The Obama administration, in its first and second terms, has committed strategic mistakes in the Middle East which will undermine U.S. national and security interests for many years, even under subsequent administrations after 2016.

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Another amazing pop culture event in America, which draws the attention of millions of viewers at home and worldwide, forgets to support freedom struggles worldwide.

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As Americans and humanity celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy of justice, equality and freedom, there are millions around the world who continue to suffer discrimination and oppression of the kind the African American pastor and leader struggled against until he paid the ultimate price for his engagement. MLK, Jr. led a tireless civil rights movement to end segregation and inequality—and to help his community and all citizens attain dignity under a one flag, one law for all. America has been identified for decades as the greatest liberal democracy in history and around the globe, in part, due to this man’s journey for public good. It has taken similar struggles by Americans from all races, ethnicities and religions—who from the founding fathers to modern times have made sacrifices in blood and treasure—to produce who we are as a nation, composed of both natives and emigres.

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A miracle on the Nile has been accomplished this week. Tens of millions of Egyptian citizens from all walks of life, Muslims and Christians, conservatives and liberals, seculars and religious, young and old, and in some instances, healthy and sick, have come out to cast a vote in the referendum of the century: either to say yes to new moderate constitution, relatively democratic, or to say no and revert to an Islamist constitution adopted by the previous Muslim Brotherhood regime. Most likely, an overwhelming majority of voters will chose to move away from the 2012 Islamist regime of Mohammed Morsi and select a more liberating draft, one that reinforces fundamental rights to women and minorities. The referendum will seal a popular uprising that exploded almost a year ago, and culminated in two gigantic peaceful demonstrations last summer against the political oppression of the Ikhwan regime. In short, we are finally witnessing a real democratic revolution emerging in the largest Arab Muslim majority country in the world.

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In an article published on October 3, The New York Times used a Muslim Brotherhood propaganda channel to attack the Egyptian revolution.

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In the northeastern part of Syria — contiguous to Iraq and Turkey — lies al Hasaka or the Triangle, also known as al Jazeera province.

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On June 30, according to BBC, thirty-three million Egyptians marched against the Muslim Brotherhood regime, accusing Morsi’s elite of oppression, militia enabling, backing Jihadists, suppressing women and minorities, and economic failure. President Mohammed Morsi responded by a call for Jihad and promised a “bloody answer” with the help of his militia. A civil war was about to explode. Responding to the overwhelming popular revolt, as one third of Egypt’s 90 million were marching in the streets, the Egyptian military technically refused to take orders from Morsi and dismissed his government on the grounds they posed a direct threat to the country’s national security. As an interim management for the country, the military asked civilians to form a cabinet in order to oversee another transition to democracy. Heavily criticized in the West by the Ikhwan’s friends and partners, General Abdelfattah al Sisy asked the public to prove to the international community where they stood, whether the people of Egypt wished to confirm the June 30 revolution or rather desired the return of Mohammed Morsi. While in the public square of Rabia Adawiya close to 700,000 supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and other fundamentalist allies and factions marched for the Islamist state and the return of their leader, across the rest of Egypt, from Tahrir Square and seemingly in all Egyptian cities, close to 40 million civilians demonstrated against the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt’s voice overwhelmingly spoke to irreversibly confirm their stance on July 26.

The Ikhwan, however, decided to re-seize the country by way of “Urban Jihad.” And as al Qaeda linked cells waged terror attacks in Sinai, the Ikhwan built two armed enclaves in Cairo. The Muslim Brotherhood, who are now acting as an urban insurgency across Egypt, in addition to the Jihadists of Sinai, have seized several blocks and two public sites, Rabia Adawiya in Cairo and the area close to Cairo University, using women and children as shields while launching raids against other neighborhoods. The Egyptian armed forces avoided using immediate maximum force in order to avoid large scale violence, but also to show that the people of Egypt are the ones resisting the Brotherhood’s terror.

