Les ennemis de mes ennemis sont mes amis …
C’est pas à vieux singe qu’on apprend à faire la grimace …
Les bons vieux adages auront-ils finalement le dernier mot?
Coproduction des attaques suicide du Liban de 1983 contre les baraquements américains et français (Hezbollah khomeiniste + parti socialiste arabe marxiste + services secrets syriens) …
Régime syrien issu de la minorité hérétique alaouite comme allié le plus étroit de l’Iran …
Supplétifs chiites de l’Iran chiite au Liban (du Hezbollah) alliés à une faction chrétienne maronite (dirigée par l’ex-Genéral Michel Aoun) …
Financement et entrainement par Téhéran depuis plus d’un quart de siècle Téhéran d’une trentaine d’organisations terroristes, depuis les marxistes colombiens du FARC au Hamas palestinien en passant par une demi-douzaine de mouvements trotskystes et léninistes, sans parler de nombres de groupes et partis anti-Américains d’extrême gauche en Europe et aux Amériques et bien sûr d’Al Qaeda, y compris pour les attentats du 11/9…
Remise, par le président iranien Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, du titre de « frère » musulman aux marxistes et athées Castro, Chávez, Morales ou Ortega …
Liens militaires et industriels et échanges annuels de personnels de l’Iran avec les athées communistes de Corée du nord …
Utilisation systématique, par la République islamique de terroristes chrétiens arabes (George Ibrahim Abdallah pour la campagne de terreur à Paris des années 80 comme Anis Naqqache pour l’assassinat d’opposants iraniens en exil) …
Financement et soutien par Téhéran et pendant des années et jusqu’à très récemment du mouvement marxiste de combattants kurdes du PKK contre la République turque …
Comme on le voit, et le rappelle Amir Taheri dans le WSJ d’hier, c’est pas les exemples qui manquent de relations et alliances apparemment contre-nature entre la multitude de mouvements de la planète ayant en commun leur haine de l’Amérique et/ou de l’Occident.
Et pourtant ne voilà-t-il pas, comme nous le rappelions tout récemment ici même, nos médias et leur candidat américain préféré Obambi qui se permettent de donner des leçons de théologie musulmane au candidat McCain …?
The Sunni-Shiite Terror Network
Amir Taheri
The WSJ
March 29, 2008
The American presidential election campaign took a bizarre theological turn recently when Barack Obama accused John McCain of not being able to distinguish Sunnis from Shiites.
The exchange started when Sen. McCain suggested that the Islamic Republic in Iran, a Shiite power, may be helping al Qaeda, a Sunni outfit, in its murderous campaign in Iraq and elsewhere. Basing its position on received wisdom, the Obama camp implied that Sunnis and Shiites, divided as they are by deep doctrinal differences, could not come together to fight the United States and its allies.
The truth is that Sunni and Shiite extremists have always been united in their hatred of the U.S., and in their desire to « bring it to destruction, » in the words of Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar.
The majority of Muslims does not share that hatred and have no particular problem with the U.S. It is the country most visited by Muslim tourists and it attracts the largest number of Muslim students studying abroad.
But to understand the problem with extremists, it is important to set aside the Sunni-Shiite divide and focus on their common hatred of America. Theology is useless here. What we are dealing with is politics.
For Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, the slogan « Death to America » was as important as the traditional device of Islam « Allah Is The Greatest » – hence his insistence that it be chanted at all public meetings and repeated after each session of the daily prayers. And to that end, Khomeinists have worked with anyone, including brother-enemy Sunnis or even Marxist atheists.
The suicide attacks that claimed the lives of over 300 Americans, including 241 Marines, in Lebanon in 1983, were joint operations of the Khomeinist Hezbollah and the Marxist Arab Socialist Party, which was linked to the Syrian intelligence services. The Syrian regime is Iran’s closest ally, despite the fact that Iranian mullahs regard the Alawite minority that dominates it as heretics or worse. Today in Lebanon, Tehran’s surrogate, Hezbollah, is in league with a Maronite Christian faction, led by ex-Gen. Michel Aoun, in opposition to a majority bloc that favors close ties with the U.S.
For more than a quarter century, Tehran has been host to the offices of more than three dozen terrorists organizations, from the Colombian FARC to the Palestinian Hamas and passing by half a dozen Trotskyite and Leninist outfits. It also finances many anti-American groups and parties of both extreme right and extreme left in Europe and the Americas. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has bestowed the Muslim title of « brother » on Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega. Communist North Korea is the only country with which the Islamic Republic maintains close military-industrial ties and holds joint annual staff sessions.
George Ibrahim Abdallah, the Lebanese maverick who led a campaign of terror in Paris in the 1980s on behalf of Tehran, was a Christian. So was Anis Naqqache, who led several hit-teams sent to kill Iranian exile opposition leaders. For years, and until a recent change of policy, Tehran financed and offered shelter to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Marxist movement fighting to overthrow the Turkish Republic. Why? Tehran’s displeasure with Turkish membership of NATO and friendship with the U.S.
