FDD

Recent Opinion Polls on Iraq (CM)

Some interesting polling results in recent days. For example:

According to a recent USA Today/Gallup poll, 61% of Americans oppose “denying the funding needed to send any additional U.S. troops to Iraq,” and opposition is up from 58% in February. (3/23-25, 2007).

A Bloomberg poll reveals 61% of Americans believe withholding funding for the war is a bad idea, while only 28% believe it is a good idea (3/3-11, 2007).

A recent Public Opinion Strategies (POS) poll found that 56% of registered voters favor fully funding the war in Iraq, with more voters strongly favoring funding (40%) than totally opposing it (38%); (3/25-27, 2007).

POS found also that a majority of voters (54%) oppose the Democrats imposing a reduction in troops below the level military commanders requested (3/25-27, 2007).

A separate POS poll finds 57% of voters support staying in Iraq until the job is finished and “the Iraqi government can maintain control and provide security for its people.” And  59% of voters say pulling out of Iraq immediately would do more to harm America’s reputation in the world than staying until order is restored (35%); (2/5-7, 2007).

A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll show 69% of American voters trust military commanders more than members of Congress (18%) to decide when United States troops should leave Iraq. This includes 52% of Democrats, 69% of Independents and 88% of Republicans (3/27-28, 2007).

According to a recent Pew Research survey, only 17% of Americans want an immediate withdrawal of troops (4/18-22, 2007). That same poll found a  plurality of adults (45%) believe a terrorist attack against the United States is more likely if we withdraw our troops from Iraq while the “country remains unstable”

Should a date for withdrawal be set, 70% of American believe it is likely that “insurgents will increase their attacks in Iraq” starting on that day. This is supported by 85% of Republicans, 71% of Independents and 60% of Democrats. (FOX News/Opinion Dynamics, 4/17-18, 2007).

An LA Times/Bloomberg polls reveals that 50% of Americans say setting a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq “hurts” the troops, while only 27% believe it “helps” the troops (4/5-9, 2007).

CBS News reports survey findings showing only 33% want to remove all troops from Iraq (4/9-12, 2007).

Al-Qaeda Targeting Great Britain (RWC)

Al Qaeda is planning a massive attack in Britain, and maybe in other Western targets.

This from the London Sunday Times, sent to us by our friend Glenmore Trenear Harvey, a former MI 5 agent who lives in London.

The Times quotes a British intelligence report that the attack will be aided by Iranian supporters of al-Qaeda.

The possible attack was compared with "Hiroshima and Nagasaki" and an informant said it would "shake the Roman empire."

The threat is “deadly and enduring” said Scotland Yard’s Peter Clark, commander of the UK’s counter terrorism force. He told Bloomberg News that the Brits have arrested over 1,000 al-Qaeda connected hard-core radical Muslims since 9/11 and about 100 of them are still awaiting trial.

Clark described al-Qaeda in Britain as “incredibly resilient.”

Senior al-Qaeda operatives have been in recent contact with British supporters and they have talked about "a huge explosion," says British sources.

Up to 150 British Muslims are believed to have traveled to Iraq to fight Americans as part of what al-Qaeda calls its own "foreign legion," according to British intelligence sources.

The recent secret report was prepared by "Jay Tac" -- the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre -- which is at MI5's London headquarters. The London Times says its editors have read a copy.

Al-Qaeda is not yet believed to have acquired a nuclear weapon, though Osama Bin Laden has personally tried. But a number of al-Qaeda plots involving "dirty bombs," conventional explosives surrounding radioactive material, have so far been foiled.

Joe Lieberman on al-Qaeda (CM)

Earlier today, Senator Joseph Lieberman addressing the Iraq withdrawal provision in the supplemental appropriations bill on the floor of the U.S. Senate:

Al Qaeda’s own leaders have repeatedly said that one of the ways they intend to achieve victory in Iraq is to provoke civil war. They are trying to kill as many people as possible today, precisely in the hope of igniting sectarian violence, because they know that this is their best way to collapse Iraq’s political center, overthrow Iraq’s elected government, radicalize its population, and create a failed state in the heart of the Middle East that they can use as a base.

That is why Al Qaeda blew up the Golden Mosque in Samarra last year. And that is why we are seeing mass casualty suicide bombings by Al Qaeda in Baghdad now.