Egypt’s civil society was fast to respond to the Urban Jihad. A female leader of secular democratic movement Tamarod in Egypt, responsible for mobilizing for the June 30 revolt, told al Arabiya that “the Egyptian people [are] fighting a Terrorist Cancer inside the country.” She said “the Ikhwan are using women and children as shields to demand the reinstatement of a fascist state ruled by the Islamists. Such a regime will crush women, liberals and Coptic Christians. The armed militias of the Brotherhood are threatening our civil society and our freedom. Egyptians will never accept these terrorists to rule over our destiny and the future of our children.” The Brotherhood are backed by al Jazeera anchors who have been accused by the seculars of “helping in mobilizing the Islamists of Egypt.” As an example, at 10:15 AM (EST) Wednesday, al Jazeera pressured the representative of the Islamist al Nour Party, which is not taking part in the confrontation in Egypt, to engage in the urban insurgency. The anchor repeatedly summoned al Nour to “join the fight on the side of the Muslim Brotherhood.” An observer in Cairo said “al Jazeera is now acting as a direct propaganda tool of the Muslim Brotherhood insurgency. And since this tool is owned and funded by the Qatar regime, the latter assumes responsibility for the bloodshed taking place in the country.”

Muslim Brotherhood Pogrom against the Christian Copts Rages

But more tragic are the attacks now waged across Egypt against Christians and Muslim seculars, including police stations. Reports from Egypt revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood have burned many Coptic Churches, including in Suhaj, over the past 40 hours.  (Link to al Ahram Canada, reporting on Muslim Brotherhood burning churches across Egypt)

Troubling reports by “Middle East Christian Alert” are showing dramatic pictures of churches across Egypt burned by Muslim Brotherhood terror militias. These pogroms are waged, according to government, media and civil society reports, by the Muslim Brotherhood Organization in Egypt. These reports are solid evidence of the open transformation of an Ikhwan regime into a terrorist organization, similar to Hamas, Hezbollah and al Qaeda.

Brotherhood Militia Massacring Egyptian Police Officers

Reports from Egypt are now confirming that the Ikhwan Islamist militia has committed a series of massacres across Egypt, including the execution of Egyptian police officers in several cities and towns. In Miniah, the Ikhwan militia controlled four police stations and seized all weapons inside these offices. Al Qahira TV reported: “dozens of Jihadist detainees were released by the Ikhwan.” “The Jihadi rage of the Brotherhood is uncovering their mask” said an observer in Washington. “With this barbaric behavior in its own country, the Muslim Brotherhood has to be classified as a ‘terrorist organization’ and not a ‘loose federation of secular and moderate reformers’ as the top intelligence director in the U.S. claimed a few years ago.” The observer went on to argue that “the massacre of Police officers and soldiers, the torture of citizens, the rape of women, the burning of Christian churches and the use of mosques by jihadi snipers is a clear indictment of the Muslim Brotherhood as a Terrorist organization. Those who represent its interests in the United States should be ashamed.”

International Alignment

Internationally, the AKP Government of Turkey and the Khomeinist regime in Iran accused Egypt’s Government of perpetrating a “massacre against the people.” An observer in Cairo said “the Islamist regimes in the region are watching a democratic revolution ending the violent Ikhwan regime in Egypt. These regimes fear popular revolutions in their own countries led by civil society forces.” In Beirut, the Committee Mashreq, a coalition of Middle East Christian NGOs, and in Washington the Middle East American Coalition for Democracy accused the Ikhwan of “pogroms against the Christians in Egypt” and called on the United Nations to condemn the terrorist attacks against the Copts and other citizens of Egypt.

