The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies (18 page)

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Authors: Lieutenant General (Ret.) Michael T. Flynn,Michael Ledeen

In mid-January 2016, the Kremlin announced its intention to create new military bases on their western border, and to step up the readiness of their nuclear forces. These are not the actions of a country seeking détente with the West. They are, rather, indications that Putin fully intends to do the same thing as, and in tandem with, the Iranians: pursue the war against us. The other alliance members do, too.

The Iranians are the heart of the alliance, and they are vulnerable. Machiavelli insisted that tyranny is the least stable system, because the people can quickly turn against the tyrant. Khamenei knows that, and lives in constant fear of a “velvet revolution,” a popular uprising that will sweep him away, along with the failed Islamic system created by his predecessor. We can best attack the enemy alliance at its weakest point, the failure of the Iranian Revolution. That attack should be political, not military, and our most potent weapon is what Khamenei most fears: the suffering Iranian masses.

It was a huge strategic mistake for the United States to invade Iraq militarily. If, as we claimed, our basic mission after 9/11 was the defeat of the terrorists and their state supporters, then our primary target should have been Tehran, not Baghdad, and the method should have been political—support of the internal Iranian opposition.

Is it too late? Has the Iranian opposition been decisively crushed? Many think so. But then, many thought so in 2009, before the massive antiregime demonstrations erupted after the fraudulent elections. Perhaps the Iranian people have the courage to challenge the regime again. We should at least consider how to change Iran from within, remembering that such methods brought down the Soviet Empire, certainly a mission more daunting than bringing down the Islamic Republic.

If internal opposition could end the role of the last president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, why not Khamenei’s?

Nothing of the sort will be undertaken by the Obama administration, because this president wants to be remembered as the man who embraced the Islamic Republic, not as the American leader who brought it down. Our challenge to the mullahs and their allies in the Kremlin will have to await new leadership in Washington. Those new leaders will have to craft a winning strategy that will bring freedom to Iran, thwart Putin’s ambitious undertakings in the Middle East and Europe, and break the worldwide enemy alliance.

Assembling Our Forces

We are not without resources. Although our enemies are strong and growing stronger, and although our military and economic strength has been gravely weakened in recent years, we can win this thing. But only with good leaders capable of galvanizing the country, restoring morale and better intelligence to the military and the intelligence community, and establishing new and rebuilding our current international alliances. Our new leaders are going to have to undo the alienation of traditional friends from Europe and the Middle East to South Asia and Latin America. Diplomacy alone will not be sufficient; at the moment, nobody takes us seriously. We will have to demonstrate the ability and the resolve to crush our enemies.

We should start with strengthening our relationships with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Israel is the only country in the world that routinely defends itself against terrorist attacks—when most of the world refuses to call it terrorism. The Israelis live next to terrorist states, and are constantly asked not to treat them as threats, but to make generous concessions to them.

Israel is enormously valuable to us. Israeli intelligence organizations are exceptionally good, their understanding of Radical Islam is very deep, and their technology may be the best in the world. Of the many mistakes of the Obama presidency, its open hostility to Israel is one of the most damaging to our national security. I find it simply incredible that an American president should believe a strategic alliance with Iran to be more attractive than our traditional embrace of Israel. Our new leaders need to reverse that, pronto. We will need Israel if we’re going to defeat the Radical Islamists, and above all, the Iranians.

Egypt is the biggest Arab country, which saved itself from the clutches of the Muslim Brotherhood. I have quoted at some length from President Sisi’s brave call for a Muslim “Reformation,” and he well understands the urgency of destroying the jihadi armies in Libya, Gaza, the Sinai, and Yemen, as well as doing everything he can to fight the Brotherhood inside Egypt. If we are to defeat al Qaeda and ISIS in North Africa, Egypt is indispensable. Here, too, we must reverse policy.

Jordan has long been the one Arab country to really make peace with Israel, and Egypt has joined their ranks. King Abdullah’s kingdom is now doubly threatened: hundreds of thousands of refugees have headed to Jordan from the Syrian and Iraqi wars, and the Jordanian government lacks sufficient money and supplies to deal properly with them. Second, the Iranians and Syrians are supporting terrorist attacks, and although Jordan has a first-class intelligence community, they can certainly use additional help.

We need to support the Jordanians any way we can, and our Middle East strategy should be coordinated with all three of these nations. We will also want to undo the severe damage that has been done to our relationship with the Saudis, who will have to deal with an intensifying Iranian campaign in the immediate future.

We will also need to revive our working relations with countries such as Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, India, and Argentina. Long-standing friends such as Australia, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy will be easier, but there’s an awful lot of hard work to do.

Good, strong diplomacy will be indispensable, but you can’t undo years of dithering and retreat with words alone. We will have to take real steps, we will have to take action on the battlefield. I don’t want to make specific tactical recommendations here, because the situation is changing so quickly, and good leaders are always ready to abandon a losing strategy in favor of something more promising.

We wouldn’t have a country at all if our first commander in chief, General George Washington, hadn’t been willing to try something dramatically new at the darkest hour of the Revolutionary War. At the beginning of 1781, the British were clearly winning, having defeated the French in Rhode Island and Americans in the South, and were in firm control of New York. Washington was broke, unable even to pay the cost of delivering supplies to his soldiers, and was receiving intelligence to the effect that the French were on the verge of bailing out.

The intel reports were wrong (sound familiar?). The French commander, Count de Rochambeau, told Washington that money was coming from Paris. He also suggested a change in military strategy: instead of concentrating on New York, it would be better for the Americans to coordinate with the French navy in the Chesapeake Bay, and Rochambeau’s own ground troops against General Charles Cornwallis. Over the course of the next several months, General Cornwallis moved his British troops south to Yorktown, Virginia, and Washington quickly agreed with the French to spring a trap. First, the French navy thwarted British efforts to relieve Cornwallis. Second, the Marquis de Lafayette kept Cornwallis in place. And third, Washington committed his troops to a joint operation with Rochambeau. That was the battle of Yorktown, won decisively by the French-American forces in October. It marked the effective end of the Revolutionary War.

That is what good leadership is all about. We want the world, very much including our own people, to see that we are effective and determined to prevail. We will do whatever it takes to win, and we’re prepared to rethink our strategy at all times. If they see it, those who share our values will join with us to win the global war against Radical Islam and its allies. But I don’t think we can win without them. Like Washington at Yorktown, we will need help.

As we enter the field of fight, we must never forget the firm convictions of our enemies. The man who created al Qaeda in Iraq and laid the groundwork for the Islamic State, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, wrote their motto: “The spark has been lit here in Iraq, and its heat will continue to intensify—by Allah’s permission—until it burns the crusader armies in Dabiq.” Dabiq is a town in Syria where a famous Ottoman Empire battle occurred in 1516, and where the leaders of the Islamic State expect the decisive battle between themselves and the West to take place. That is why they named their monthly publication “Dabiq.”

We killed him in Iraq, now we must destroy the global jihad he spawned.

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