No, Boston Will Not Change Anything

By Barry Rubin

Boston Marathon bombing investigation turns to motive

Thus reads the headline on Yahoo here. The lead of the Reuters story: ""With the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings lying seriously wounded in a hospital and unable to speak on Saturday, investigators worked to determine a motive and whether the ethnic Chechen brothers accused of the attack acted alone." In the article, which spends seven paragraphs discussing the parents claim that the two brothers were framed, the word "Islam" is not mentioned, except to say that they once lived in a predominantly Muslim country. 

The film "Casablanca" was an alarm bell for America back in 1941. I thought about an exchange from that script in regard to Boston:'

Major Strasser: Are you one of those people who cannot imagine the Germans in your beloved Paris?

Rick: It's not particularly my beloved Paris.

Heinz: Can you imagine us in London?

Rick: Ask me when you get there.

Major Strasser: How about New York?

Rick: Well there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade.

But wait! They got to New York back in 2001. And have been back there about 18 times since then. They got to Washington DC that same year.

And now they are in Boston.

That’s what I thought about when I heard President Obama saying that the terrorists picked the wrong city to attack.

No, they didn’t.

Two kids paralyzed an American city with great ease just by being willing to sacrifice their lives if necessary, which is after all the whole theory of the suicide terrorism, we-believe-in-death-you-believe-in-life school of thought.

Whether or not they had some brief training in bomb making and didn’t just take the Internet course isn’t that important. And remember that the Chechen nationalist movements have no interest in attacking the United States. This was al-Qaida, as we can see from the selection of You-Tube videos by one of the bombers.

When Obama says, "Americans refuse to be terrorized," it seems as if he is actually proudly saying: We aren't going to change anything we're doing now!

So, if we are going to be honest about it, the issue here is not the heroes who emerged or the quality of the police work done. It is that America is tremendously vulnerable.

But is that fair to say given the few big terror plots that have succeeded since September 11, 2001?

Well, yes, because there are a lot of small ones that have succeeded; a lot of plots that were deliberately not recognized as such so that the American people remained asleep. The United States is losing.

On September 11, 2001, only Iran and Afghanistan were ruled by revolutionary Islamist governments.

Today, Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Iran, Lebanon, Tunisia, Turkey, and soon Syria make for a lot longer list.

This, then, is the one-two punch of Islamism: Terrorist movements plus political movements. Oh, and there’s another punch, too, Western denial.

Years ago there was a joke in South Africa, before the end of the apartheid regime. The government builds a giant computer and asks it, "In the year 2000 will South Africa be ruled by whites or blacks?"

The computer says, "Whites."

But then the officials think of the friction between the Boers (Dutch-speakers) and the English speakers so they ask: "What language will they be speaking?"

And the answer comes back "Russian."

This is sort of what happened with the hopes of the left this week:

"What race will be the Boston terrorists be?"

"Caucasian."

"What a relief!"

"Yes, Caucasian Muslims."

When I was watching the September 11 attacks on television, an announcer said, “From now on, everything will be different.” And I said out loud to the television set: “No, it won’t.”

For many years before 2001 I carried with me a secret. When reporters would ask me, “Why haven’t terrorists targeted the United States directly?” I didn’t answer.

That’s because the answer was: “Because they haven’t yet realized how easy it would be to do that.”

I didn’t want to be the one who tipped them off. Back then, in the 1980s and 1990s, the Islamist terrorists knew they didn’t know America very well. Also, I suspect, they couldn’t believe how open the United States was, that there weren’t policemen who would follow them around because they were Muslim and Middle Eastern.

Here’s the irony: Only when the terrorist leaders realized that Islamophobia was not a big factor in the United States could they resolve to attack the United States with a belief that they would succeed.

Once again I hear that “everything will change” because of Boston. Again, a dozen years later, I don’t believe that either. It is absolutely clear what needs to be understood and what needs to be done. But that message will not be accepted by those with socio-political power.

Indeed, exactly 11 years later, on September 11, 2012, terrorists got away with killing four U.S. officials in Benghazi and one of the Boston terrorists received U.S. citizenship.