At last, the Government of Egypt responded to the repetitive calls from Egypt’s civil society to save the country from the Brotherhood’s Urban Terror. Egyptian security forces, applying international norms in counter insurgency, moved on Rabia Adawiya and other armed militants spots in the Capital, forcing the Ikhwan leaders to flee. This could be the beginning of the end to the urban Jihadi insurgency but could also be the beginning of an all out Terror war waged by the soon to become the underground Ikhwan cells along with al Qaeda groups against the new post Brotherhood Egypt. Egyptians are fighting their own war on Terror, in their own midst. So are other Arabs. Western democracies should be on the side of civil societies seeking real democratic freedoms not on the side of Jihadists promising just elections

Dr Walid Phares is an advisor to members of Congress on the Middle East and is the Co-Secretary General of the Transatlantic Parliamentary Group on Counter Terrorism. He is the author of ‘The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East”

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In a stunning move, the Associated Press (AP) capitulated to pressures by Islamist group CAIR to drop the use of the term “Islamist” when describing self-declared Islamist militants and movements. 

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On the Arab Spring President Obama committed to insure “universal rights to all people in Egypt.” Which means that these rights are under attack, two years after the revolution. Indeed daily images from Cairo, Suez, but also Tunis and other Arab cities are showing a greater discontent by civil societies against the ruling Islamist regimes. The President remained abstract by not mentioning the abuse of these rights by the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt and its comparable regime in Tunisia. It is unfortunate that the state of the union address missed an opportunity to speak to the American people about the struggles of peoples in the region, validating further America’s role in the Middle East, as an ally to freedom seekers. As in June of 2009 in Iran, President Obama missed a historic opportunity to speak to the youth, women and minorities in countries undergoing a massive change affecting a large part of the Planet.

