Weeds in the MENA Garden

 

 

If one were to ask the European Union, the United States, the United Nations and the world media who is responsible for the unrest throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) the resounding echoes would continue to scream Israel for likely the rest of eternity, but is that an honest assessment or simply a knee jerk automatic programed response spurred by anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic hatreds? The easiest way to tell would be to take a quick whirl around the MENA nations and see what the truth is. Let us start our excursion at the western edge and head to the east and see what we will see.

 

A map of MENA nations is almost up to date and is only missing the Sudan, and as the Sudan was split after years of tribal and religious violence, South Sudan; and some go so far as to include Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Djibouti, Eretria, and Somalia.

 

Coming into the North of Africa from the Atlantic Ocean the first country we would visit would be Western Sahara where we would find Morocco has occupied Western Sahara since 1975 in violation of resolutions by the United Nations Security Council and International Court of Justice ruling. Any efforts to dislodge Morocco from Western Sahara have been blocked directly by the United States whose full support of the Moroccan occupation shows no sign of relenting. The conflict reemerged as the “Independence Intifada” in 2005 which has remained as depicted in map below. Despite numerous efforts to defuse the situation the standoff remains.

 

Occupied Western Sahara
by Morocco Shaded Area
and Western Sahara Unshaded

 

Continuing on from the Morocco-Western Sahara conflict we next visit Mauritania which has had a rocky recent history including two military coups, the first was in 2005 followed eventually by elections for a new president in 2007 followed by the second coup in 2008. General Abdul Aziz took power after the coup but found the nation had few supporters amongst them predominantly were Morocco, Libya and Iran while the United States and European nations rejected the legitimacy of the coup continuing to refer to Abdallahi as the legitimate president of Mauritania. After the resignation of Abdallahi there were elections which allowed Abdel Aziz to become the civilian president. In February 2011 there were waves of unrest as the Arab Spring spread to Mauritania demanding President Mohamed Abdel Aziz institute political, economic, and legal reforms. The unrest culminated in April of 2012 as thousands of people in Mauritania attended demonstrations in the capital calling for President Mohamed Abdel Aziz to resign. Currently the nation is under military rule with the legal system based on Islam and Sharia.

 

Heading across the southern end the picture in Mali, Niger and Chad is the constant internal strife between Christian governments and Islamic uprisings with much of the major horrific attacks conducted by the terrorist group Boko Haram which literally means Western education is forbidden. Boko Haram follows Saudi Wahhabism and has pledged their loyalty to the Islamic State. Along the north there has been steady unrest in Algeria and especially Libya since the NATO backed coup where President Obama declared that the United States was leading from behind in the ouster of and eventual execution (murder) of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. In Libya the nation is in fractious rule of numerous terror groups and tribal armies with some having declared alliance with the Islamic State. In the south east there is the Sudan which bled in the south especially in the Darfur area. Eventually the Sudan was force to divide allowing South Sudan to become independent. In October of 2015, South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir issued a decree establishing twenty-eight states in place of the ten constitutionally established states. The decree established the new states largely along ethnic lines. He took it to the parliament for approval as a constitutional amendment in November and the South Sudanese parliament empowered President Kiir to create new states.

 