You see, regarding the current dominant people and ideas ruling America, controlling its universities and mass media, there's a Navaho proverb that applies: You can't wake up someone who's only pretending to be sleeping.

Back in 1941, the Pearl Harbor attack forced America to wake up. But America had its Pearl Harbor a dozen years ago and we're still waiting. 

Please be subscriber 31,388 (among more than 50,000 total readers). Put email address in upper right-hand box: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com

 We’d love to have your support and work hard to earn it. See our new feature with 13 free books at http://www.gloria-center.org. Why not make a tax-deductible donation to the GLORIA Center by PayPal: click here.

By credit card: click here. Checks: "American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line and send to: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Fl., NY, NY 10003.

For tax-deductible donations in Canada and the UK, write us here.

--------------------

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His next book, Nazis, Islamists and the Making of the Modern Middle East, written with Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, will be published by Yale University Press in January 2014. His latest book is Israel: An Introduction, also published by Yale. Thirteen of his books can be read and downloaded for free at the website of the GLORIA Center including The Arab States and the Palestine Conflict, The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East and The Truth About Syria. His blog is Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

This article was published in PJMedia.

Who Will Keep More Teenage Muslims from Becoming the Next Boston Marathon Terrorists? Nobody

By Barry Rubin

The lesson from the Boston Marathon bombings could not possibly be clearer. Yet few people, due to various complications, will address that real issue.

Part of the problem is this. Most powerful institutions and people say that Islam is a religion of peace. There’s no problem, except for a few mysterious extremists who just seem to pop up either at random or due to American and Western sins.

The next largest segment says that Islam is an inherently violent and extremist religion so since the problem is Islam there’s nothing to do but to combat it directly in some form.

Both of the main Western responses, then, deny the importance of waging a real and serious battle within Islam.

Yet where do the terrorists come from? In the case of these two brothers, they were Muslims all of their lives and yet suddenly they became—without any major direct experience—radical terrorists.

The cause, of course, was revolutionary Islamist propaganda, especially but by no means exclusively, from al-Qaida. There are literally hundreds of Internet sites, videos, preachers, books, and everything else you can think of that promote revolutionary Islamism. They tell Muslims that they should and must be revolutionaries and terrorists; they cite holy works to do so.

What the heck is there on the other side?

Let’s think for a moment about some of the things that don’t exist:

--A Radio Free Islam that systematically preaches (the last word is not chosen at random) an anti-extremist approach to Islam. Obviously no Western government could do such a thing but there are supposedly enough wealthy Muslims to finance such an operation. 

--Virtually no programs at mosques to explain why terrorist, Islamist, and extremist Islamic positions are wrong and bad. Wrong because they don’t accord with what those who say so deem to be a “proper” Islam; bad because they are immoral, ruin the lives of those who embrace such ideology, and hold back the societies where enough such people have such a view.

--Remarkably little literature and remarkably few preachers—especially ones who are as well-financed as the radicals—that a young Muslim is going to read on Internet or hear on videos or elsewhere which suggests an alternative path.

--Where are the videos? Where are the web sites? Where is the social disapproval among Muslims?

On the basis one could argue that there is no moderate—or at least no non-violent, non-revolutionary-- Islam that can be developed. But that simply isn’t true. The works and the moderate individuals exist but they are not given support, even in Western countries, nor do they have the resources to wage the battle.

Everyone who ignorantly drones on about Islam being inevitably radical based on religious texts doesn't know how hard Islamists have had to work for forty years or  more in the real world to create what exists now, nor how many people who are Muslims oppose this movement in Iran, Arabic-speaking countries, Turkey, and other places. One mistake--made by President Obama in his Cairo speech among other places--is to extol Islam as the main political identity people who are Muslims should have. 

It is like the situation in the Cold War when the Soviets and their supporters were well-organized and well-financed but the social democrats, liberals, and conservatives opposing them were not. Not only the U.S. government--through covert and other means--stepped into the breach but so did lots of organizations, foundations, non-governmental organizations, and others.

