Read The Final Move Beyond Iraq: The Final Solution While the World Sleeps Online
Authors: Mike Evans
The liberal Left had nothing but contempt for President Reagan’s view of Communism. He was labeled as an “extremist” and compared to Joseph McCarthy, the rabid anticommunist of the late 1940s. And like President George Bush, he was labeled a Fascist. Liberals refused to believe that a totalitarian state was by definition evil in Reagan’s day, and they still do not today.
Jesus’s battle was between darkness and light! He taught us to pray that God would deliver us from evil. One hundred million people died in the twentieth century under totalitarian regimes. As a Jew, I am very aware of the Jews who died in the USSR and Europe, but that is only part of the heartbreak. I stood in Cambodia in the killing fields with a weeping pastor. We were surrounded by skulls and bits of clothing. The pastor took me to the tree in the park where the skulls of members of his church were crushed. Only six members of his church escaped death.
I echo the words of President Bush:
I know that many Americans at this time have fears. We’ve learned that America is not immune from attack. We’ve seen that evil is real. It’s hard for us to comprehend the mentality of people that will destroy innocent folks the way they have. Yet, America is equal to this challenge, make no mistake about it. They’ve roused a mighty giant.
22
This new enemy seeks to destroy our freedom and impose its views. We value life; the terrorists ruthlessly destroy it. We value education; the terrorists do not believe women should be educated or should have health care, or should leave their homes. We value the right to speak our minds; for the terrorists, free expression can be grounds for execution. We respect people of all faiths and welcome the free practice of religion; our enemy wants to dictate how to think and how to worship even to their fellow Muslims.
1
—P
RESIDENT
G
EORGE
W. B
USH
You withdraw when you win. Phased withdrawal is a way of saying, regardless of what the conditions are on the ground, we’re going to get out of Dodge.
2
—T
ONY
S
NOW
,
presidential spokesman, responding to questions on
partitioning Iraq and withdrawing our troops,
October 19, 2006
O
n December 6, 2006, the Iraq Study Group—a bipartisan commission of politicians and lawyers cochaired by former secretary of state James Baker and former Indiana representative and 9/11 Commission vice-chair Lee Hamilton—released its report on the situation in Iraq. The report contained seventy-nine recommendations for what to do next in Iraq and began with these words: “The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating. There is no path that can guarantee success, but the prospects can be improved.”
3
The report was met with tremendous praise all across the Middle East.
Abu Ayman, a senior leader of Islamic Jihad, said this of the report:
The report proves that this is the era of Islam and of jihad….
The Americans came to the conclusion that Islam is the new giant of the world and it would be clever to reduce hostilities with this giant. In the Quran the principle of the rotation is clear and according to this principle the end of the Americans and of all non-believers is getting closer….
We hope that after chasing the occupation from Iraq, these jihad efforts and experiences will be transferred to Palestine, and yes, I mean that we expect these fighters will come to Palestine as part of a big Islamic army.
4
Abu Abdullah, a senior leader of the “military wing” of Hamas, the Izzedine al-Qassam Martyrs Brigades, had this to say:
It is not just a simple victory. It is a great one. The big superpower of the world is defeated by a small group of mujahedeen (fighters). Did you see the mujahedeens’ clothes and weapons in comparison with the huge individual military arsenal and supply that was carrying every American soldier?…
It is no doubt that Allah and his angels were fighting with them (insurgents) against the Americans. It is a sign to all those who keep saying that America, Israel and the West in general cannot be defeated on the ground so let us negotiate with them.
5
Abdullah then added that following its withdrawal from Iraq, the United States would be defeated on its own soil.
Abu Nasser, the second-in-command of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the so-called military wing of the Palestinian Authority, declared the report a victory for the insurgents:
The Iraqi victory is a great message and lesson to the revolutionary and freedom movements in the world. Just to think that this resistance is led by hundreds of Sunni fighters who defeated hundreds of thousands of Americans, British and thousands of soldiers who belong to the puppet regime in Baghdad. What would be the situation if the Shiites will decide to join the resistance?…
If Israel will not start negotiating its withdrawal we are ready to launch the new stage of the intifada.