This brings us to Egypt where the recent history has played out live and large in the Western media. The Arab Spring riots led to the removal of President and military strongman Mubarak. The elections were held fairly soon after Mubarak was forced to step down largely by the United States backing of the Muslim Brotherhood. These elections overwhelmingly approved Muslim Brotherhood candidate Morsi to the presidency and a large Muslim Brotherhood majority in the parliament. Within the year new rioting broke out protesting the implementation of Sharia despite warnings from Turkish President Erdogan to the Morsi government to slow their radical changes or face resistance. This led to the military removing Morsi and arresting him for election fraud. New election instated former General of the Army Sisi as President though he still had an Islamist and presumed Muslim Brotherhood controlled parliament. The Obama administration refused to recognize Sisi and demanded that Morsi be reinstated; a request which was roundly ignored. Unrest still exists between Egypt and the United States which will be resolved by the Presidential election this November in the United States. As to what either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump might choose to do is a complete mystery at the present time as neither has addressed foreign policy beyond Hillary’s claim to deep knowledge claiming her time as a Senator of New York and a stint as Secretary of State under President Obama which included the Benghazi, Libya fiasco amongst other miscues and Trump claiming to have conducted business deals with numerous foreign governments and met many world leaders though particulars remain largely unconfirmed. Egypt has also faced unrest largely from the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic State where both are vying for control of the Sinai from where they would presumably unseat Sisi and retake the presidency. Hamas in Gaza was seen as providing assistance to these and some Iranian backed groups in the Sinai thus earning themselves a complete sea and land embargo enforced by Egypt from their waters and land borders with Gaza. The Egyptian blockade is often ignored with the large amount of attention paid to the Israeli “blockade” which is actually an inspection of goods before allowing their delivery to Gaza usually within one or two days done to assure that weapons are not being imported by Hamas and the other terror groups which rule Gaza. Egypt too is a work in progress.

 

We will return to Israel subsequently but meanwhile on to Lebanon where the terror groups Hezballah runs the government with an opposition often afraid to act to remove the terror group as previous attempts have resulted in untimely deaths. Lebanon cannot be addressed without discussing Syria and the state of war which has more facets than hewn crystals. The main three forces are Syrian dictator Bashir al Assad who has retreated to the Alawite tribal areas along the Mediterranean coast and Lebanese border. Assad is backed by Iran and their proxy, Hezballah, out of Lebanon. These are the Shiite forces which also receive tactical support largely in the form of air strikes by the Russians who are protecting their port area along the Mediterranean coast. Inland there are Sunni groups, oft referred to as terror groups, supported largely by Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Finally there are the forces of the Islamic State which stretch into Iraq where they face the Iraqi Army backed by Iran who uses mostly IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps) placing Iran at either end of the Islamic State. The Islamic State has been largely self-financed though there have been rumored support from Qatar. There is another group in northern Iraq and extending into northeastern Syria which is controlled by Kurdish Militias which are opposed strongly by Turkey. The Kurdish forces were at one time rumored to be receiving training by Israeli trainers on a clandestine mission though many have refuted that this was just a means of explaining the Kurdish forces resilience and holding their own against Islamist forces considered to be better equipped.

 

This takes us to the Saudi Peninsula and Jordan which we can count as a single unit of the GCC (Gulf Coordination Council) which is a group backed mostly by Saudi Arabia which includes Kuwait and the Gulf States and to a lesser extent, Jordan. Saudi Arabia has a close working relationship with the Egyptian government of President Sisi who are jointly facing terror groups including those supported or aligned with Islamic State as well as Iranian backed terrorists and the Houthi Tribes in the Yemen civil war, a front where Iran backed and Saudi Arabian backed forces are in direct confrontation. The United States has opposed and presumably attempted to prevent, though with little success, arms shipments to the Houthis by Iran and also opposed the bombing sorties from Saudi Arabia with equal lack of success and the belligerents continue to fight on. In the southernmost areas of Yemen, the prized areas which overlook the narrow passage from the Red Sea into the Arabian Sea, called Bab el-Mandeb Strait are a group of fighters originally claiming alliance with al-Qaeda but recently changing their alliance to presumably the Islamic State. These groups have benefited directly from Saudi raids as has the currently recognized Hadi-led government.

 

Yemen Battle Map

 