The sectarian violence that the Majority Leader says he wants to order American troops to stop policing, in other words, is the very same sectarian violence that Al Qaeda hopes to ride to victory. The suggestion that we can draw a bright legislative line between stopping terrorists in Iraq and stopping civil war in Iraq flies in the face of this reality.

I do not know how to say it more plainly: it is Al Qaeda that is trying to cause a full-fledged civil war in Iraq. …

In sum, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t withdraw combat troops from Iraq and still fight Al Qaeda there. …

Al Qaeda is not mass murdering civilians on the streets of Baghdad because it wants a more equitable distribution of oil revenues. Its aim in Iraq is not to get a seat at the political table.

It wants to blow up the table — along with everyone seated at it. Al Qaeda wants to destroy any prospect for democracy in Iraq, and it will not be negotiated or reasoned out of existence. It must be fought and defeated through force of arms. And there can be no withdrawal, no redeployment from this reality.

More here.

Peter Pham on Nigeria

Nigeria’s troubled presidential election, which came under fire on Sunday from local and international observers and was rejected by two leading opposition candidates, represents a significant setback for democracy in sub-Saharan Africa at a time when voters in countries across the continent are becoming more disillusioned with the way democracy is practiced.

FDD Adjunct Fellow Peter Pham says the Nigerian vote was the starkest example of a worrying trend — even as African countries hold more elections, many of their citizens are steadily losing confidence in their democracies. “It will not be too long before we find out whether Nigerians will once again demonstrate their incredible national capacity to pull themselves back from the brink,” Pham writes in World Defense Review, “or whether the vast natural and political resources which the West African nation has at its disposal will be wasted in an increasing spiral of internal conflict, violence and decline.”

Dr. Pham was one of the first to raise the alarm about the militant Islamist threat in Africa and call for a comprehensive national security and diplomatic strategy in response. A former diplomat in Africa, he visits the region frequently — he was in Nigeria last week to observe the elections— and has written numerous articles on the radical Islamist threat to Africa.

Lieberman on Iraq (CM)

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (an FDD Distinguished Advisor and Honorary Co-Chairman of the Committee on the Present Danger) writes in The Washington Post this morning:

Last week a series of coordinated suicide bombings killed more than 170 people. The victims were not soldiers or government officials but civilians -- innocent men, women and children indiscriminately murdered on their way home from work and school.

If such an atrocity had been perpetrated in the United States, Europe or Israel, our response would surely have been anger at the fanatics responsible and resolve not to surrender to their barbarism.

Unfortunately, because this slaughter took place in Baghdad, the carnage was seized upon as the latest talking point by advocates of withdrawal here in Washington. Rather than condemning the attacks and the terrorists who committed them, critics trumpeted them as proof that Gen. David Petraeus's security strategy has failed and that the war is "lost." …

[T]o the extent that last week's bloodshed clarified anything, it is that the battle of Baghdad is increasingly a battle against al-Qaeda. Whether we like it or not, al-Qaeda views the Iraqi capital as a central front of its war against us.

Al-Qaeda's strategy for victory in Iraq is clear. It is trying to kill as many innocent people as possible in the hope of reigniting Shiite sectarian violence and terrorizing the Sunnis into submission. …

In other words, just as Petraeus and his troops are working to empower and unite Iraqi moderates by establishing basic security, al-Qaeda is trying to divide and conquer with spectacular acts of butchery.

That is why the suggestion that we can fight al-Qaeda but stay out of Iraq's "civil war" is specious, since the very crux of al-Qaeda's strategy in Iraq has been to try to provoke civil war.

The current wave of suicide bombings in Iraq is also aimed at us here in the United States -- to obscure the recent gains we have made and to convince the American public that our efforts in Iraq are futile and that we should retreat.

When politicians here declare that Iraq is "lost" in reaction to al-Qaeda's terrorist attacks and demand timetables for withdrawal, they are doing exactly what al-Qaeda hopes they will do, although I know that is not their intent. …

Certainly al-Qaeda can be weakened by isolating it politically. But even after the overwhelming majority of Iraqis agree on a shared political vision, there will remain a hardened core of extremists who are dedicated to destroying that vision through horrific violence. These forces cannot be negotiated or reasoned out of existence. They must be defeated.