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As Governor Romney and President Obama continue to debate foreign policy and national security, voters would be wise to evaluate the “Obama Doctrine” against the current combustible state of affairs that it has led to in the Greater Middle East. In less than four years, the Obama administration’s policies have transformed the region into a powder keg with a hairpin detonator that could be set off by the slightest diplomatic misstep, engulfing the region and the world in war. And, as if an economy on the brink wasn’t daunting enough, the current administration’s feckless diplomacy in the Arab world have begotten a near-impossible foreign policy conundrum that Mitt Romney will be forced to attend to from the moment he is sworn in as the forty-fifth President of the United States.
In order to help voters see clearly where unfolding events in the region are headed, I have summarized the salient facts and provided a brief analysis below.
President Obama’s denial of various forms of Islamist radicalism have amplified the jihadist threat and altered American foreign policy in the Middle East. In his Cairo speech in 2009, Mr. Obama affirmed the misperception that America had been on the wrong side in wars “against the Muslim World” by announcing his new expiative approach to US foreign policy in the Arab world. Since then his and the State Department’s actions in the region have been characterized by retreat, abandonment of civil democratic reform movements, and partnership with Islamist movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood. The administration’s freedom-antagonistic policies coupled with a desire to find common-ground with the Iranian regime, have effectively quashed hopes for true democratic reform while Obama remains in the White House. The Obama doctrine has dangerously impacted US national security.
Barack Obama’s ill-advised pre-election commitment to bilateral negotiations with the Ayatollahs was put to the test in June 2009 when millions of mostly young Iranians took to the streets of Tehran in what almost became an “Iranian Spring.” With the Iranian regime teetering on the brink of collapse, the administration turned a deaf ear to demonstrators’ cries for America’s help as evidenced by the President’s silence on their plight and stubborn insistence on seeking understanding with the Khomeinist regime. But instead of obtaining concessions on Iran’s nukes, the Ayatollahs multiplied Uranium enrichment efforts and produced large numbers of long range missiles to deliver Apocalypse to Israel and the “Great Satan.” Hoping keep his grandiose illusion of US-Iranian nuclear talks alive, Obama imposed belated, near-symbolic economic sanctions on Iran with predictable negligible effect. In return, the Iranian regime expanded their destabilizing efforts in the Middle East, inciting Shia in Eastern Arabia, Bahrain and North Yemen to penetrate legitimate social movements and overthrow their US-friendly Governments.
Mitt Romney’s position on Iran is radically different and infinitely more sensible than Barack Obama’s. Sanctions should be tightened and all-encompassing to force the regime abandon its nuclear ambitions, not induce negotiations toward a partial solution. Furthermore, Governor Romney’s policy on Iran would include partnering with the forces of civil democratic reform in their efforts to replace the current extremist regime once and for all.
Obama’s miscalculation on Iran led to other regional catastrophes. As soon as the administration withdrew American forces from Iraq abruptly in December of 2011, Iranian influence penetrated Iraq. By not supporting Iran’s popular movement, Obama left Iran unrestrained. By failing to reach an agreement with Iraq before US withdrawal, Obama allowed Iran to infiltrate its neighbor, further threatening Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and reaching Syria’s borders. Romney would have contained the Iranian regime first, and then consolidated a pro-Western Government in Iraq.
Similar strategic mistakes were made by the administration on the Arab Spring as a consequence of its misguided apology doctrine. Instead of working with the initial forces of change in Egypt—youth, women, middle class, workers and minorities—the Administration chose to partner exclusively with the Muslim Brotherhood. Obama’s team and the Islamists worked to put the Brotherhood and their Salafi allies in power, first by sidelining the secular reformers with the help of the army, then the army with the help of secular youth, before they rose to power and marginalized all other players. Under Morsi, Egypt is quickly morphing into an Islamist state, threatening the Camp David Accords, as well as seculars, women, and Copts. A similar scenario unfolded in Tunisia where Washington partnered with the Islamist Nahda at the expense of seculars, women, and reformers. Romney would pursue partnership with civil societies, particularly with women and seculars, and tie US financial aid to performance by governments.
In Libya, the Obama Administration again sought partnership with the Islamists and neglected working with government and secular groups to disarm the militias and after Gadhafi’s downfall, sowed the seeds of al Qaeda’s growth, and opened a path for attacks against US targets, the most recent being a terrorist attack in Benghazi that killed the US ambassador and embassy staffers. A Romney Administration would first seek the disarming of the militias and, above all, provide better security for American lives in installations where Jihadists operate.
Barack Obama’s worst and most dramatic failure has obviously been in Syria. One-year late to respond, Obama’s team was unable to create a coalition to bring down Assad. Out of Iraq by 2012, the US was unable to encircle Assad and prevent Iranian support from getting to the brutal regime. Thirty thousand civilians were massacred while the US administration was incapable of obtaining a UN resolution for action against Assad, despite its being called a “reset button” with Moscow. By being two years tardy, the administration has allowed the massacre in Syria to proceed. Iran is now connected to Assad in Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and has reached the sea by land. Furthermore, al Qaeda is now operating in Syria and Iraq.
After Osama bin Laden was killed, the Obama Administration began claiming that al Qaeda was in decline, a claim proven false as AQ jihadists continue to conquer villages and towns in Yemen, fight in Somalia, are back in the Levant from Lebanon to Iraq, operating in the Sahel and Libya, with allies in Nigeria, and having established a solid base in northern Mali. Osama is dead, but al Qaeda is alive and flourishing.
With the growth of jihadism and radical Islamism, the secular forces of the Arab Spring are being pushed back. More dramatically Christian and other ethnic minorities across the region, in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Algeria and in Sudan, are under attack. Everywhere in the region reformers, women and minorities are suppressed and pushed back, while the Islamists and jihadists up and running and expanding their reach. Iran is arming and genocide is looming from Syria to Sudan.
The Obama policies in the Middle East led to the rise of radicals and weakening of civil societies. A Romney alternative for the region is a must, not only on the basis of human rights and democracy, but also regarding US national security and the security of its allies.
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Dr Walid Phares is senior advisor on Foreign Policy and National Security to Presidential candidate Mitt Romney and a co-chair of the Romney Working Group on the Middle East and North Africa MENA. He is the author of the Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East the only book that predicted the Arab Spring before it begins

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The foreign policy and national security strategy of only one of the four remaining Republican candidates is adequate against this tenuous scenario. Ron Paul’s agenda for the Middle East will guarantee a nuclear Iran, turn North Africa over to the Islamists, and ignore the next wave of jihadists who have trained their sites on the US Homeland. Congressman Paul may be a staunch advocate for citizens’ Constitutional rights, but in my modest view, his vision for US Foreign Policy may force Americans into a national security predicament as bad as or worse than that of a second Obama administration.