Lastly let us finally look at Israel. On the Golan Heights IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) have returned fire when fired upon by intention and otherwise has unofficial drop points for wounded individuals, civilian and combatant though no difference is noted, wounded and in need of treatment. IDF soldiers take these wounded and treat them in their field facility with the more serious cases transferred to Israeli hospitals for treatment. After treatment the individuals once sufficiently recovered are returned from whence they came at same drop points. All sides can view the individual drop points and all points are respected by other fighting factions in an unarranged agreement as all sides use this treatment method and no one side wishes to risk being cut-off from Israeli treatment and have to rely on whatever resources they have available. We have no information as to whether any Iranian forces have received treatment from the Israelis though if placed in civilian clothing they would receive the same treatment as any other individual. The Israeli border with Lebanon is currently quiet as Hezballah has sufficient on their plate with forces in the Syrian conflict and rumored even to have some fighting with IRGC or Houthis in Yemen. Intelligence believed to be accurate estimated that Hezballah has stores of rockets of varying size and capable of striking Tel Aviv, Bathsheva and even Ashkelon as well as guided missiles from Iran capable of striking anywhere in Israel including the southernmost port city of Eilat carrying warhead as large as two kilos and potentially five or ten up to one-hundred kilos warheads on their short and medium ranged rockets of which they possess as many as one-hundred-seventy-five-thousand. On their larger missiles they have warheads of as much as seven-hundred-fifty kilos on modified Zilzal-2 with a four-hundred km range and which they possess an estimated one thousand. Their Fateh-110 missile has a range three-hundred km range striking at Mach 3.5 carrying a four to seven-hundred kg warhead of which Hezballah possess more than twenty-thousand and lastly there is the Shaheen-II two stage missile which has a range of two-thousand km making able to strike anywhere in Israel and into Egypt. Each missile is capable of flight altitude of up to three-hundred km, is GPS guided, and varies a one-thousand plus kg warhead making it potentially capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and retaining it guidance hardware. It is doubtful that Iran has, let alone provided Hezballah with a deliverable nuclear warhead. Such is not far from the horizon for Iran but their providing Hezballah with such a weapon is doubtful.

 

The remaining fronts for Israel are with Jordan and Egypt which are both peaceful and with the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Judea and Samaria as well as with Hamas and ally Islamic Jihad and other terror and criminal groups in Gaza. The front with the PA is largely one where there are terror strikes which can be planned by Abbas and the his PLO terror groups or the less planned but instigated through calls for violence from PA figures, PLO figures or any of a litany of groups most of which are either headed by Mahmoud Abbas or are willful practitioners at his beck and call. The most recent round were stabbings carried out largely by Palestinian Arab and some Israeli Arab youths as well as car rammings along with rock and Molotov cocktail throwing with rioting which are carried out routinely by PA controlled terror groups, the Tamini family instigators who work closely with European Union and other European NGOs whose main aims are to cause any violent response by Israel which is filmed and the instigation causing the defensive act is edited and with careful editing and juxtaposition of stock footage, prerecorded footage or actual footage with any questionable instigations by the Arabs edited over or out completely compiled into the final product which is then transmitted throughout European news agencies within a matter of a couple of hours and they run with it unedited as if it were an actual news story followed by their governments and the European union then condemning Israel for use of disproportional force or the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Gaza front is another area where Iran attempts with some success to smuggle arms mostly containing rocket motors and rocket parts and technology. Funding for Hamas comes from UNRWA as well as from the PA making the European Union, United States, United Nations and individual European nations as well as numerous Arab countries direct or indirect financiers of Hamas terrorism and rocket attacks as well as Arab instigations and propaganda which permeates their entire society from their media to the schools, summer camps soccer leagues and every aspect of childhood and raising the children to hate Jews as well as Israel. The Hamas Charter calls not only for the annihilation of Israel but of Jews worldwide. Similar language is found in Islamic Jihad and Hezballah pamphlets and charters or constitutions. The hatred goes well beyond Israel and includes Jews everywhere as well as Western culture and societies. Hamas and their allies as well as Hezballah desire a world caliphate under Sharia and openly claim so. The main difference is whether the caliphate would be Shiite or Sunni, for the rest of us that is a minor comfort.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Israel or Palestinians, the World Gets No Voice

 