The challenge before us, then, is whether we respond to al-Qaeda's barbarism by running away, as it hopes we do -- abandoning the future of Iraq, the Middle East and ultimately our own security to the very people responsible for last week's atrocities -- or whether we stand and fight.

More here.

Benchmarks for Iraq (CM)

Reuel Marc Gerecht writes:

This is not the time for talk of timetables for withdrawal -- much less talk of a war that is lost. It isn't inconsistent to scorch Bush for his failures -- and still to argue that the American blood we will spill in Iraq in the surge is worth the possibility of success. Do thoughtful Democrats really believe that the Middle East, America's long fight against Sunni jihadism, and our standing in the world against potential aggressors and bullies will be improved by a precipitous and mandated departure from Mesopotamia? The Democratic party is beginning to sound like an echo chamber for Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser for the most inept and calamitous Democratic administration of modern times.

We, too, have benchmarks for Iraq. The surge needs to show real progress in providing security by the beginning of 2008. American and Iraqi forces in Baghdad will have to figure out a way to diminish significantly the number and lethality of Sunni suicide bombers. Given the topography of Baghdad, the possible routes of attack against the capital's Shiite denizens, and the common traits of Iraq's Arabs, this will be difficult. If we and the Iraqis cannot do this, then the radicalization of the Shiites will continue, and it will be only a question of time before the Shiite community collectively decides that the Sunnis as a group are beyond the pale, and a countrywide war of religious cleansing will become likely.

More here.

Larry Haas on "The Democratic Moment"

From a Democrat, Larry Haas, currently Vice President for Policy at the non-partisan Committee on the Present Danger; previously, Communications Director to Vice President Al Gore and, before that, an aide to President Clinton:

The next successful Democratic presidential candidate will be one who neither suffers nor enunciates moral confusion about America. He or she will hold, and articulate, a firm belief in the superiority of U.S.-style freedom and democracy over the authoritarian systems of our enemies. Like Harry Truman at the outset of the Cold War or Kennedy at its most precarious moments, the next Democratic president will lay America and its enemies side by side, explain the superiority of American ideals, and outline a vision to guarantee America's long-term security.

More here.

U.N. to suicide bombers: Knock 'em dead (CM)

I was just on a BBC radio program talking about Iraqi refugees. A U.N. official put the blame on the U.S., Britain and other coalition countries.

I suggested that perhaps those organizations and foreign powers dispatching suicide bombers to blow up innocent Iraqis in the markets, and those threatening to kill Iraqis who remain in their homes, might have some responsibility for causing Iraqis to flee.

But he said "no" — the Americans and Brits who destablized a previously stable country are the culprits. (And he said nothing about the millions who fled from Saddam's "stable" regime.)

So, in essence, the U.N. today used the BBC World Service to send a message to al-Qaeda in Iraq, to Syria and to Iran. That message: Keep on killing Iraqis. You will not be held to account. You're doing fine. Keep it up. It doesn't bother us a bit. When you kill innocent women and children you're achieving your goals — you're doing harm to the West. We're with you. We'll defend you and we'll attack those you want us to attack.

Can someone remind me why precious taxpayer dollars continue to go to this organization?

Meeting with the Muslim Brotherhood (ML)

Ken Silverstein has a feature in the March issue of Harper's Magazine that is worth reading. He paints an annoyingly rosy picture of Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood, but makes an argument that merits consideration — and a solid response. The rise of Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood as “ballot-box” political forces poses a serious challenge to Bush’s doctrine of spreading democracy as an ultimate strategy in the war on terror.

The war on terror has come increasingly to rely on despotic regimes that use the fight against terrorism as an excuse to stifle democracy. Silverstein thinks that Hezbollah and the Brotherhood are no longer important sources of terrorism – and that they are in a way as much enemies of Al Qaeda as we are, because they legitimize democratic political systems simply by participating. I still think that all these groups are dangerous — and they sympathize with terrorism when they do not actually engage in it. But it will be increasingly important to understand them — what they think and what they do — if only because they may be ruling governments one day.

More Connection - the 1998 Fatwa (AM)

Can't help but belabor this point. Over the years, the media, the Intelligence Community, the Justice Department, the Congress and various investigative bodies like the 9/11 Commission have repeatedly pointed to Osama bin Laden & Co.'s infamous 1998 fatwa, the summons to "Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders," calling for the murder of all Americans, whether civilian or military, anywhere on earth where they are found.  That, of course, is the command — the direction about what is to be done. But very little has been said publicly about bin Laden's stated rationale for this command.

