Exit Strategies : Regardless of the Iraqi elections, there'll be no coming home for America until Iran's nuclear-minded jihadist regime is neutralized
Babbin, Jed
This is a war to defeat or destroy the ideology of Islamic jihadism, the terrorists who embrace it and the nations that support them AMERICAN SPECTATOR i Regardless...
...Second, jihadist ideology promises to restore the idealized Islamic past of a Muslim caliphate, ruling the civilized world and leading it in science, art, and prosperity...
...In November, when we pushed for U.N...
...And Mullah Strangelove wouldn't hesitate to arm terrorists with nuclear weapons...
...Iran is not the only problem, only the biggest at the moment...
...And why is the MEK on our terrorist list...
...CPAC will feature book signings by the nation's hottest conservative authors, live broadcasts of national and local radio talk shows, hands-on training sessions from grassroots activism to media strategy to technology workshops and even a young leader's seminar, internet row and a blogger's corner, a silent auction, and much, much more...
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...The war—as the president has defined it—is a global war on terrorism...
...and Old Europe may turn their noses up at its "legitimacy," our diplomatic recognition of it will make it a new member of the community of nations...
...debate on Iran's nukes, the Europeans negotiated another agreement with Iran...
...Three EU nations—Britain, France, and Germany—have been negotiating an endless stream of agreements with Iran which are supposed give Iran better trade relations as the price for its ceasing to February 2005 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 19 EXIT STRATEGIES develop nuclear weapons...
...In diplo-speak, that means the EU nations have agreed that what Iran is doingweapons-related or not—is legal for it to do...
...The president, in his second inaugural address, should tell us that we must defeat all three in order to win this war...
...The sources of terrorism are the jihadist ideology and the nations that base their imperial ambitions on its success...
...To defeat the jihadist ideology, we have to fight it as we did the Soviets...
...They kid-napped, tortured, and murdered Marine Lt...
...Because, in 1999, the Iranian government asked us to list them...
...Did the al Qaeda attack in Riyadh emanate from Iran...
...Hezbollah fighters have been in Iraq, fighting beside the insurgents against Coalition troops...
...Just last fall it happened again...
...Iran has been lying about its nuclear weapons program to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N.'s purblind nuclear "watchdog," for about two decades...
...To begin to do that, we have to speak loudly those thoughts that have only occasionally been whispered...
...But Mr...
...The EU-3, floating along like Timothy Leary, have affirmed that the central jihadist nation is combating terror-ism...
...All eyes turned to Iran...
...Some Iraqis will get to vote, and some will not...
...The idea of imposing economic sanctions against Iran is laughable...
...According to Miniter's sources, this results from an agreement between bin Laden and Iranian grand ayatollah Ali Khameni after bin Laden sought sanctuary from the American attack on Afghanistan...
...THERE ARE OTHER OPTIONS we can exercise against Iran...
...But in the end, a democratic government will have been chosen by a close-to-free people...
...By failing to tell the Iraqis and the Muslim world that American lives were being sacrificed out of respect for their religion, we are failing to fight the ideological battle...
...MEK is a nominally-Communist Iranian opposition group that's on America's list of foreign terrorist organizations...
...Jihadism is, by definition, a hegemonist ideology...
...President Bush knows, as we all should, that this war won't be over when he leaves office in January 2009...
...Islamic jihadism, and its ambitions to global power will soon be vouchsafed by European appeasement...
...According to a July 21, 2004 letter to the "people of Ashraf," Gen...
...Geoffrey Miller—then deputy commanding general of multi-national forces in Iraq—informed the MEK members and their families at Camp Ashraf that they have been declared "protected persons" under the Geneva Conventions...
...If its nuclear ambitions are realized—and they soon will be—the advent of nuclear terror-ism will quickly follow...
...We cannot overcome a thousand years of insecurity on its success...
...It is the epicenter of Hezbollah, Iranian-created, equipped, and funded, made a battlefield of Beirut...
...His answer was that we were trying to lead by setting a good example...
...It means death not only to Westerners but to Muslims who are not "true believers...
...The "GWOT"—in the inevitable Pentagon acronym—is a muddy concept...
...Reliable reports, including those related in Richard Miniter's Shadow War, say that Osama bin Laden may be operating and traveling in Afghanistan and Iran under the protection of Iranian intelligence...