The Arabs invented the Arab Palestinians with the assistance and mission statement and plan of assault by the KGB bringing the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) placing two holocaust deniers, Yasser Arafat as the titular head and Mahmoud Abbas as the financial administrator, planning organizer and any other required challenges needed addressing to perform any terror attacks in any position required which eventually made Abbas to take over the lead role after Arafat died mercifully in a French Hospital. The PLO was founded in 1964 with its charter calling for their to make a Palestinian State on the occupied lands from the 1948-9 War of Annihilation which failed to rid the Arabs of this Jewish State which was their chosen nemesis despite the Jews repeated pleadings to live in mutual efforts for the improvement and enrichment of both Arab and Jew. Such did turn out to be a workable effort inside Israel after the initial war which the Jews and Zionists who were working with the Arabs who remained within Israel during the near two years of war; some even aided the effort in defending the nascent state of Israel and even fighting alongside against the invading armies of seven Arab nations and a few militias such as the Arab Palestine Brigades under the command of the Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini. One interesting fact about Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini is that he spent World War II as a host of the hierarchy of the Third Reich including the Führer Adolph Hitler, Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel (SS) Heinrich Himmler, and other leaders and people of influence and was charged with coordinating Arab assistance against the Allies and making broadcasts into the Arab lands to coordinate such actions. He was also placed in command of two SS divisions he formed from Muslims in the Balkans who were used in rounding up Jews, Roma, and Serbians who were sent to the death and work camps in the Balkans and southern Poland. There have been rumored reports claiming that the Mufti had influenced the discussions at the Wannsee Conference from which the Final Solution was implemented. Further, the Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini was instrumental in the rioting which claimed numbers of Jewish lives in Hevron and Jerusalem throughout the 1920s and 1930s making radio broadcasts on the British provided radio broadcast systems to incite Arab rioting by claiming the Jews were defiling the al-Aqsa Mosque by holding their Satanic services and were then going to destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock. His broadcast should be somewhat unnerving as they were almost identically copied by over the past months by Mahmoud Abbas. But such should be expected as Yasser Arafat claimed the Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini as his Uncle and inspirational figure after which he modeled his life, unfortunately all too well.

 

 

Interesting Facts About Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini Was He Spent
World War II as a Host of the Hierarchy of the Third Reich Plus
Adoptive Nephew and Future Torchbearer Yasser Arafat

 

 

So, back to the founding of the PLO in 1964 whose charter set as their goal to conquer all of the occupied lands of the Palestinian Arabs and after cleansing the lands of the Jewish infestation, turn the occupied lands over to the Jordanians as Jordan is the homeland of the Palestinian Arabs. There was no idea of an independent Palestine, just the eradication of the occupied lands in 1964, three years before the Six Day War and Israel’s gain of the lands east of the Jordan River. The occupied lands then were all of Israel as that was what the Arab League and the Arab world referred to the lands not conquered in 1948-9 in what according to the Arabs was to be a War of Annihilation where the Jews would be driven into the Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and left to drown. The Jews of Israel was so relieved and elated to have survived this war that it was named by Israel as their War of Independence. The lines which would be formed three years later to refer to the old border before Israel actually won back the lands she lost in that original war plus took the Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula were called the Green Line. The Green Line being an armistice line had no actual meaning as a border, exactly what the Arab forces demanded as part of the armistice as they did not desire Israel have any set border. The problem is Israel has had a number of borders over the last three-thousand years plus some of which actually were the Jordan River. The Jordan River as a border came about after the British took the lands west of the Jordan to build the Palestinian Arabs a state of their own. When after the 1948-9 war ended and Jordan occupied the Jewish areas of Judea and Samaria they expelled the Jews off their lands and threatened them with death if they refused to relinquish their lands. Jordan immediately deeded these Jewish lands to people from their military in order to assure the Jewish claim was superseded. There have been cases where just such an award of the land was held up as valid voiding an older claim and deed presented by the Jewish family before the Supreme Court. These things too will be straightened out with time. So, from the beginning the charter of the PLO was to conquer the remainder of the lands east of the Jordan River driving the Jews into the Sea.

