THE REAL SURGE AND THE PHONY CIVIL WAR
Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
Thursday, 08 February 2007

The Traitor Media and their Democrat allies are so fond of chanting the mantra of "the civil war in Iraq." Google "civil war" plus "Iraq" and you'll get 3,800,000 hits. Barack Hussein "The Apostate" Obama and other lefty Senators condemn Bush for sending Americans to "die in someone else's civil war."

The truth is that there is no civil war in Iraq. A real civil war is two armies or armed militias fighting each other for control of a government or country. They fight each other. This is exactly what Sunni and Shia terrorists are not doing. They are engaged in committing terrorist atrocities upon each other's civilian population.

What is going on in Iraq is terrorism, pure and unadulterated. You can call it "sectarian" terrorism and violence, but it's not civil war. Neither Sunni-Baathist-AQI (Al Qaeda in Iraq) terrorists nor Shia-Moqtada terrorists are fighting to topple the elected Maliki government and seize governmental power. Neither is fighting the other.

The real civil war in the Middle East is some distance to the west of Iraq. It's between Arabs all right, but not Arab Iraqis - Arab Palestinians. Two Palestinian armies, Hamas and Fatah, armed to the teeth are fighting and slaughtering each other, both claim to represent and are struggling for legitimate government power.

This is a real civil war and it's getting worse. It's made possible by a Shia government - Iran - funding Hamas, a Sunni terrorist gang. Just as that same bunch of Shia mullahs in Tehran funds the Sunni terrorists of AQI in Iraq. So much for the "ancient enmity" of Shias and Sunnis.

There is no "ancient" enmity because Shiism itself isn't. All the legends of it being founded as Shia'at Ali, the Party of Ali, the husband and first cousin of Mohammed's daughter, Fatima (for all his wives, Mo had no sons), the defeat of Ali's son (thus Mohammed's grandson) Hussein at the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD at the hands of Abu Bakr, founder of Sunni Islam - are just that. Legends, mythology.

The only - only - evidence for the Battle of Karbala that supposedly founded Shiism, for example, is a manuscript of a Hisham Al-Kalbi who died in 826, or 146 years after the battle. It consists of notes of conversations he had with an Abi Mikhnaf, who died in 774 and said he talked with participants in the battle when they were very old.

That's it, folks, all the evidence there is for Shiism, no first-hand or independent accounts, just third-hand hearsay by anti-Sunni axe-grinders.

Shiism was actually invented by a 15 year-old kid in Persia some 500 years ago. At the time he was born in 1487 in what is now northwestern Iran, Persia had long since ceased to exist.

Seized by Arab conquerors in the mid-7th century, wiped out by the Mongols in the mid-13th century, wiped out again by a Central Asia horde led by Tamerlane in the late 14th century, by the late 15th century Persia had been carved up by the Ottoman Turks, Uzbek Khans, and various local tribal warlords.

Although this kid wasn't Persian but ethnic Azeri (a Turkic people), at age 15 he declared himself to be Shah Ismail I of Persia, a descendant of Ali and Fatima (and therefore of Mohammed), and proclaimed a state religion, Shi'at Ali, opposed to the orthodox Sunni (the Path) Islam of the Ottomans.

By the time he was 23 in 1510, he had kicked out the Ottomans, Uzbeks, and warlords, and with his anti-Sunni version of Islam, glued Persia back together again - which included most of present-day Iraq with Baghdad and the "holy cities" of Najaf and Karbala.

In other words, Ismail I invented Shia Islam as a rationale for re-inventing Persia.

For the next 400 years until the breakup of the Ottoman Empire with World War I, the major struggle within Islam was between the Shia Persians and the Sunni Ottoman Turks. The Arabs were part of the Ottoman Empire and on the sidelines. No one cared about them.

No one had cared about the Arabs since 1258, when their capital of Baghdad was razed to rubble and their entire civilization demolished by the Mongols. (See The Real Crusaders, which also contains a concise history of all eight Crusades, none with which did the Arabs have anything to do.)