...THE FIRST OF THOSE THOUGHTS 1S that no matter the result of the Iraqi election America can-not withdraw from Iraq until the remaining terrorist regimes in the region are neutralized...
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...But they offer no better idea to slow it for sufficient time for opposition groups—such as MEK and Iranian would-be revolutionaries—to gather strength and oust the mullahs...
...We can't now foresee the time for revolution in Iran, but it's up to us to help those who would mount it...
...The U.S...
...Jihadist ideology is based on two concepts...
...Bush always had a good exit strategy: first we win, then we go home...
...With only a few sentences, he can change the dominant question of his second term from "when we will bring the troops home" to "where else and how else must the war be fought in order to win it...
...Tucked away in the November EU-3 agreement is the sentence, "Irrespective of the nuclear issue, the E-3/EU and Iran confirmed their determination to combat terrorism, including the activities of al Qaeda and groups such as the Mujahideen e-Khalq...
...Undersecretary of State John Bolton has been pressing the IAEA to report Iran's apparent violations of the NPT to the U.N...
...Security Council, with a view toward imposing diplomatic sanctions on Tehran...
...America presses the IAEA, Iran talks to its European appeasers, and cuts us off at the diplomatic pass...
...Of the jihadist regimes, Iran is by far the most dangerous...
...To deal with terrorism we have to destroy its sources...
...If it succeeds, Iran's missiles will be proved capable of shooting objects into orbit, which means their soon-to-be-had nuclear arsenal will be able to reach essentially any nation...
...c: This is a war to defeat or destroy the ideology of Islamic jihadism, the terrorists who embrace it and the nations that support them : .. . 1 T'Ht AMERICAN SPECTATOR i Regardless of the Iraqi elections, there'll be no coming home for America until Iran's nuclear-minded jihadist regime is neutralized...
...For just those reasons, President Bush has said that Tehran will not be permitted to possess nuclear weapons...
...Any nation that would interfere with Iran's terrorist operations would risk nuclear war...
...William "Rich" Higgins, and CIA station chief William Buckley...
...What he said, in effect, was that we were sacrificing young American lives to earn Iraqi goodwill, and then wasting the sacrifice by not even trying to impress the point on the Iraqis...
...Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Iran is entitled to "peaceful" use of nuclear power...
...MEK hasn't committed a terrorist act against American interests for about 25 years...
...But by covert means, we can help destabilize Iran and make it ripe for revolution...
...There should be a continuous stream of American information being broad-cast into the Muslim nations, in their own languages, setting out our values, our goals, and our strategy...
...The first is useless, the second beyond our reach...
...We don't have to "get there fustest with the mostest...
...If 9/11 was the challenge of Mr...
...THE ONLY SERIOUS CRITICISM OF THE IRAQ WAR John Kerry managed to muster was that President Bush's invasion plan didn't include an exit strategy...
...An imperfect election is about to take place in Iraq...
...Incoming Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice should order an immediate review of MEK's status with a view J E D B A B B I N toward taking them off the terrorist list...
...It's doubtful that our military commanders in Iraq even understand this...
...Though the U.N...
...This agreement is exceedingly dangerous for many reasons...
...Once that's done, we can—secretly, and through proxies—rearm them and put them back in action against Tehran...
...We have done an exceedingly poor job of battling jihadist ideology, even among the people we are freeing from its oppression...
...To call Iran a terrorist nation is a great understatement...
...Iran plans its first satellite launch in 2005...
...It is impossible to conceive of any Western government agreeing to that sentence without the assistance of hallucinogens...
...In 1983, at Iran's direction, a Hezbollah attack killed 241 Marines in the Beirut barracks bombing...
...To achieve this, they believe, requires destroying Western society...
...Under their November 15 agreement, Iran promises suspension of its nuclear program in return for continued negotiation on long-term economic benefits to Iran...
...Bush's first term, Iran is the challenge of his second...
...Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "Well, I'll leave the analysis to others, but just from a factual standpoint, there is no question but that there have been, and there are today, senior al Qaeda leaders in Iran...
...And they are busy...
...The long road home from this war reaches out past the horizon...
...It would be better for the President to redefine the war in such clear and distinct terms that no one could misunderstand it...
...Moreover, Miller's letter says that they have signed an agreement renouncing terrorism...
...American forces bombed MEK positions in Iraq on one day in April 2003, trying to deprive Iran of an excuse to move its forces into Iraq...