 

It was after the First Intifada which was ordered by Yasser Arafat from his Tunisia exile that Leftist working with fellow leftist arranged for the Madrid Summit which led to the Oslo Accords. It became apparent that the entirety of the Oslo Accords was a complete sham as almost immediately after the return of Arafat and his PLO that nothing he had agreed to implement were going to be put into acts while the leftists peace at any costs no matter how many dead lay strewn across the path were going to hold Israel to every last promise made in order to gain Arafat’s lies and duplicity. Meanwhile there was the change of the PLO into Fatah political party and the Palestinian Authority (PA) which was to be the replacement for the PLO and be Israel’s peace partner. This sham was signed into implementation in September of 1993 after which Israel provided the PA Security Forces with weapons in order to carry out their task of ending terrorism. This was an interesting proposition as these security forces were comprised largely by the terrorists themselves. Soon after the implementation of the Oslo Accords it became furtherly evident that Yasser Arafat was using the terminology of a security force to amass an army which would be armed and even trained by Western liberal fools who would leap at any idea which contained the word peace anywhere in the explanation of the venture. Meanwhile the main stage of the ruse took shape very quickly. While Arafat was amassing a well-armed and well-trained militia the peace side of the accords dragged forward. It became apparent that peace was not the true end of the negotiations but rather collecting Israeli concessions. At almost every opportunity Arafat took offense at some insignificant item which he would blow into a major incident and demand compensations or he would end the talks immediately and return to terrorism as the only path to gain his goals. Of course nobody ever asked Arafat or Abbas after him to define their goals; it was just assumed that the Oslo Accords was all about two states living side-by-side in peace and security. Arafat and Abbas were not about that and that became apparent when Arafat received a surprising offer at the Paris peace talks where Arafat had lain out his demands which he was assured the Israelis would never accept, namely all of Gaza, over ninety percent of the ‘occupied’ areas of Judea and Samaria and half of Jerusalem including the Temple Mount and all of the Old City. He assured and promised President Clinton that should Israel meet these demands then peace was not only possible but all but attained leaving only a signing ceremony at the White House. President Clinton pressed Prime Minister Ehud Barak who finally caved and willingly met every last demand in the offer by Arafat. When Arafat was presented the Israeli agreement to all of his demands something very telling happened, Arafat stormed out of the early morning meeting without a word and got into his waiting vehicle and sped off without so much as answer to the offer, his demands in the form of a treaty, he knew he had set his own trap and now wanted to escape and get as far away as he could from the monster which had turned on its master, Israel had agreed to his demand, now there was nothing left to do but poison the waters. This Arafat did by initiate with the Second Intifada which had been planned to be implemented immediately after the talks failed. Their almost succeeding was never foreseen by Arafat; so it was still too early to begin the violence as it required a triggering point, an excuse, thus the period of waiting for the right moment began. That impetus was provided by the visit by Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount. Arafat’s minions in the PA government arranged and approved every last step of the visit knowing it would be used as the tripwire for the Intifada which over its five years caused over a thousand Israelis their lives and smashed any hope of peace. When order was finally restored the peace process had been returned to square one and more Israeli concessions were now to be required along the way with the talks moving in spits and starts with demands all along the way to continue the talks or to lure the PA back to the talks. The death of Yasser Arafat did not provide to make the path any easier despite the Arafat clone in a suit, Mahmoud Abbas.

 

The Second Intifada was never closed by the PA; they planned on milking it for all it was worth. That ended when the IDF entered into Judea and Samaria and forcefully ended the attacks by disarming the snake. Unfortunately the idea of peace of two states side-by-side living in peace had such a Kumbaya feel to it that it had taken on a life of its own. Western leftists grabbed on to it as their mantra which was to be used to chant down any rational actors who saw the irony of the entire farce. Still today with the entire Middle East in flames and only Israel not having faced a large Arab insurrection, the continued watchword out of the duplicitous Obama White House is the two states for two peoples mantra with its purveyors feigning blindness refusing to see what has become blatant in the Western World’s face, incitement and hypocrisy by Abbas and the rest of the officers of the PA. The PA has all but disbanded and is threatening Israel with allowing not just Hamas, but also Islamic State to replace the PA as Abbas and his cronies speed off into the sunset with their trillions of dollars stashed in their Swiss bank accounts, and off to some plush European hideaway to live out their lives in peace, or so they are planning. They may find that their funds prove to be too much of a lure for the leaders of the Islamic State who may demand the stolen funds be returned at least in part in exchange for the safety of those remaining in retired exile. Still, Abbas may be felled by that greatest of all temptations, greed. Should he fall astride of this temptress, he may find her wildest charms proving to be his final meltdown and his end at the hands of his replacements, the Islamic State.