Below is al Qaeda's justification for the command to kill all Americans. As you read this — recalling the meetings and exchanges of funds between Iraq and al Qaeda in 1998, the Clinton administration's retaliation against the Sudanese pharmaceutical factory (believed to be a joint Iraq/Qaeda weapons operation) that followed the embassy attacks, the Clinton administration's fear that bin Laden would move his operation to Baghdad — note how focused bin Laden was on Iraq in the months before bombing our embassies.  Note also his allusions to the "rulers" of countries in the Arabian Peninsula, including Iraq — there is no trace of the hostility that the Intelligence Community often maintains was a constant between jihadist bin Laden and secular Saddam. All italics are mine:

No one argues today about three facts that are known to everyone; we will list them, in order to remind everyone:

First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples. If some people have in the past argued about the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it. The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, but they are helpless. Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation. So here they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors. Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.

All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on Allah, his messenger, and Muslims. And ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries....  On that basis, and in compliance with Allah's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah."

So said Osama bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri and their Sunni jihadist confederates, who, according to today's congressional leadership, had no real interest in Shiite-majority, secularly-ruled Iraq until the United States invaded five years later.

Krauthammer on Iraq (CM)

Charles Krauthammer writes that “14 of the 18 tribal leaders in Anbar have turned against al-Qaeda…[Gen. David] Patraeus is "trying now to complete the defeat of the Sunni insurgents in Baghdad” while "simultaneously pursuing and suppressing Shiite militias.”

Does this sound like the time to give up and let these forces take over the country?

Krauthammer also agrees with the points I make in my latest column that it simply not true that last election was a call by voters for America to accept defeat in Iraq. Read the whole piece here.

Importance of the Ulamas in Iraq

Mainstream Sunni Muslim clerics in Iraq have formed a body to issue edicts aimed at curbing the influence of al Qaeda militants. FDD's Walid Phares today explained what this latest development means for the future of Iraq:

The reasons behind the rise of the council are multiple: Under Saddam, there were two types of Sunni clerics: First, those who served his regime and were appointed with his consent, even though his regime was Socialist. They were the 'official' Ulamas and used to getting the financial and political backing [they needed]. In return they provided him with religious legitimacy, especially when he was at war with Iran. Second, and in deeper layers; the more Salafi clerics, in the 1970s and early 1980s, were still contained and marginalized. They represented the more conservative, almost Wahabi type of clerics.

But in the mid 1990s, and as he needed more Islamic approval, Saddam included more Salafists in the Sunni religious circles. This allowed the infiltration by Salafists (close to al Qaeda) within the 'clergy.'

When Saddam was removed from power, the Sunni arena was wide open for all types of clerics. The most radical ones rose first, and joined the ranks of the foreign Jihadis.

Algeria Terror Attacks (WP)

Today's suicide attacks in Algiers leaves us with the following thinking points:

1. The Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat (with a new name) joined al-Qaeda last Fall. It is now waging jihad against the Algerian state, civil society and democracy movements in that mostly Arab Muslim country.

2. This is an additional evidence that the War on Terror is global and not linked directly to U.S. Foreign Policy. The Jihadists in Algeria are targeting Algerians from all background while there are no US troops in that country. It is a struggle that began before 9/11 and is resuming today.

3. The ideology of the Algerian Salafists, as I described in my book the War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy, aim at brining down 21 Arab states and 52 Muslim Governments around the world, in addition to fighting the "infidels" wherever they can meet them.

4. In the current debate on the War on Terror, and while voices in Congress have called for banning the term "Global War on Terror," the attacks in Algeria today demonstrate that many in the West haven't yet understood the Global aim of the Jihadists. In my book, I argue that the War of Ideas has to be won at home first, so that the Global Conflict with the Jihadist can be won as well.

5. The barbaric attacks in Algiers shows that more than ever, Muslim moderates and anti-Jihadists need to rise against the Jihadi Terrorists before their societies are overwhelmed by the Salafists and the Khomeinists

6. It is to note that the attack in Algiers is linked to last week attacks in Morocco and the confrontations in the rest of North Africa and Somalia. 