...Convenient jailbreaks (December 14, 2003) and transfer of some to Saudi custody (March 2003) probably arranged the release of most or all who were in custody...
...Toppling Saddam's regime in Iraq was irrelevant to defeating jihadist ideology...
...The problem is that he hasn't defined just what this war is, or how we'll even know when we've won...
...CONVENTIONAL WISDOM SAYS that our only options to deal with Iran are U.N...
...But that is only one step...
...The next four years won't be peaceful ones here, and we cannot allow them to be in the jihadist nations...
...The 32nd Annual Conservative PoficalAction Conference is a pi ect of the American Conservafnw Union foundation in association wdh Human Everts and the Young America's Foundation...
...A month later, MEK voluntarily surrendered to American forces more than 2,000 tanks, artillery pieces, and armored vehicles, and some 3,800 MEK fighters are now in American custody at Camp Ashraf, north of Baghdad...
...The least obvious is that the EU-3 "recognize that the suspension [of uranium enrichment, a key step in developing fissionable material] is a voluntary confidence-building measure and not a legal obligation...
...In War in the Desert, John Bagot Glubb wrote of his RAF service in the Iraqi desert in the 1920s...
...That we are building a number of military bases in Iraq is, to the U.N., Old Europe, and the Democrats, an unnecessary provocation of the terrorists...
...Only the Clinton administration could slap the label "terrorist" on a group at the request of the principal terrorist regime in the whole bloody world...
...An endless parade of experts assure us that this is a war like none we have fought before, that the terrorists have or will soon have weapons with which they can wreak at .-- r - Sn...
...On that basis, the IAEA again decided everything in Iran is tickety-boo, and went back to sleep...
...But terror-ism is, at most, a strategy...
...C PAC 2005 February 17 - 19, 2005 atthe RONALD REAGAN BUILDING AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE CENTER FEBRUARY 17-19, 2005 JOIN INVITED SPEAKERS & PANELISTS: Vice President Dick Cheney- Condoleezza Rice •Donald Rumsfeld • Karl Rove- Ann Coulter •Sam Donaldson • Senator Zell Miller • Senator Mitch McConnell • Swift Boat Vets for Truth • Wayne LaPierre • Ken Mehlman • and many more...
...The EU-3 have apparently accepted the fact of a nuclear Iran, and Iran is playing them—and the U.N.—like well-hooked fish...
...Last November, a senior Defense Department official bragged about the lives we risked and lost attacking Fallujah without destroying many of the mosques from which the insurgents were attacking our troops...
...We won't be able to topple the mullahs by some slick covert operation...
...And as soon as that happens, the left will insist that the war is over and that it is time to bring the troops home...
...By definition, that means they cannot be terrorists...
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...In 1983, at Iran's direction, a Hezbollah attack killed 241 Marines in the Beirut barracks bombing...
...According to the October 9, 1999 Los Angeles Times, "One senior Clinton administration official said inclusion of the [MEK] was intended as a goodwill gesture to Tehran...
...But every time In November, when we pushed for U .N...
...That unpalatable fact results from two facts, that the jihadist regimes of Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia can-not leave a democratic Iraq at peace and that those regimes are jihadist themselves and large sources of terrorism...
...The Ikhwan—the first modern jihadistscrossed the border only to kill and rob...
...When Iran violates each agreement, the EU-3 step up and negotiate another...
...Iran has admitted to harboring about 500 al Qaeda leaders, supposedly under arrest...
...EXIT STRATEGIES untold destruction on us and our allies...
...debate on Iran's nukes, the Europeans negotiated another agreement with Iran...
...We do not lack the power...
...The sources of terrorism are the jihadist ideology and the nations that base their imperial ambitions J E D B A B B I N and failure of their societies by talking, but we can blunt the jihadist propaganda by getting information out to those most in need of it...
...Iran is now openly allied with al Qaeda...
...It is essential that we defeat jihadism in a way that proves—like the freedom of Poland proved to Communists—that the success of jihadism is neither irreversible nor inevitable...
...Moreover, we should be broadcasting information into Iran on every radio, television, and Internet link Iranians can reach...
...18 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR February 2005 First, under the jihadists' reading of the Koran, only those who are true believers are entitled to life, and they must subjugate themselves to the dogma of jihad...