In the era of Islamism there are a lot of major problems in terms of its opponents' responses.

First, any Western, non-Muslim financing or help to those groups would be used to discredit them.

Second, in a bizarre manner Western societies favor the radicals, giving them a good press and praise.

Third, moderate Muslims are penalized and ignored.

Fourth, the ability to critique precisely what is radical in Islam and what is wrong with Islamism is handicapped by the successful effort to brand any attempts at making such distinctions as “Islamophobia” instead of a sensible fear of revolutionary Islamism. It is equivalent to branding any such attempt to critique Communism as anti-Sovietism or as a mindless antagonism to liberalism or pure reactionary views.  Communists tried such techniques but they only worked to a very limited extent.

Fifth, part of the last three problems is due to the far left’s (often pretending to be liberal) alignment with radical Islamism (the current world’s most powerful right-wing ideology), despite the latter’s repression of women’s rights, desire to murder gays, and opposition to just about everything else the left is supposed to believe.

Sixth, who cares that Islamist organizations that are mere covers for radical activities issue a statement decrying an Islamist terror attack simply because it was staged by some other group, wrong place, or at an inconvenient time? Let them campaign against radical, violent, and intolerant interpretations of Islam or be exposed for who they really are.

Here’s something amazing in the 2011 Pew Research Centerpoll about American Muslims. One question was: “How concerned about possible rise of Islamic extremism in U.S.?  Sixty percent said “Very, somewhat” in 2011; 35 percent said “Not too/Not at all.” The main point Pew concluded from this is that there wasn’t a big change because it was down 1 percent from the 2007 poll.

But the very loud alarm bell is ignored. If 60 percent of American Muslims say they are concerned doesn’t that say that there is a huge problem here? Perhaps a problem many of them would be willing to help deal with if given help and encouragement?

Another question produces truly amazing results. “Have U.S. Muslim leaders done as much as they should to speak out against extremists?” A remarkable 48 percent said, “Have not done enough” compared to 34 percent who said they have “Done as much as they should.” In other words, half of American Muslims don’t think their own leaders have worked hard enough to counter extremism!

If American Muslims say—despite their self-interest and peer pressure—that half their own leaders haven’t done enough why shouldn’t the rest of the country come to the same conclusion? And why shouldn’t changing that situation be a major priority rather than being swept under the rug as if no problem exists?

This, then, is the dilemma and why young people like Tsarnaev brothers will be indoctrinated with extremist Islam with almost no alternative offered on the other side. If groups that are Muslim Brotherhood fronts are going to be treated by the American establishment as normative, moderate Islam, what space is there for any real moderate Islam?

If the enemy is not going to be defined as radical Islam or Islamism or some other phrase that identifies the issue, then how can anyone campaign against such doctrines?

The West has paralyzed itself and, ironically the first people who are going to suffer are Muslims who are not Islamists and not radicals. The proper allies and those to whom sympathy is to be extended is not Hamas, Hizballah, the Muslim Brotherhood, the radical Islamists in Syria, the sophisticated Islamists in Turkey, CAIR, and such groups but their enemies within the Muslim community.

That is the lesson of the Boston Marathon terrorist attack. Otherwise, there will be many more Tsarnaev’s just as there have been repeated “conversion” experiences to become radical terrorists in case after case in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and many other countries over the last decade.

With a massive pro-Islamist, pro-terrorist propaganda machine on one side and almost nothing on the other side how could someone expect anything else to happen?

This article is published on PJMedia.

If you are interested in reading more about Egypt and radical Islamist movements, you're welcome to read my book Islamic Fundamentalists in Egyptian Politics online or download it for free.

If you are interested in reading more about the role of Islam in the Middle East today you're welcome to read my book Tragedy of the Middle East online or download it for free.

Please be subscriber 31,384 (among more than 50,000 total readers). Put email address in upper right-hand box: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com

 We’d love to have your support and work hard to earn it. See our new feature with 13 free books at http://www.gloria-center.org. Why not make a tax-deductible donation to the GLORIA Center by PayPal: click here.