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When the young Tunisian burned himself in protest against authoritarian oppression and lack of economic justice, triggering massive demonstrations in this small North African country, commentators hesitated to coin the movement as an Arab Spring. It took months, and events exploding in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria before the West coined the upheavals ”Arab Spring.” And as the movement was developing throughout the region the West was also unsure as to which direction these revolutions are going to go.

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First, Tehran formed an alliance with the Assad regime in Syria.  Next, Hezbollah was established in Lebanon and later, in 2003, penetrated Iraq’s Shia communities.  Now, Tehran is about to achieve its most important goal since the inception of the Islamist regime— a strategic intercontinental ballistic missile arsenal capable of delivering nuclear and other lethal warheads.  Military historians will undoubtedly debate the ins and outs of the Iran’s long trek to join the nuclear club. What they will find is a Western world that was fooled for decades.  It remains to be seen whether the West’s current leaders will be able to stop this final phase in Iran’s jihadist strategy.

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Imam Anwar al Awlaki held two important positions in the cobweb of international Jihadi terror. First, he was one of the emerging younger leaders of al Qaeda after the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Out of Yemen, from which his family originates, he had built a network of recruits capable of performing missions in the Arabian Peninsula, but also communicating with the Shabab of Somalia and many cells inside the West. His reach in recruitment was as far as Jihadists have been indoctrinated. The Nigerian Abdelmutalib, known as the Christmas day bomber in the US, was also connected to the Yemeni-based cleric. In a sense, al Awlaki was one of the most effective al Qaeda international officers. His loss will undoubtedly be felt –at least for a while - within the ranks of the network.

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In the ongoing, debate, we see two camps. One stating that we were defeating the enemy until Washington changed direction three years ago, and another boasting that America was losing the war until three years ago when a change of direction brought victory in sight.

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The most pressing question within the international community and in Washington is about the immediate to medium-term future of the country. Will the Transitional National Council swiftly install its bureaucracies in Tripoli and across the country? Will Qaddafi’s supporters accept the new rule or will they become the new rebels? And most importantly, are the current rebels united in their vision for a new Libya? 

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The free world has waited patiently for 10 to 20 years to learn the master plan of international jihadism’s “al-Za’im,” (English: “the leader”) Osama bin Laden.

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In my most recent book, The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East (completed July 4, 2010), I argued that civil societies in the Greater Middle East (GME) and Arab World had reached a “critical stage” in their repudiation of all authoritarian forms of government:  regime, theocracy, military and ultra-nationalist.  The projections therein were based on a thorough study of antecedent Cedars and Green Revolutions in Lebanon (2005) and Iran (2009) respectively, both with limpid narratives, particularly online, and both auguring a continuation of bottom-up, regime-crumbling uprisings in the region. 

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If the billions in foreign debt-to-be-forgiven or granted in cash to be invested will be used by democratic governments in the region to move their societies away from fundamentalism, radicalism and inequality toward secular, liberal democracy, then the financial support is commensurate with American ideals, the will of the American people and their elected leaders.

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Osama bin Laden was No. 1 on the world’s “most wanted” list, a serial mass murderer of Americans that the United States wanted dead or alive, a fugitive from U.N. justice pursued by the nations of the world, and evil incarnate to millions of people around the world.

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The message came directly from Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Iran-backed militia, to Hariri, son of slain prime minister Rafiq Hariri: We won’t allow you to request international support for the United Nations tribunal investigating your father’s assassination.

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Until Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly’s explosive belt went off prematurely in Stockholm last month, Sweden was the poster child for isolationism in the war on terror. While Abdulwahab’s bomb failed to achieve his desired result, it did obliterate the myth that nations can remain neutral to global terrorism.

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Farooqe Ahmad

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Summary: Dr Walid Phares journal article “Iran’s Global Terrorist Reach” was published in the summer 2010 edition of InFocus Periodical. The article shows the geopolitical expansion of the Iranian regime as well as its terrorist and strategic reach around the world. Iran has developed weapons, created terror networks and established a system of alliances, challenging and threatening the region and the international community.