Yes, Mr. Obama might ask, but what about Sunni-Shiite cooperation?
The Islamic Republic has financed and armed the Afghan Sunni Hizb Islami (Islamic Party) since the 1990s. It’s also financed the Front for Islamic Salvation (FIS), a Sunni political-terrorist outfit in Algeria between 1992 and 2005.
In 1993, a senior Iranian delegation, led by the then Islamic Parliament Speaker Ayatollah Mehdi Karrubi, attended the Arab-Muslim Popular Congress organized by Hassan al-Turabi, nicknamed « The Pope of Islamist Terror, » in Khartoum. At the end of this anti-American jamboree a nine-man « Coordinating Committee » was announced. Karrubi was a member, along with such Sunni eminences as Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mr. Turabi and the Algerian Abdallah Jaballah. The fact that Karrubi was a Shiite mullah did not prevent him from sitting alongside Sunni sheikhs.
In 1996, a suicide attack claimed the lives of 19 American servicemen in Al Khobar, eastern Saudi Arabia. The operation was carried out by the Hezbollah in Hejaz, an Iranian-financed outfit, with the help of the Sunni militant group « Sword of the Peninsula. »
In 2000, Sunni groups linked to al Qaeda killed 17 U.S. servicemen in a suicide attack on USS Cole off the coast of Yemen. This time, a Shiite militant group led by Sheikh al-Houti, Tehran’s man in Yemen, played second fiddle in the operation.
In Central Asia’s Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, Tehran has for years supported two Sunni movements, the Rastakhiz Islami (Islamic Awakening) and Hizb Tahrir Islami (Islamic Liberation Party). In Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic, Tehran supports the Sunni Taleshi groups against the Azeri Shiite majority. The reason? The Taleshi Sunnis are pro-Russian and anti-American, while the Shiite Azeris are pro-American and anti-Russian.
There are no Palestinian Shiites, yet Tehran has become the principal source of funding for radical Palestinian Sunni groups, notably Hamas, Islamic Jihad and half a dozen leftist-atheist minigroups. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh refuses to pray alongside his Iranian hosts during his visits to Tehran. But when it comes to joining Khomeinist crowds in shouting « Death to America » he is in the forefront.
With Arab oil kingdoms no longer as generous as before, Iran has emerged as the chief source of funding for Hamas. The new Iranian budget, coming into effect on March 21, allocates over $2 billion to the promotion of « revolutionary causes. » Much of the money will go to Hamas and the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah.
In Pakistan, the Iran-financed Shiite Tehrik Jaafari joined a coalition of Sunni parties to govern the Northwest Frontier Province, until they all suffered a crushing defeat at last month’s parliamentary elections.
The fact that the Sunnis and Shiites in other provinces of Pakistan continued to kill each other did not prevent them from developing a joint, anti-U.S. strategy that included the revival of the Afghan Taliban and protection for the remnants of al Qaeda. Almost all self-styled « holy warriors » who go to Iraq on a mission of murder and mayhem are Sunnis. And, yet most pass through Syria, a country that, as already noted, is dominated by a sect with a militant anti-Sunni religious doctrine.
Next month, Tehran will host what is billed as « The Islamic Convergence Conference, » bringing together hundreds of Shiite and Sunni militants from all over the world. The man in charge, Ayatollah Ali-Muhammad Taskhiri, has described the goal of the gathering to be delivering « a punch in the face of the American Great Satan. »
Still, Mr. Obama might ask: what about al Qaeda and Iran?
The 9/11 Commission report states that Tehran was in contact with al Qaeda at various levels before the 2001 attacks. Tehran has admitted the presence of al Qaeda figures in Iran on a number of occasions, and has arranged for the repatriation of at least 13 Saudi members in the past five years. The Bin Laden family tells us that at least one of Osama’s sons, Sa’ad, has lived in Iran since 2002.
Reports from Iran claim that scores of Taliban leaders and several al Qaeda figures spend part of the year in a compound-style housing estate near the village of Dost Muhammad on the Iranian frontier with Afghanistan. One way to verify these claims is to allow the world media access to the area. But Tehran has declared large segments of eastern Iran a « no-go » area, even for its own state-owned media.
In short, the claim that al Qaeda and the Khomeinists, not to mention other terrorist groups operating in the name of Islam, would not work together simply because they have theological differences is both naive and dangerous.
Messrs. McCain and Obama do not need to know about doctrinal differences between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. The problem they face is not theological but political. All they need to know is that there are deadly and determined groups dedicated to destruction of the U.S. in the name of a perverted version of Islam, and that they need to be resisted, fought and ultimately defeated.
Mr. Taheri’s new book, « The Persian Night: Iran and the Khomeinist Revolution, » will be published later this year by Encounter Books.