By credit card: click here. Checks: "American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line and send to: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Fl., NY, NY 10003.

For tax-deductible donations in Canada and the UK, write us here.

--------------------

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His next book, Nazis, Islamists and the Making of the Modern Middle East, written with Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, will be published by Yale University Press in January 2014. His latest book is Israel: An Introduction, also published by Yale. Thirteen of his books can be read and downloaded for free at the website of the GLORIA Center including The Arab States and the Palestine Conflict, The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East and The Truth About Syria. His blog is Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

What Friday, April 19, 2013 Tells Us About Egypt and the World

What Friday, April 19, 2013 Tells Us About Egypt and the World

By Barry Rubin

Salafist groups have called for a massive demonstration to be staged at noon in front of the High Court building on Ramses Street in Cairo to protest the acquittal of several officials from the Mubarak regime and at Mubarak's release on bail pending a retrial. The retrial was required by the withdrawal of the judge. That retrial was necessitated  by the overturn on appeal of a previous life imprisonment verdict against Mubarak.

The Muslim Brotherhood has told members they can participate in the demonstration on a personal basis if they wish. The demonstration's main demand is that the judiciary be restructured. The court system has stood as the last remaining institutional barrier to the Brotherhood's total control of the country. While over time it would inevitably name new judges, many are impatient for the Islamist revolution to roll forward.

Also today, though, anti-Islamist movements are gathering at 1 pm at Tahrir Square, a nearby suburb, and Elqaed Ibrahim Square in Alexandria to demand that the Brotherhood be forced out of power.

At the Alexandria location, however, other Salafist groups have called for a 2 PM protest against the anti-Islamists. Violence is quite possible.

Meanwhile, the economy is continuing to decline steeply and a plan for a massive IMF bail-out is stalled due to wrangling on the Egyptian government side.

This is the chaos into which Egypt is descending. In real terms, a revolution hailed by virtually everyone in the West has turned into a disaster. The choices seem to be either a Sharia state or a civil war, each accompanied by suffering and explosive instability.

Might the West learn something from this story? Lessons could include the idea that another supposed great solution--a revolution in Syria--is about to bring another disaster, while the utopian vision of an instant peace process imposed on Israel would bring a parallel disaster.  The Syrian story will happen; the "peace process" one won't and Israel will be blamed for avoiding suicide.

This is published on PJMedia.

Turkey’s Regime Fails Abroad; Is World Champion at Fundamental Transformation at Home

By Barry Rubin

A Turkish friend just wrote me that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sold his soul to the Devil. That implies Erdogan is succeeding on every front, as if by magic. More accurately, however, the trick is that Erdogan’s foreign policy is failing on almost every front but he’s able to convince Turks that the situation is the exact opposite.

Let’s examine the list of developments in objective terms:

--He has made no progress on membership or integration in the European Union. Similarly, his diplomatic efforts to ease relations with neighboring Armenia have borne no fruit.

--Erdogan has thrown away the virtual alliance with Israel without gaining anything materially in the Arabic-speaking world. Although few seem to understand this point, it was not Israel that groveled in accepting Erdogan’s terms but the exact opposite.

Remember that if the bully lies and the media gets it wrong that does not change reality.  Erdogan swore not to back down on three issues but then accepted Israel's position. Erdogan said: no deal without formal apology; payment of compensation; and end to all sanctions on Gaza. He then backed down. He then, of course, immediately, broke this commitment.  That's my point: defeat internationally coupled with boastful propaganda to make gains at home.

The Syrian situation has a lot to do with this, as does—amazingly enough—a bit of U.S. pressure (see below), but also he had a new problem. As an Israeli diplomat explained:

“Turkish export routes to the east used to go through Syria, to the East and to the Gulf. That’s not possible anymore. Turkish exports are shipped to the port of Haifa, where they’re loaded onto trucks, which cross Israel and then go to Jordan, and then from Jordan, they are shipped to the Gulf and to the East. Israel has now become a [pivotal] point for Turkish exports."

--Turkey had gained no real influence over the Palestinian Hamas and the Lebanese Hizballah groups on which he has lavished much attention.