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At first glance, the takeover by the Israeli Navy of the “humanitarian flotilla” heading towards Gaza is just one more of the disputed crises between Israel and its foes. As in all previous incidents, the spiral of accusations will eventually reach bottom. While media attention will highlight the tactical events—seizure of the ships, rules of engagement, who fired first, the legal location of the incident and the other dramatic details—the rapidly expanding debate will soon reach the strategic intent of the “flotilla.” After all the governments involved issue their condemnations and warnings in all directions, after the UN conferences and issues a statement and international forums mobilize to indict their predictably targeted foe—in this case Israel—the question unavoidably will be: why is there a flotilla heading towards a military zone, and what is the ultimate goal of the operation?

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In preparation for the publicizing for the new National Security Strategy by the Obama Administration, Mr John Brennan, White House Advisor on Counter Terrorism said the President’s strategy “is absolutely clear about the threat we face.” From such an announcement one would project that the new narrative would be as precise as it should be. That is to define the ideology and the goals of the forces we’re facing, namely the Jihadists, either Salafists or Khomeinists. Unfortunately, it was just the opposite. M. Brennan said the Obama Administration doesn’t “describe our enemy as ‘Jihadists’ or Islamists,” because (as he argued) Jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenant of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community.” He added that “the use of these religious terms would “play into the false perception” that al-Qaeda and its affiliates are “religious leaders and defending a holy cause, when in fact, they are nothing more than murderers.” In reality, abandoning the use of terms such as “Jihadists” or even “Islamists” in defining the threat is a strategic set back in the war of ideas fought against al Qaeda, the Taliban, Shabab al Jihad, Hezbollah, the Pasdaran and all other adherents to Global Jihadism. It is the equivalent in a classical war, of banning the use of radars, AWACs and broadcast. In short, this is a shortcut to utter self defeat.

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The population of the “security zone” was about 150,000 counting the district of Jezzine; and its local forces were about 3,000 strong. the make up of the population was Christian, Shia and Druse with some Sunni villages to the East. To their north Hezbollah had massed its forces backed by Iranian Pasdaran advisors. Between 1984 and 2000 Hezbollah launched several offensives against the SLA positions but was unable to overrun them permanently. Evidently Israel’s Airforce and artillery provided the strategic counter balance. However in its ground attacks, Hezbollah would reach the SLA positions only to be driven back later. The southern Lebanese militaries were trained by the Israelis but knew the Hezbollah’s tactics first hand as they hailed from the same villages and had learned the tricks. Hezbollah most lethal weapon were the suicide attacks but in a local intra-Lebanese fight, suicide bombing doesn’t work. The southern Lebanese weren’t intimidated by the pro-Iranian Lebanese militias. Hence for almost 20 years, the SLA fended off the Iranian backed militia, as did the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan or the Kurds in Northern Iraq.against their respective enemies.

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President Obama informed the graduating Cadets at West Point that the US will be facing the threat of al Qaeda for a long time to come. Defining the long term strategic threats is a very useful policy action both to Americans who need to brace for forthcoming challenges but also to audiences in the region to better understand US strategic priorities. In the same frame of mind, I published an article in the weekly al Watan al al Arabi where I outlined what I believe are America’s permanent strategic positions in the Middle East related to US national Security. Based on my work with members of Congress sitting on relevant defense and national security committees and on my interaction with many strategic and tactical analysts across the Government and private sector fields for many years, the consensus reached so far is that the two main (and active) threats against US national security in the post Cold War era are and continue to be the Salafi-Jihadi global networks including al Qaeda and a plethora of webs and organizations all marching in the same direction on the one hand; and on the other hand what I coin as the “Iranian-led axis” which incorporates the Tehran Khomeinist regime, Hezbollah, the radical pro-Iranians in Iraq and in other Arab countries and the Syrian regime’s Mukhabarat.

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