6
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad himself had this to say following the publication of the Study Group’s report:
The oppressive powers will disappear while the Iranian people will stay. Any power that is close to God will survive while the powers who are far from God will disappear like the pharaohs….
Today, it is the United States, Britain and the Zionist regime which are doomed to disappear as they have moved far away from the teachings of God….
It is a divine promise.
7
James Baker and Lee Hamilton couldn’t have said it better had they waved the report before the terrorists as a white flag: America does not have the political will to win the war on terrorism.
Are we really on the edge of retreat?
C
ALLING
O
UR
F
RIENDS
E
NEMIES AND
O
UR
E
NEMIES,
F
RIENDS
What is the Baker-Hamilton report? It is an analysis of everything the Iraq Study Group believed the United States was doing wrong in Iraq. It is also an analysis of how and why the enemy is winning and why we are being defeated. It is a road map of how we should win the enemy over through appeasement.
Had someone written a report such as this on Nazism in the midst of World War II, it would have been labeled treason. The
Iraq Study Group Report
was not written as a national security document for the president and chiefs of staff to analyze; it was written for public scrutiny. The document was printed as a book with a media firm engaged to sell this doctrine of appeasement to the American people. By doing so, they have given the jihadists of the world a blueprint on how to ultimately defeat us.
One of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group is to hold a Middle East peace conference with Iraq’s neighbors to enlist their help in protecting Iraq’s borders and do what they can to end the sectarian violence within those borders. Among those invited to the negotiating table would be Syria and Iran, and only one nation in the region would not be invited: Israel. Oh, and they thought Al Qaeda should not be negotiated with, either. What is the big carrot on the table to entice these nations to come? Israel would withdraw to its pre-1967 borders.
Why should we assume such a plan would work now? After all, it didn’t work in Madrid after the first Iraq war, when Mr. Baker was secretary of state. Is it time to dust off the “Road Map” again?
As the Study Group itself said, there was really nothing new in their report. Instead, they collected what they felt were the best recommendations available and reported them to the president. The president was free to do as he wished with the results. Reading the report, one gets the feeling that it is a shotgun approach rather than a sharpshooter’s. However, the mood of it is somber and has little good to say about how the war has been handled to date. It was as if they had written to fit the mood in the wake of the bloody outcome of the 2006 elections:
Iraq is a mess. Things are going from bad to worse there. We need to get our troops out. It is the Iraqis’ problem to clean up their internal security issues, not ours. We have tried military action to make things better, but it hasn’t worked; now it is time to turn it over to the diplomats—even if it means meeting with enemies who have shown a serious lack of good faith in the negotiations of the past. We’ve had too much war; now it’s time to try some appeasement.
As National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley responded:
Here is Syria, which is clearly putting pressure on the Lebanese democracy, is a supporter of terror, is both provisioning and supporting Hezbollah and facilitating Iran in its efforts to support Hezbollah, [and] is supporting the activities of Hamas…. This is not a Syria that is on an agenda to bring peace and stability to the region.
8
Regardless, the Baker-Hamilton committee seems to believe Syria is exactly the type of country we should try to woo to a regional security conference—and that we would be able to rely on them to work for peace, even though it has been the farthest thing from their agenda in over four decades.
In contrast, Defense Department officials are very uncomfortable with the idea of granting a role to Iran and Syria at the expense of Israel. In their view, such a strategy could well undermine Arab allies of the United States such as Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco:
The regional strategy is a euphemism for throwing Free Iraq to the wolves in its neighborhood: Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia…. If the Baker regional strategy is adopted, we will prove to all the world that it is better to be America’s enemy than its friend. Jim Baker’s hostility towards the Jews is a matter of record and has endeared him to Israel’s foes in the region.
9
You would think there is a group of politicians in Washington that is more interested in its own political agenda than in finding a way for America to win.