--In Syria, despite Turkey’s good relations with the dictatorship there, he has backed a rebellion in which he seemingly had great influence. But now Erdogan is clearly having second thoughts, becoming scared that he may have produced a Frankenstein’s monster, a radical Islamist state next door which might cause troubles for Turkey.

--And now Turkey is bordered also by not one but two Kurdish “states.” 

While he has done well in keeping good relations with the Kurdish-governed district in northern Iraq, its flourishing existence must be worrisome to him, including its effect on Turkey’s own large Kurdish minority. And now there is a much more militant Kurdish statelet in Syria ruled by his old adversaries, the Kurdish Workers’ Party’s local branch. Erdogan does have a plan to deal with Syrian Kurdistan building on the Iraq model: good relations, regional autonomy, and no attacks from there against Turkey. Still, how certain can he be that there won't be big problems?

--Most important of all, perhaps, is that Erdogan’s attempt to gain wider leadership in the Middle East (called “neo-Ottomanism,” recalling Turkey’s pre-World War One empire in the region) has fallen flat on its face. While Erdogan stresses his Muslim credentials, nobody who speaks Arabic has forgotten that he isn’t one of them.

--And now his love affair with President Barack Obama is on the rocks, at least temporarily. Erdogan’s level of anti-Israel and even antisemitic invective has risen so high and become so obvious that the U.S. government can no longer ignore it. For the first time, questions were raised about the great model Islamist in Washington.

That was one of the key motives for the president’s effort to effect an Israel-Turkey conciliation. As always, Erdogan has gone out of his way to be provocative. He told the Fifth UN Alliance of Civilizations meeting in Vienna, for example, that Zionism was a "crime against humanity." Since such crimes should presumably be punished, this can be regarded as Erdogan calling for genocide against Israel and its residents.

“Just like Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism, it becomes unavoidable that Islamophobia must be regarded as a crime against humanity,” he alleged.

It is also  possible--and there is some evidence for this--that the U.S. government feels that Erdogan misled it on Syrian issues now that it has partly awakened to seeing that country about to go under radical Islamist rule. America followed Turkish advice and the result is advanced weapons in the hands of terrorists who may soon be running the country. I warned about this two years ago, but perhaps the U.S. government is a bit ticked off at being made to look like idiots and having gotten into a dangerous situation.

 Let's also remember that Erdogan's projected trip to the Gaza Strip would have disrupted U.S. "peacemaking" efforts and after talking to Obama, Erdogan backed off (but see below). And, finally, let's remember that the whole Israel-Turkey rapprochement might still fall apart due to Erdogan and leave Obama and Kerry looking foolish.

The problem is that since Erdogan has received U.S. praise and support as he has bashed U.S. interests he then doesn't need to respect U.S. interests. Many or most Turks today can combine two seemingly discordant views: Obama and his government love Turkey's government and views it as a friend; they themselves increasingly hate the United States and its goals.

We will know more after Erdogan visits the White House on May 16. If that turns out to be another Obama-Erdogan love fest, more demonstration of the fact that Erdogan is Obama's favorite Islamist, with no criticism in evidence despite all that the Turkish prime minister has done deliberately against U.S. interests, it would be safe to conclude that Erdogan owns the White House for the next three years. He will know that he can do anything he pleases.

But there are few in Turkey who understand this list of losses. 

On the contrary, Erdogan has successfully sold the situation to them as one of tremendous success. They can be proud of their country’s return to international power and great respect, or at least so it seems. In this view, Turkey is acting in a properly Islamic manner, the Arabs love them, America recognizes their greatness (they can do whatever they want and the United States caves in), he made Israel apologize, and so on.

On top of this, Turkey’s muscle-flexing boldness, anti-Americanism, and hostility to Israel pleases the left and the nationalist right; his Islamic policy pleases the pious. As a result, Erdogan enjoys the support of a strong majority.

Consequently, Erdogan is the world’s most successful leader in fundamentally transforming his country. Step by step, he is seizing all of the country’s institutions for Islamism. Graduates of Islamic schools, who have now been given parity with university graduates, are flooding into the state bureaucracy.