The only reason anyone started caring about Arabs in the 20th century was all the oil underneath the sand where they lived. Thus this Arab Sunni vs. Persian Shia hatred and rivalry is of modern origin. And we needn't be suckered into it.

Any more than we should be suckered into a civil war between Palestinian savages. (Well, OK, I don't mind us giving money to Fatah so they can stave off defeat by Hamas and the civil war prolonged thereby.) The more they fight each other the less they can fight Israel.

The problem of what the left wants to call "civil war" in Iraq is its sponsor, the terror masters in Iran.

And they are the real targets of Bush's "surge" so stupidly and pointlessly being denounced and debated in Congress.

Senators and Congressistas and the Media are all focused on the 21,000 extra troops to be positioned mostly in downtown Baghdad. But that's really a diversion, a small part of the full surge.

The single most powerful concentration of military force in the world today is a US Navy Carrier Group. There's one in the Persian Gulf off the coast of Iran right now, led by the USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier, plus a guided missile cruiser, two guided missile destroyers, an attack submarine, and various supply ships.

A second Carrier Group led by the USS Stennis will be in the Persian Gulf shortly. Two entire Carrier Groups on Iran's doorstep. But wait, there's more!

Two Expeditionary Strike Groups led by the amphibious assault ships USS Boxer and USS Bataan, carrying 4,000 Marines and equipped to insert them into enemy territory by helicopter and hovercraft, are now also in the Persian Gulf - accompanied by two more attack submarines (a total of four).

This utterly staggering assemblage of overwhelming firepower is being readied to take Iran down - and Senators are blathering about a troop increase from 137,000 to 158,000?

Bush is out to win, folks. To win in Iraq he has to shut down Iran. He hopes his armada will precipitate a regime change as we discussed in The Coming Coup in Iran last month through intimidation. But he's ready to pull the trigger if intimidation alone doesn't work.

(Hint: the pathetic posturing of the mullahs in threatening today (2/8) to "strike US interests all over the world" is a clear indication that they are panicking and the intimidation is working.)

That's the real surge - and that's how Bush intends to end the phony civil war in Iraq.

With all of the doomsayers of a failed Iraq, there is often and i mean often a failure of the media to highlight the things that have gone well in Iraq.

Part of this is the building of Systemic programs based on some sort of rule of law as opposed to the unreliable voice of the ruling elite of the Sunni Baathist party.

Although the Kurds can't be described as ANGELS by any stretch, it is impressive to me that they have acted out of civility in the issues surrounding the Arabization of Kirkuk with a PROCESS which includes compensation for the Arabs who would be displaced BACK to early Arabs lands.
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KURDISH OFFICIAL SAYS ARABS WILL NOT BE DRIVEN FROM KIRKUK. Kurdish
lawmaker Mahmud Uthman announced on February 8 that no Arab will be
forced to leave Kirkuk, "Al-Zaman" reported the same day. He said
that approximately 7,000 Arab families have voluntarily decided to
leave Kirkuk without coercion. "They have made the decision to leave
on their own. The decision to return to original places is voluntary
and no one can force those families to leave," he said. On February
4, the Higher Committee for the Normalization of Kirkuk decided that
Arabs who came to live in Kirkuk as a result of the former regime's
"Arabization" policies will be returned to their places of origin in
central and southern Iraq and given appropriate compensation,
including a plot of land and $15,000 (see "RFE/RL Newsline," February
7, 2007). Meanwhile, hundreds of Shi'ite and Sunni Arabs and ethnic
Turkish Turkomans demonstrated in Kirkuk on February 7, denouncing
the normalization committee's decision, "Al-Zaman" reported the same
day. Demonstrators held signs and yelled slogans such as: "No to
dividing Iraqis! Yes to national unity!" SS