 

Should this change of power take place, it will present the world with a difficult problem as the Islamic State has been cast as the ultimate evil and completely separate from the Arab ‘Palestinian’ terror forces against Israel as the power behind jihad in Israel will have become the same power as the Western World had already given the title of threat and scourge of the West will now also be the jihadi forces Israel will be battling. This will give the West and Israel a common foe which can no longer be differentiated and the Islamic State fighting the Western powers and also fighting Israel. This will give Israel the freedom to finally take off the gloves and deal with the problems directly and squelch them at their source. With a common foe it will take the plaintive cry that the two forces of jihad are completely separate and the same brush cannot and must not be used when painting the picture of jihad around the world. Having a similar enemy may prove unsettling to the West; it will have a very calming effect in Israel as finally the monster faced daily by Israel will be identical to the jihadi monster facing the world over. This day was inevitable as there actually was no difference between the jihadi groups faced by the forces around the Middle East and those targeting Israel. Gloves off, the world may finally be spared making the choice between an Israeli Jewish, Democratic State between the River and the Sea or an Arab Palestinian terror state there in its place as the jihadi force of the Islamic State. With Israel now a significant part of the forces being brought to bear against the Islamic State it may be but a matter of time, possibly a shorter time than one might believe to a world worth aiming for. Imagine a world without terror, it’s easy if you try, a world without senseless violence, a world for you and I. Imagine, if you will, a world where we are brethren, fighting the very same foe, imagine, Hashem willing, a world made free of threats and violence. Imagine, if you can. Imagine a world where peace spreads faster, faster than its nemesis, hatreds and violence. Imagine a world where answers outweigh the problems facing us and we can all work as one. Imagine!

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

As the World Burns

 

The Arab Spring started with the self-immolation of a vegetable barker over his frustrations with the insurmountable legal requirements and licensing which made making a profit impossible and expressed his feeling of utter hopelessness of his life in one blazing protest sparking a wave of protests which were to spread. The government of Tunisia fell within days followed by Egypt with an assisting push and a shove by United States President Obama pushing Egyptian President Mubarak out the door and all but guaranteed the Muslim Brotherhood would take control of Egypt. Little was known at the time that this had been the design by President Obama. The so-called Arab Spring rolled into Libya next and with a great amount of assistance from NATO powers Muammar Gaddafi was knocked from power almost solely due to the air strikes and other NATO assistance but the plan for any reconstruction failed leaving Libya broken into its tribal elements and some areas under the control of the influence of al-Qaeda and other areas under Islamic State with the rest under tribal control which may prove more stable a practice than the imposed state system from Sykes Picot, the one complaint made by ISIS before they decided to go on Jihad as the New Caliphate which had some degree of merit, but lust for power always overrules sensibility. The next stops were Yemen and Syria. These appear to be currently the play of power of Iran using Yemen to gain control of vital waterways off of southwestern end where the Red Sea exits into the Gulf of Aden and on into the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean all through the choke point known as Bab-el-Mandeb which is the name of the straights with which Iran wrests control for all shipping traffic through the red Sea including Suez Canal traffic and sea traffic from Israel and Jordan coming south through the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea on to Africa or Asia. Closure of this vital waterway would provide a causes belli of war should Iran block this waterway bringing Iran in direct contention of Europe, the far east and much of commercial shipping which would normally use the Suez Canal. Such a blockage could rapidly escalate out of control with nation after nation declaring their rights being challenged and commerce being directly affected adversely.