The army’s political power has been broken and Islamists are now going into the officer corps. The media has largely—but not completely—been bought up and intimidated. Only the judiciary remains. The economy is doing reasonably well.

In this context, Erdogan increasingly appears to be a dictator who is building a cult of personality. Everywhere there are signs claiming that Erdogan “gave” the people whatever public works’ project or new school exists in the vicinity. His situation is comparable to Russia’s dictator (in everything but name) Vladimir Putin.

Here's a case study, the Israel-Turkey agreement on resolving the dispute over the Gaza flotilla.  Under pressure from President Barack Obama, Erdogan agreed to Israel's terms while pretending that this was a great victory for himself. Yet there is increasing reason to believe that the Turkish government will NOT implement its draft agreement with Israel. 

There are two factors involved here. First, Erdogan, as usual, is overreaching abroad, getting nothing because he tried to get too much. Second, though, Erdogan doesn't care because his real intended audience is domestic, using the flotilla aftermath to stir up hatred against Israel and now claiming he has forced Israel to surrender in what constitutes a great victory for Turkey. What Israel's conciliatory behavior actually did was to expose the Turkish regime's bad faith, showing that it is impossible to deal with it, an experience comprehended now in Washington for the first time.

Now Erdogan has vetoed Israel's participation in NATO maneuvers and Erdogan says he won't send back his ambassador unless Israel stops all sanctions against the Gaza Strip. He knows that this demand will kill the deal. Yet at home he can claim to be the champion of Muslims and of Palestinians. That domestic propaganda is all that counts for him. Similarly, after agreeing to postpone his provocative trip to the Gaza Strip Erdogan then merely rescheduled it for May. And on top of that, Erdogan then announced he would (for the first time) send an ambassador to Palestine even when refusing to send an ambassador back to Israel. Once again, he threw a pie in Obama's face.

Why does this make sense? Again, because he doesn't care about the international implications but only domestic political bragging rights. Moreover, none of his antics materially hurt Israel but--note this well--there are some interesting ways in which Erdogan is going to lose by forfeiting Israel's cooperation.

Meanwhile, the West, especially the mass media, has not yet quite caught on to the fact that the Turkey of Kemal Ataturk, the secular republic, is gone. Massive rural migration to the cities has created a wave of traditional behavior that has been funneled and retrained as Islamism. Turkey has also become an increasingly repressive state where journalists tremble, critics may be thrown into jail on trumped-up charges, and a cultural revolution to reverse Ataturk’s reforms is far advanced. 

Erdogan's greatest achievement in terms of the international scene is that by his maneuvers and Obama's approval, he has made the world uninterested in the escalating repression in Turkey including ridiculous Stalinist-style show trials of dissidents. The latest event is the sentencing of an internationally famous Turkish concert pianist to ten months' imprisonment for tweets "insulting" Islam and a court decision claiming a 700-year-old church was illegally run as a state museum making possible its conversion into a mosque.

Thus, Erdogan has put together a winning combination: fake victories abroad; repression, seizing institutions, and mobilizing support through patriotism and Islam at home.

 This article is published on PJMedia.

Whoever Attacked Boston, The Revolutionary Islamist Terror War on America is Still in High Gear

By Barry Rubin

Whoever perpetrated the terror attack in Boston, Americans has probably been underestimating the extent of the terror war against them and what has been its overwhelming single point of origin. This fact is not altered by the staging of at least two major attacks--on the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta and the 1995 attack on the Oklahoma federal building--by right-wing extremists.

The official stance seems to be that Americans seem to believe that they are generally safe from terror attacks but that once in a while, almost at random, something bad happens. The relative success of law enforcement and intelligence agencies is clear, yet the intensity of any terrorist war is measured not by successful attacks but by the number of attacks. One should always remember, as an Israeli official working on this issue once said in private conversation, that counterterrorism was the only profession where succeeding 99 percent of the time was to fail.