Secrecy & Government at NYU Thursday (AM)

If you happen to be, or can be, in lower Manhattan on Thursday, April 12, NYU's Center on Law and Security will be holding what looks to be a very interesting program on "Secrecy & Government."  On the menu are a number of prominent journalists (e.g., Dana Priest, Adam Liptak, Walter Pincus, Nat Hentoff, et al), some academics from both ideological sides who really know this area (e.g., Elaine Cassel, Jack Goldsmith, Burt Neuborne, et al), and some practitioners who've dealt with these cases (like Josh Dratel, who's represented terrorists, and federal judge Ken Karas, my friend and colleague when we were prosecutors).

The day-long event has been organized by NYU's excellent Prof. Karen Greenberg, who runs the Center and, in my experience, is very conscientious about making sure all views are represented. Details can be found here.

A Real Moderate Takes a Stand Against CAIR and the Flying Imams (AM)

Three cheers — no, three million cheers — for Zuhdi Jasser, a practicing doctor and retired Navy Lieutenant Commander, who is trying to catalyze fellow moderate Muslims into standing up against the jihadists and their cheerleaders.  He has written this important article at FamilySecurityMatters.org denouncing CAIR and the lawsuit it is pushing on behalf of the infamous Flying Imams against US Airways and the "John Doe" passengers who had the temerity to be frightened and speak out.

Read it all. Here is one excerpt of the words we've been longing to hear from Muslim moderates:

Make no mistake. This lawsuit forces our courts and our community to firmly clarify our rules of engagement and the tools we can and cannot use to stay safe and maintain our freedoms. If this case is not thrown out early by the courts it stands to chill civilian reporting of suspicious behavior which will further embolden those who target our American citizenry — Muslim and non-Muslim. Frankly, it will also create a deeper wedge and greater fear whether based on reality or ignorance between the Muslim and non-Muslim community. Contrary to the CAIR spin machine and their sympathizers, this case is about much more than a few Muslim imams from Phoenix who felt their rights (to fly) were infringed by U.S. Airways and some passengers (John Does) who passed notes to the crew.  It is about much more than such a simplistic view of the known facts.

As a nation, our collective response to this will be a defining moment in the articulation of our values, while also defining our priorities in defense of civilian America against the threat of militant Islamism and all those enemies who target us.

We are seeing at play in this case elements that illustrate the pathology of political Islam and how it blindly drives many Muslims who believe in it, whether or not their means are wise or their ends are understood. The longer we avoid the deeper discussion of the machinations of political Islam (Islamism) in America, the longer we allow it to take cover and thrive under the guise of political correctness within our pluralistic democracy. The longer we continue to disengage from the real aims and overriding denial of Islamist organizations that wage public battle through their toxic mixture of religion and politics, the further we fall behind in this war of ideas. Without engagement, Islamism, Salafism, and radicalism will continue to flourish within the very construct of our Constitutional government and protection of our Bill of Rights - including its establishment clause – and all the while Islamists strive to create a society which honors neither.

Boobs at the Beeb (CM)

The BBC has cancelled the commission for a 90-minute drama about Britain's youngest surviving Victoria Cross hero because it feared it would alienate members of the audience opposed to the war in Iraq. More here.

Fouad Ajami on Iraq (CM)

[W]e are invested in this Islamic world. We're invested in its fires, and we're invested in its furies. It's a very, very costly burden. And we remain there. And our burden in Iraq is part of this broader burden in the Arab world.

[W]e might come to the point where we say, look, our best intentions didn't work. I honestly want and hope and believe and maybe was somewhat encouraged on this trip to see that I think the Iraqis are getting to the point where they understand this is their country and they must redeem it.

Every time I go to Iraq, when I'm in Baghdad and after I leave Baghdad, I'm slightly more optimistic. You know, I dubbed it the tale of two cities. There is despair in Washington, and there is more determination in Baghdad.

I have a reasonable measure of optimism about what I saw in Baghdad.

More of the great scholar’s interview with Lou Dobbs here.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross Joins Foundation for Defense of Democracies as Senior Fellow

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, author of the book My Year Inside Radical Islam, has joined the Foundation for Defense of Democracies as a senior fellow and will lead its Project on Religion, Politics and Radicalism. Read More.