Voir aussi sur un autre mythe cher à nos médias, celui de Bush l’unilatéraliste
Bush the Multilateralist
The Wall Street Journal
March 28, 2008
John McCain gave a major foreign policy address in Los Angeles Wednesday, and if his intention was to convey a subtle message about what distinguishes him from the current White House occupant, he seems to have succeeded — at least with the press.
The presumptive Republican nominee spoke of the need for a « new global compact » based on « mutual respect and trust, » of adding « luster to America’s image in the world, » and of « paying a ‘decent respect to the opinions of mankind.' » The media played it all up as an attempt to distance himself from the « unilateral » President Bush, although the Arizona Republican never used that word.
We fully understand why Mr. McCain feels the need to show that his Administration would not simply be a third Bush term. But with Mr. Bush’s days in office nearing an end, it’s worth blowing apart the myth of the « go it alone » Presidency. The truth is that, with a couple of exceptions, he’s been the model of a modern multilateralist.
* * *
Mr. Bush came under early fire after announcing that the U.S. would reject the Kyoto Protocol. Of course, the U.S. had never ratified Kyoto, and the Clinton Administration had refused even to submit it for a vote. In 1997, the Senate voted 95-0 not to endorse any climate change pact that didn’t include China, India and other developing countries, as Kyoto didn’t. Voting « aye » were Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Harry Reid, among other noted unilateralists.
[George Bush]
Then came September 11 and the war in Afghanistan, which the U.S. continues to wage under a NATO flag. Unfortunately — and despite the honorable exceptions of Britain, Canada and Holland — few of America’s allies in the theater are willing to commit more troops, much less put them in harm’s way.
Iraq is where the unilateral myth settled into media concrete. But in fact, in 2002 President Bush bucked the advice of his more hawkish advisers and agreed to take Tony Blair’s advice and seek another U.N. Resolution — was it the 16th or 17th? — against Saddam Hussein. Resolution 1441 passed 15-0. True, the Administration failed to obtain a second resolution, not least because the French reneged on private assurances that it would agree to a second resolution if America obtained the first. But who was being unilateral there? As it was, the « coalition of the willing » that liberated Iraq included, besides the U.S. contingent, some 60,000 troops from 39 countries, who have operated under a U.N. resolution blessing their presence.
The Bush Administration has since become all too multilateralist, even — or especially — regarding the « axis of evil. » On North Korea, the Administration adhered strictly to the six party formula. Oddly, the same critics who decry « unilateralism » would prefer that the U.S. negotiate with Pyongyang directly — which is to say, unilaterally — and do without the help currently being offered by Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul and Moscow.
As for Iran, following revelations in 2002 that Iran had secretly pursued an illegal nuclear program for 15 years, Mr. Bush agreed to hand over the diplomacy to Germany, Britain and France, the so-called E3. Their efforts failed. So the Administration agreed to negotiate directly with Iran provided the mullahs suspend their uranium enrichment program. The Iranians refused.
Next the Administration succeeded in turning the matter over to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has been seeking answers about Tehran’s nuclear file for five years. The IAEA’s questions have yet to be fully answered. In 2006, the U.N. Security Council set a deadline for Iran to suspend enrichment. The deadline was flouted. The Security Council has since agreed to three weak resolutions sanctioning Iran. Even as his days in office dwindle, Mr. Bush has adhered to this failing multilateral diplomacy.
Shall we go on? For the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Administration arranged the so-called « road map, » which is overseen by the « Quartet » of the U.S., Russia, the U.N., and the European Union. In Lebanon, the Administration worked closely with none other than France’s Jacques Chirac to force the withdrawal of Syrian troops in 2005. With Russia, Mr. Bush welcomed its bid to join the World Trade Organization and has rebuffed suggestions — including from Mr. McCain in his speech Wednesday — that it be expelled from the G-8.
Mohamed ElBaradei owes his third term as head of the IAEA to the Administration, never mind that he all but openly campaigned for John Kerry in the 2004 election. On Darfur, the Administration has repeatedly deferred to the African Union and a pair of U.N. Secretary-Generals. Even after gathering evidence of secret Sudanese bombing runs in Darfur last year, Mr. Bush bowed to a special plea by the U.N.’s Ban Ki-moon to give diplomacy more time. The killings have continued. On global warming, the Administration has sought a compact with Australia, India and China to develop more carbon-neutral technologies.
* * *
All of this goes unnoticed by the news media, which long ago settled on their « unilateral » stereotype and which has now become a Democratic talking point. Here’s a prediction: Despite their campaign talk about cooperating with the world, two years into a McCain, Obama or Clinton Presidency our relations with Europe and the Middle East won’t be much different than they are today. These disputes have far more to do with underlying differences in national interest and values than they do with the myth of Mr. Bush’s unilateral diplomacy.
jcdurbant 