Remember, too, that the reported number of terrorist attacks—the murderous assault on passengers at the El Al airline counter in Los Angeles and the Fort Hood massacre are examples—is reduced because some are redefined for political reasons as criminal or the result of mental instability. The attacks that are discounted are always radical Islamist ones, not left- or right-wing attacks due to purely domestic issues.

Ironically, these forces are quite close to those the U.S. government policy is supporting in Syria and Egypt, seeking good relations with in Lebanon and elsewhere.

The line is drawn, of course, with al-Qaida. The difference between al-Qaida and the other revolutionary Islamist groups is that al-Qaida has an active strategy of targeting the United States for direct attack.

It should be no mystery why the Obama Administration has a pro-Islamist policy. It is based on the belief that these forces can be won over, convinced that America is not their enemy, or appeased so that they will continue their strategy of not launching terror attacks on the United States. So all groups outside of al-Qaida (and perhaps part of the Taliban) are redefined into being moderate Islamists. This is not fully done with Hamas but it is often defined as somewhat good in that it is supposedly restraining even more radical Salafists.

Since al-Qaida has no serious presence in Egypt (except to a limited degree in the Sinai) Egypt's Islamist regime is also backed in large part on the rationale that it, too, is restraining scarier Salafists.  The United States, however, has put no restrictions on supporting the supply of weapons for similar Salafist groups in Syria or, previously, in Libya.

Such a strategy, as narrowly defined, can possibly work. That is, it can encourage revolutionary Islamists not to launch violent attacks on U.S. territory and facilities abroad by showing that al-Qaeda's strategy fails.

Of course, why should revolutionary Islamist groups attack the United States directly in order to stage revolutions at home when their very goal--staging revolutions at home that can oust U.S. influence from the Middle East--is being helped by that same United States? You don't have to rob someone if the victims hand over the money willingly. And these groups can attack the United States in every other way--stirring up anti-Americanism; hitting at U.S. interests, influence and allies; thus laying the basis for bigger offensives from a stronger situation in future.

In short, this American policy creates a huge strategic threat which ultimately would be far more costly, involving not hundreds of terrorists but tens of millions of people living under radical Islamist rule. Having a dozen Middle Eastern states under radical Islamist rule is not good for U.S. interests. 

Ultimately, when they are strong enough it is reasonable to expect that their confidence and attacks would escalate. Moreover, Islamist victories inspire more people to accept that ideology and join the global jihad.

As an illustration of the level of current threat, let’s examine major terrorist plots targeting New York City alone. All of the material used is taken from official New York City police statements.  Suppose we were to add such attacks in the rest of the country to this list or minor plots in New York. How long would the list be?

Since September 11, 2001, there have been 18 known terrorist attacks planned in New York City and they all have something in common: the worldview of the perpetrators. You can read more here about each one and how they were foiled. In some cases, they were called off by al-Qaeda:

--In 2002, Iyman Faris, a U.S.-based al-Qaeda operative, planned to cut the Brooklyn Bridge’s support cables at the direction of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

--In 2003, al-Qaeda had planned to release cyanide gas in New York City's subway system and attack other public places.

--In 2006, Uzair Paracha, a Brooklyn resident, was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison after he was convicted of attempting to help al-Qaeda operative Majid Khan enter the United States to attack gas tanks. Paracha’s father worked with al-Qaida to smuggle explosives - including possibly nuclear weapons - into the United States using the New York office of Paracha's import-export business.

--Dhiren Barot (aka Issa al-Hindi) was sentenced to life in prison by a United Kingdom court in 2006 after pleading guilty to planning to attack several targets both in the UK and the U.S., including the New York Stock Exchange, Citigroup's headquarters in Midtown Manhattan, and the Prudential Building in Newark, NJ.

--Shahawar Matin Siraj and James Elshafay plotted in 2004 to place explosive devices in the Herald Square subway station in Manhattan.

-In July 2006, the FBI revealed it had uncovered a plot involving an attack on a PATH commuter train tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey by Islamists, the placement of suicide bombers on trains, and the destruction of the retaining wall separating the Hudson River from the World Trade Center site in the hopes of causing massive flooding in the city's Financial District.