...But encouraging the Iranian populace to agitate is not something we should dismiss...
...20004...
...Heaven forbid that we would offend those who hack off the heads of helpless American and other hostages...
...You cannot war against a strategy but you can fight nations, people, and ideologies...
...The second is that military action will be necessary, in one degree or another, to destroy the other sources of jihadism...
...Some, including former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, decry military action as unlikely to stop the program...
...Iran's borders are porous, and we should be sending people, resources and other support for the Iranian opposition across them in a continuous stream...
...The terrorists may well derive some propaganda benefit from our presence, but the military advantage we gain outweighs that by—in strategic airlift terms—millions of ton-miles per day...
...But do we have the skill and will to use it...
...February 2005 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 21 Register today for the largest gathering of conservative political activists in the country...
...Glubb lacked the power to beat the jihadists by destroying their sources of power...
...Those sources have little or nothing to do with poverty or public relations...
...But any group that causes such great fear among the mullahs can't be all bad...
...We should not hesitate to do it...
...SINCE 1979, WHEN JIMMY CARTER WATCHED while the Shah's regime was overthrown and the current kakistocracy took power, Iran wasted no time in building a web of terrorist organizations to act upon its enmity toward America...
...While the IAEA sleeps, the Iranian nuclear and missile programs go on...
...The Internet is increasingly accessible to the Iranian internal opposition, and we should doing every-thing we can to help them organize, fund, and pre-pare to topple the mullahs...
...It is building nuclear weapons and developing missiles to threaten any nation that would impose limits on its jihadist agenda...
...But a nation that sits on about 94 billion barrels of oil and some 25 trillion cubic meters of natural gas doesn't need nuclear power to generate electricity...
...But the rest of that statement—referring to an otherwise obscure Iranian opposition group—shows how much the Mujahideen e-Khalq (MEK) frightens the mullahs...
...Our B-2s can get in and out without the Iranians having a clue until it's too late...
...In May 2003, when a rocket attack on a civilian compound in Riyadh killed a number of Westerners, the Saudis were quick to blame outsiders...
...laMMIMMOMO Every day...
...We're already there, and can get on with the job of destroying jihadist ideology and supporters...
...Find out what the Washington Prowler has uncovered...
...Were we to identify those sources clearly, and define the means of defeating them, we would have a clear vision of what winning requires...
...diplomacy or full-scale invasion...
...To disprove its inevitability and irreversibility, we must remove the jihadist regimes so that for at least two generations no hope of their revival seems possible...
...We must choose to be less conventional and more ruthless in order to reach the necessary result in the short time we have...
...Europe, Japan, and China aren't going to embargo Iranian oil exports because their own economies are dependent on them...
...Information Agency—disbanded with the fall of the Soviet Union—should be re-created for that mission...
...I asked him how we were making the Iraqis aware of those sacrifices...
...Only a very few of the experts tell us that we must deal with the sources of terrorism, and most of them get it wrong by insisting that the cause is poverty and the ugly American image of us that prevails in the Islamic world...
...A nuclear Iran, with the means to deliver its weapons, would be able to increase its support for al Qaeda and their ilk with impunity...
...20 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR February 2005 Some sources say that it already has one to three weapons, and is working hard to mate them to its missiles...
...Hezbollah, Iranian-created, equipped, and funded, made a battlefield of Beirut...
...In Iraq, Iran has funded and operated the Moqtada al-Sadr "mandi militia" and used it to attack and kill Coalition troops...
...But for Glubb and his tiny force, they might have depopulated southern Iraq...
...Today's jihadist believers say, as the Brezhnevites of the old Soviet Union did, that their success is both inevitable and irreversible...
...Like it or not, the road home leads through Tehran, Damascus, and wherever else the jihadis gather...
...and Old Europe Are Worse Than You Think (Regnery Publishing) and a contributing editor of The American Spectator...
...www.cpac.org...
...His task was to protect nomadic Iraqi tribes from "al Ikhwan," the Wahhabi raiders who crossed into Iraq from the Nejed: the east-ern part of what we now call Saudi Arabia...
...Iran may have nuclear weapons in less than two years...
...04 Jed Babbin is the author of Inside the Asylum: Why the U.N...
...Air strikes on their nuclear weapons surface sites won't stop the pro-gram, but can slow Iran's progress for months or years...
Vol. 38 • February 2005 • No. 1