 

But the Arab Spring quickly became the Arab Winter as Egypt had a second set of massive demonstrations even larger than before which were more widely attended including students and businesspeople and others from nearly every walk of life which eventually led to the Egyptian military replacing the sitting government which had been on a fast track to implement Sharia, at least the interpretation of Sharia by the Muslim Brotherhood which they would have inevitably used to place themselves in the sole position of appointing the future Presidents and members of parliament thus giving themselves dictatorial powers. These new moves came to attempt to change the military hierarchy which was one step too far and the military balked and took down President Morsi and his government claiming to be doing so in the name of the people. Meanwhile there was a reshuffling of the Tunisian government to make it more representative of the people and guarding against trading the old dictatorial governance for religious dictatorial governance, a similar but less drastic measure than the one necessitated in Egypt. And the demonstrations began in Syria but unlike the previous demonstrations the one in Syria did not receive the full and hardy backing of the Western nations thus the peoples demonstrations slowly morphed into a disastrous civil conflict which itself morphed into a large Sunni against Shiite war front which spawned the Islamic State which took control over a sizeable area of Syria and Iraq. The latest development has been the introduction of serious air power and missile assaults by the Russians in defense of their naval base at Latakia, Syria and in support of their chosen ally, Bashir al-Assad and the introduction of IRGC troops, the special forces of the Iranian military.

 

Eventually the Egyptian governance worked its way to what all hope will be regular, open, free and fair elections on schedule with the results truly representative of the Egyptian electorate. Hopefully the same can be said for Tunisia which also appears to have settled from its early days as the lead of the changes which swept much of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). There were also the unsuccessful or muted. The first were any demonstrations in Saudi Arabia or any of the nearby GCC countries such as Bahrain, Oman, United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait. There potentials for demonstrations in Saudi Arabia, where a number of Shiite Imams had given sermons to emotionally prepare their adherents to challenge the authorities, many ran out into the streets that fateful afternoon and looked up and down the street and realizing that they were cut off at the end of the block at both ends by security forces, armed so as not to need to discuss principles; so the Shiites calmed themselves and went home without incident in virtually every case and any case where the reaction was different was squelched so fast that it made no news. There was one exception which was Bahrain. Bahrain is ruled by a Sunni Monarch but is predominately Shiite and this led to street demonstrations of a severity which the Monarch was not willing to use the force which would have been required to put down the rioting demonstrators but also could not allow the lawlessness to continue. This required the King Hamad Ibn Isa Al Khalifa to make a call to his friends over the causeway in Saudi Arabia for assistance. The one thing known to the people of Bahrain that should the Saudis come to the rescue of their King, then they may have gone a bit too far and their time left to continue their actions is limited to as long as it takes the Saudi Arabian military to arrive to restore order. This was a particularly large demonstration which almost lasted four hours until they saw a disturbance heading towards the Island of Bahrain along all six lanes of the causeway between the Saudi Arabian mainland and their Island, three lanes in each direction, except this was all six lanes heading for the Island. As the vehicles came closer it became obvious these were Abrams tanks and Armored Personnel Carriers which meant that unremitting and lethal force was coming to their demonstration. This took the wind out of their sails and quickly the demonstrators dispersed rather quickly and peaceably with a small number of fools not heeding the obvious. They were quickly subdued and turned over to the Bahraini officials and the Saudis returned home a week or two later with a small rotation of forces remaining for a month or two as a reminder.

 

There were some rather sizeable demonstrations in Iran where pleadings were chanting for President Obama to assist their cries for freedom and representative governance. There was no reply from President Obama as he had this plan where he would be the one to bring Iran in from out in the cold through negotiations with the Supreme Leader. This plan had no room for new representative governance or for the people’s revolution. President Obama’s plan called for him bringing the previously unapproachable and immovable when it comes to that which he believes and the way he rules and the desires and directions he wishes to take the nation are completely unchallenged as his word is treated as if it were the words from Allah himself. This would eventually play out well after the demonstrators were routed by the Basenji Militias and other extreme police and security forces. The universities were put under a lockdown with security and Islamic observance groups patrolling the dorms and grounds. The end result was an additional term listening to the rantings of President Ahmadinejad, violently put down democracy demonstrations, and after a painfully extracted and pathetic set of surrenders which may or may not be finished and a nuclear treaty with a ruling elite who are not exactly known for keeping promises, meaning what they say or doing what they say or in the end having said what they said as everything is negotiable and even the meaning is open for an ever changing series of interpretations even to the point that what they say means exactly what they mean it to mean at the moment they say it. Deals with the mad hatter or Cheshire cat would be more trustworthy, and didn’t we decide that the President was a lookalike for the Cheshire Cat such that we labeled him Cheshire man as in the picture below. Perhaps that picture may be the closest thing to an accurate depiction of the reality dealt with in making the Iran Nuclear Deal.