--Beginning in 2006, four Islamists plotted to detonate the jet-fuel storage tanks and supply lines for John F. Kennedy Airport in order to cause wide-scale destruction and economic disruption in an attack they intended to dwarf 9/11.

--In a series of three trials spanning 2008 to 2010, eight Muslims were convicted in Britain of attempting to simultaneously detonate explosives in seven airliners traveling from London to several North American metropolises, including New York.

--Bryant Neal Vinas, of Long Island, New York, traveled to Pakistan with an intent to die fighting against American forces in Afghanistan. In summer of 2008, Vinas spoke to al-Qaeda about targeting the Long Island Railroad using a suitcase bomb that would be left in a car and set to detonate.

--In May 2009, four Islamists placed what they believed were functioning bombs outside of Jewish targets in the Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale and additionally constructed plans to fire missiles at military transport planes at Stewart International Airport near Newburgh, NY.

--In September 2009, the New York City subway system was targeted for attack by three individuals supporting al-Qaeda who planned to set off bombs in the subway during rush hour shortly after the eighth anniversary of 9/11.

--Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American residing in Connecticut, attempted to detonate a car bomb in Times Square on May 1, 2010.

--Ahmed Ferhani, an Queens resident born in Algeria, along with Mohammad Mamdouh, a Moroccan immigrant, were arrested in May 2011 in an NYPD operation in which Ferhani purchased a hand grenade, three semi-automatic pistols and ammunition from an undercover detective.  NYPD's investigation into the pair revealed their desire to attack a synagogue in New York City.

--Jose Pimentel, a native of the Dominican Republic and convert to Islam, was charged with plotting to detonate bombs in and around New York City in November 2011.

-Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, a 21-year-old native of Bangladesh residing in the U.S. on a student visa, was arrested in October 2012 as he attempted to remotely detonate what he believed was a bomb in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in lower Manhattan.

--Raees Alam Qazi and Sheheryar Alam Qazi, Pakistan-born brothers, were arrested by federal authorities in Florida in November 2012 for charges relating to a plan to bomb popular New York City landmarks including Times Square, Wall Street and city theaters.

--Jesse Morton, a New York City-based Muslim convert, was apprehended in Morocco and pleaded guilty in February 2012 to conspiring to solicit murder, making threatening communications, and using the Internet to place others in fear, most notably through his website Revolution Muslim.

--Alessa and Carlos Almonte, both of New Jersey, pleaded guilty in March 2011 to conspiring to murder persons outside of the United States on behalf of al-Shabaab, the Somalia-based, al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group.

--And even this list doesn't include the 2007 plot to attack nearby Fort Dix by a half-dozen Islamists since that was handled by the New Jersey authorities.

I'm often reminded of my experience in organizing a project on terrorist threats at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) between 1989 and 1991. When I sought a renewal of our grant from the Ford Foundation, the official there said no because "We don't think terrorism will be a problem in the future."

The officials conducting U.S. policy (those who support it and aren't horrified career people) have said that al-Qaeda is all but over and that the pro-Islamist policy will prevent anti-American Islamism in future. They are just as wrong.

If you are interested in reading more about anti-Americanism, you're welcome to read my book Hating America - A History online for free.

This article is published on PJ Media.

Please be subscriber 31,384 (among more than 50,000 total readers). Put email address in upper right-hand box: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com

 We’d love to have your support and work hard to earn it. See our new feature with 13 free books at http://www.gloria-center.org. Why not make a tax-deductible donation to the GLORIA Center by PayPal: click here.

By credit card: click here. Checks: "American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line and send to: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Fl., NY, NY 10003.

For tax-deductible donations in Canada and the UK, write us here.

--------------------

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His next book, Nazis, Islamists and the Making of the Modern Middle East, written with Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, will be published by Yale University Press in January 2014. His latest book is Israel: An Introduction, also published by Yale. Thirteen of his books can be read and downloaded for free at the website of the GLORIA Center including The Arab States and the Palestine Conflict, The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East and The Truth About Syria. His blog is Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.