By Steve King
Saturday, July 25, 2015
Islamic jihad has declared war on the United States and
all of Western civilization. ISIS has announced its intention to dominate the
world and fly its black flag from the White House in continuation of a
1,400-year-old war against us “infidels.”
In the first 100 years after the death of Mohammed (a.d.
632)`, Islamic jihad conquered most of the known world except Western Europe.
Christian forces blocked the first century of Islamic conquest at the very
bloody Battle of Tours on October 10, 732. Islamic jihad continued to threaten
the very existence of Christianity throughout the next millennium. October 7,
1571, marked the destruction of Islamic jihad’s massive fleet by the Holy
League fleet in the Aegean Sea.
More than a century later, Islamic jihad, having
conquered the Middle East and most of Eastern Europe, had surrounded and
besieged the crown jewel of Western Christendom, Vienna. If Vienna fell to
Islam, all of Western Europe would be likely to follow. After a two-month siege
of Vienna, relief forces from Poland and Germany arrived.
The battle for relief of Vienna began on September 11,
1683, and ended with the rout of the Islamic forces the following day. On
September 11, 1697, Prince Eugene caught and routed a large Islamic army and
delivered a decisive blow at the Battle of Zenta.
In keeping with the September 11 theme, the British
established a mandate for Palestine on September 11, 1922, and at the 1972
Olympic Games in Munich, eleven Israeli athletes were killed on September 11.
Millions of Islamists remember the humiliations of September and seek to
humiliate the “Great Satan,” the United States. Thus the attacks on the World
Trade Towers and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and on the U.S. consulate
in Benghazi on September 11, 2012.
Islamic jihad is our enemy. It has declared war on us and
will kill us anywhere it can. No American is safe anywhere in the world until
this suicidal ideology is defeated. It is not impossible to defeat an ideology.
Within a span of half a century, Western civilization has defeated at least
four ideologies. Nazism, Italian Fascism, and Japanese imperialism all went
down literally in flames in the face of a superior culture. Next in line was
the far more stubborn Russian Communism, which struggled through 45 years of
cold war before succumbing to liberty and free enterprise. Islamic jihad can be
defeated, and it can be done in less time than it took to defeat the USSR in
the Cold War. Our strategy, however, must be tailored to the times and
circumstances.
Cyber warfare: Islamists are not innovative but do have a
history of borrowing technology and deploying it against their enemies. ISIS,
for example, is using the Internet to inspire, recruit, and direct terrorists
around the world. We have the capabilities to scramble their communications and
cause them to doubt the sources of instructions. It’s time to launch cyber
warfare against them both offensively and defensively and to do so worldwide.
They will stop using the Internet only when they no longer trust the
communications network. With a smart cyber-warfare system, we can watch them
close down their most important recruiting tool.
Financial warfare: If all its resources could be shut
off, ISIS would atrophy. The U.S. has a powerful global financial reach, giving
us the capability of cutting off almost all funds flowing to ISIS. We need to
shut off the flow of exported oil from the ISIS regions and shut off payments
going to them. Banks that deal in transactions with Islamic jihad or with their
suppliers can be singled out to be the target of special disincentives that
raise the transaction costs well above the financial benefit of doing business
with jihadists.
Education: The next and most difficult task is to shut
down the elements of their educational system that teach Islamic jihad.
Millions of young boys are indoctrinated daily with the ideology of Islamic
jihad. The madrassas are a breeding ground for violent jihad and serve to
identify and recruit the most zealous. Countering this indoctrination will
require a worldwide effort and may well be endless, but it is necessary to make
the attempt, because reduction in the teaching of intergenerational hatred is
the foundation for a peaceful future.
Humint: Human intelligence remains limited in the Islamic
world. The Western world had not engaged fully with the Middle East to the
extent that our intelligence sources were ready-made or fully developed. Our
humint began to change after September 11, 2001, as Americans saw the need to
expand our network. We are still making progress, but this administration has
demonstrated an unwillingness to gather strategic information. If we are to have
success in defeating Islamic jihad, our intelligence community must expand
significantly. It is essential to the principle of nosce hostem (know your
enemy), which will require time, resources, commitment, and, most of all,
leadership.
Strategic alliances: Egypt, the United Arab Emirates,
Jordan, and Saudi Arabia all have demonstrated a willingness to fight Islamic
jihad. Our relationships with these countries have been badly damaged. The U.S.
foreign-policy establishment clumsily found a way to be on the wrong side of
each Arab Spring event, demonstrating an astonishingly dogmatic fidelity to the
Muslim Brotherhood. Our credibility in the region has been badly damaged.
Nonetheless, these countries are poised to take on a good share of the fight.
First, our relationship with each will need to be restored. Then a strategy
will need to be developed with them at the table.
Egypt: Egypt is key to ultimate global success against
Islamic jihad. Al-Azhar University in Cairo is the world’s premier center of
Islamic theology. It is where Obama gave his speech to the Muslim world in
2009, and where Egyptian president al-Sisi delivered his own address to the
Muslim world. Sisi made clear his opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood, to the
imposition of sharia law, and to Islamic jihad. Sisi is positioned to become
the modern-day Ataturk, someone who will bridge the gap between East and West.
The United States needs to embrace Sisi and coordinate a strategy of diplomacy
coupled with the right balance of kinetic activity.
Kurdistan: The Kurds are loyal allies. At our
encouragement, they rose up against Saddam Hussein after Desert Storm. They are
likely the largest ethnic group in the world without a country. Millions of
Kurds live in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran. They have for years demonstrated
their willingness to defend themselves. We should directly arm the Kurds with
all the weapons and supplies they can use and send our special forces to them
on the ground. The Kurds will not go into Baghdad or Damascus because they have
no civilian population base there to support them. They will push ISIS out of
Iraq, with the help of many Sunni Iraqis, and they will provide one jaw of the
vise that will crush ISIS. An independent Kurdistan is likely to be the result.
A perpetual ally replacing the ISIS caliphate would be strategically priceless.
Syria: Assad must go. Syria’s terror-fomenting alliance
with Iran will breed ever more violence in the Mideast until a pro-Western
government replaces the regime. However, Assad has a certain utility until ISIS
is destroyed in Syria. He becomes the other jaw of the vise that, with the
Kurds as the other, will crush ISIS. When that day comes, the U.S. may have a
commander-in-chief who thinks strategically.
We are dealing with the complexities of a long and
difficult history of conflict. Religious friction has been at the heart of
conflicts in this region since the time of Mohammed. The conflict between Shia
and Sunni is complex enough without the overlay of the history of conflict with
Christianity.
Russian-sponsored regimes must be defeated. The wealth of
and need for oil fuels the fight. Anti-Semitism, with notable exceptions,
dominates the region of the Middle East. We are in an increasingly global
conflict as jihadists use Western technology and exploit cultural
vulnerabilities to invade through peaceful migration, recruit through the
Internet, indoctrinate through their mosques and madrassas, and radicalize and
direct Islamic jihad.
We can defeat this ideology because we are a superior civilization.
We have the ability to reason, develop new technology, grow our economy, and
control the events described above. Islamic jihad has no real capacity to
compete. History is on our side. Culture is on our side. Economics are on our
side. Military capability is on our side. We lack only a strategy and the will.
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