 

 

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani smiling for report on how he and Iran charmed the world reminding all of the evil laugh as the Cheshire Cat faded away leaving only his wicked smile and it just fit calling him the ‘Smiling Cheshire Man’

 

 

The problems from the Arab Winter have just begun. The real problem is still a full generation away, a good fifteen years before everything begins to blossom and explode upon the Western world. Presumably, Iran will legally be capable of perfecting and testing ballistic missiles which will give them all the time they could possibly need as they will be completely free to produce, or should we say finally assemble the necessary parts to make their nuclear warheads using the technology perfected by their scientists or by following the methods used by either North Korea and thus be completely ready to produce deliverable warheads using such designs or be using their own designs, whichever way they decide to branch into nuclear warhead designs. Iran can take their time and while working on their nuclear warhead designs and production they can begin the hardest part of the challenge facing them, the proselytizing within and outside of the Islamic communities in Europe and the United States and other Western World Nations to drastically increase the numbers of Shiite Muslims more so amongst those living outside MENA though there will be some moves outside of the ardently Sunni states such as the GCC, Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey (though Turkey might be a more ripe for change than many believe). This will be accomplished with the monies freed up by the Iran nuclear deal and target the young who may find Shiite Islam’s dynamic Jihadi strengths more attractive than the more sedate Sunni Islam which is a more conservative approach.

 

The next three years will see between thirty-five-thousand and fifty-thousand “refugees” from MENA invading Europe and sending a fair number to the United States and Canada, especially if these nations remain under leftist control, especially the immigrations offices. Do not get me wrong, the majority, even the vast majority of these will be actual refugees as almost any family which can manage to get to Europe or the United States, the Western world, the first world, such a transit would be a welcome improvement in their lives as even the poorest family in the Western World live in a level almost unimagined other than for the wealthiest in their nations in much of the MENA world. Over the rest of the decade these refugees will likely repatriate with another ten to fifteen people per family. Eventually there will literally be an army ready to impose Sharia across all of Europe and there will be swaths of land in the United States which will be “no-go zones” just as they have in areas around many British, French, Swedish and other European countries where police and even fire and rescue personnel refuse to enter except in force, will populate many areas around numerous cities and training areas may be found in the countryside acreages around Europe and the United States. What many are unaware of is that there exist such training ‘cities’ outside numerous cities in the United States already and these ‘cities’ are well guarded and only allow Islamists known to their group and they hold firearms training and some even hold tactical training and live-fire exercises.

 

 

Terrorist Training Centers in the United States
as of 2002. Just Imagine How Many and Where
They Are Now and How Many We Do Not Even
Know of That Exist in the Middle of Nowhere?

 

 

These are the stark realities facing Western Society which the governments are ignoring at their people’s own peril. Why these known camps are being left to their own devices while the FBI infiltrates neighborhood militias and paramilitary militias which often consist of some friends who are ex-military and enjoy target shooting and having paintball outings or even some which simply are reenacting Civil War or Revolutionary War battles. The future is not yet written in stone but it had been stenciled into wet cement and it is starting to dry and will take a while to cure thereafter but the stencils are still malleable, their final story will be up to the people if they decide to take government into their own direction and this may mean many people making whatever sacrifices are necessary and perhaps work for or make a needed new political party or influential branch of a party like the Tea Party had started to make inroads but it will take a long term commitment and it will take families deciding the time has come for regular families to take charge of the governments such that the governments will serve the future of the Western World and the family unit with an emphasis on control of the education of the children as they will be the future and if they are not better prepared than we were, then there will be even less hope, and hope is all there is right now and we cannot lose hope or our future.

 

Beyond the Cusp