand proudly and unflinchingly with Israel and the Jewish people worldwide, and with the persecuted, beleaguered Christians and other religious minorities of the Middle East, now besieged by Islamic jihadists.
• Stringently review all current U.S. immigration and student visa polices when it comes to Muslim nations.
• Ban all Muslim Brotherhood–connected groups operating on U.S. soil and neutralize any influence they have over American policy. The Brotherhood’s ideology of martyrdom and jihad in pursuit of a caliphate has served as the gateway drug for far too many Islamic terrorists. Work to counter and de-glamorize that same jihadist ideology in American Muslim communities—ideally, with help from eloquent, patriotic Muslim moderates. I say that, however, with a very serious caveat: except for a few notable and courageous individuals, such as Dr. Zuhdi Jasser and former Egyptian Islamist Dr. Tawfik Hamid, moderate Muslims have just not spoken out publicly and forcefully in any significant numbers, despite the continuing jihadist onslaught. For example, why has no moderate Muslim activist organized a Million Muslim March against terrorism on the National Mall in the fourteen years that have passed since 9/11? Fear of retribution from their co-religionists is undoubtedly one major factor. Another problem is that the Obama administration has completely ignored moderate voices like those of Jasser and Hamid and instead given access and influence to jihad-supporting Muslim Brotherhood front groups.
• So we should support and encourage genuine Muslim reformers like Jasser and Hamid that want no part of jihad or sharia—while, at the same time, realizing that any sort of widespread, serious Muslim reformation remains a major long shot for the foreseeable future. If 9/11, London, Madrid, Fort Hood, Boston, Ottawa, Sydney, Paris, and the rise of ISIS weren’t enough to bring millions of outraged Muslims into the streets in widespread anti-terrorism marches around the world, then what will be?
We have reached a tipping point in the battle against radical Islam. Future generations will look back on this period in history, much as we now look back on the Cold War and World War II, and judge us on how we confront the existential challenge of Islamic jihadism that has already changed the Western way of life in profound ways.
It’s up to us whether our children and grandchildren will write the history of the first half of the twenty-first century as free men and women, or as slaves under a brutal system that shows no mercy, gives no quarter, and regards the very concepts of “freedom” and “democracy” with scorn.