A P
ETITION FOR THE
P
RESIDENT
In response to the
Iraq Study Group Report
, I drafted the following petition for President Bush:
Dear President Bush:
The crisis in Iraq is serious; however, I do not believe that the solution is to appease terrorist states, as proposed by James Baker and the Iraq Study Group (recommendation 55). The enemy has made Iraq the central front on the road to terror.
Mr. President, I fully support your 9/11 doctrine on terror: “If you harbor terrorists, you are a terrorist. If you train terrorists, you are a terrorist. If you feed a terrorist or fund a terrorist, you’re a terrorist; and you will be held accountable by the United States and our friends.”
The Baker-Hamilton report proposes that you reach out diplomatically to the terrorist state Iran as a support group member, while assessing no preconditions (recommendation 5). Mr. President, I do not support a terrorist regime becoming a support group member, especially one that is responsible for the murders of the majority of American troops in Iraq through improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and proxies, one that continues to enrich uranium, one that continues to proclaim that millions of Jews should be wiped off the map, and one that envisions a world without America. I do not believe that the UN Security Council—with France, Germany, Russia, China, and the United States as permanent members—should be the moral conscience to determine the future of Iran’s nuclear program (recommendation 10).
The Baker-Hamilton Report also proposes that all militants and insurgents in Iraq (terrorists) that have killed Americans be granted amnesty (recommendations 31, 35). Mr. President, almost 3,000 Americans have been killed by terrorists. That is comparable to the number killed on 9/11. Another 21,000 have been seriously wounded. I do not support appeasing terrorists, nor do I believe that terrorists will stop killing Americans if we offer appeasement.
James Baker proposes that the entire crisis in Iraq is inextricably linked to the Arab-Israel conflict and that Israel must accept a terrorist regime as a partner in peace (recommendations 13, 14, 17). The report also states that land-for-peace is the only basis for achieving peace.
Israel is being asked, once again, to pay the appeasement price by allowing terrorists in Lebanon to return to Palestine; by giving a terrorist regime—the Palestinian Authority—land-for-peace, i.e., Judea, Samaria, and East Jerusalem; and by returning the Golan Heights with no preconditions (recommendation 16) to Syria, another terrorist state. The report also asks that Israel be excluded from a regional Middle East conference, while both Syria and Iran would be included (recommendation 3). I do not believe that appeasing racist regimes that refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist, that reject the Holocaust and want Jews wiped off the map, is the answer to our problems in Iraq.
I do not believe that terrorist states responsible for having murdered Americans and Israelis should be offered incentives (recommendation 51) or offered access to international bodies, including the World Trade Organization.
Neville Chamberlain proposed a similar appeasement plan to the Fascists; it cost the world 61 million deaths, including 6 million Jews. Winston Churchill said in 1931 that the world lacked the “democratic courage, intellectual honesty, and willingness to act.”
We must not fail this test; if we do, the jihadists will head our way. The root of the rage is racial bigotry against Christians and Jews (Crusaders and Zionists).
Mr. President, I am praying for you. America and Israel are in harm’s way. I humbly believe moral clarity and faith in God according to 2 Chronicles 7:14 will be the key in winning the war against Islamofascism, not appeasement.
I
S
I
RAQ
A
NOTHER
V
IETNAM?
Though previously stated, it is worth repeating here: winning the war on terrorism means defeating the ideology of Islamofascism—it is not only about Iraq, but Iraq must be a first victory along the way. That victory has two centers of gravity: 1) maintaining Western civilization’s political will to win this war; and 2) in the short term, stopping the flow of Iranian financial and arms support for terrorist groups in Iraq, while in the long term halting Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Just as Nazi Fascism rose in the 1930s from the ashes of a powerless, defeated nation in northern Europe to the point of threatening the world, a new totalitarianism in Islamofascism has arisen that promises an even greater challenge. This fanaticism is the central uniting principle of a world of disgruntled, underprivileged people who desire to bring down the nations who have, according to their distorted doctrines, exploited them for centuries. It is not a war to take what the West has, but to bring the West down to the level of the conquerors. It is more than Communism ever was, because it has added the zeal only possible in religious fervor; therefore, it is a greater threat to the world than anything we ever fought in the Cold War.