IRANIAN LEADERS WARN UNITED STATES... Expediency Council Chairman Ali
Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani said in Qom on February 8 that he doubts the
United States will take the "stupid" step of attacking Iran, but any
attack would have "a heavy cost" for the United States, IRNA
reported. Similar remarks were made the same day by Iranian Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who threatened a tough response to any
attack by the United States. "Given America's serious problems
in...Iraq and Afghanistan, it will not be easy for them to attack"
Iran, Rafsanjani said. Iran, he added, should nevertheless be
prepared. "We have to be careful inside the country and not [provoke]
the enemy with our statements, nor underestimate them." He said all
Muslims must reject discord between their Shi'ite and Sunni branches,
even if "certain radical and extremist Shi'a and Sunnis" strike at
Muslim unity with their "ignorant" conduct and "armed actions." He
accused the United States of forming "artificial" Israel to help it
dominate the Middle East, but said its "confining chain" has now been
broken. He wondered how the United States can accuse Iran of meddling
in Iraqi affairs when "they have full control of Iraq," IRNA
reported. VS

AFGHANISTAN TO BEGIN ISSUING BIRTH AND DEATH CERTIFICATES. The Afghan
Interior Ministry announced a plan on February 8 to introduce birth
and death certificates in the country for the first time, Pajhwak
Afghan News reported. Deputy Interior Minister Abdul Malik Sediqi
said the initial preparations for the registration programs are in
place and the practical phase of the plan is due to begin by April in
six provinces: Balkh, Herat, Kabul, Kandahar, Konduz, and Nangarhar.
The registration program is being implemented with help from a grant
by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), which estimates that
only around 10 percent of Afghan babies are being registered. AT

Squeeze Iran
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 9, 2007

A sea change is beginning to occur in Iraq: for the first time since the insurgency took off, the terrorists are starting to run.
This is occurring not because the United States has successfully promoted political dialogue among Iraq’s torn communities, although a successful dialogue is certainly to be desired.

It is occurring not because the United States has given in to the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton commission and others, who have suggested a policy of unilateral capitulation to the terror-masters pulling the strings of the insurgency in Damascus and Tehran.

Nor is it occurring because we have suddenly become better at winning “hearts and minds” in Iraq, although such an effort, as described by Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, would appear to be sound counter-insurgent policy.

The terrorists are on the run for one reason only: they fear the United States.

“In Tehran, they are now referring to the United States as mar-rouye domesh vastadeh – the Cobra standing on his tail,” says Shahriar Ahy, an Iranian-born political analyst who helped build the post-war broadcasting network in Iraq.

The sea-change began on January 10, when President George W. Bush announced that the United States would no longer tolerate Iranian and Syrian intelligence officers using Iraq as a playground for their murderous games.

When he announced the troop surge in Iraq, Bush also put Iran and Syria on notice. “Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops,” he said. “We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”

Those weren’t idle words. That very night, U.S. forces raided an Iranian intelligence headquarters in the Kurdish town of Irbil, capturing six Iranians. The Iranian government screamed that they were diplomats, but apparently only one had any sort of diplomatic credentials. My sources tell me this was Hassan Abbassi, a well-known strategist who is close to president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The other five turned out to be Revolutionary Guards officers. My sources identified three of them by name, and told me they were providing a treasure trove of intelligence to their U.S. interrogators (who appear to be receiving help from an intelligence expert from the opposition Mujahedin-e Khalq).

“They are key people in the Sepah Quds,” the overseas terrorist arm of the Revolutionary Guards, a former Iranian intelligence officer told me.

Iranian exiles and Kurdish sources identified another captive as Brig. Gen. Mohammad Djafari Sahraroudi, a Kurdish affairs expert who is wanted by Interpol for his involvement in the 1989 murder in Vienna of Iranian Kurdish dissident Abdulrahman Qassemlou.

Also among those detained was Mohammad Jaafari, an aid to National Security advisor Ali Larijani, the sources said.

The raid in Irbil was in fact the second U.S. backed raid that captured senior Iranian revolutionary guards officials recently. Shortly before Christmas, coalition forces raided the headquarters of Shiite political leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, just three weeks after he was in the Oval Office meeting with President Bush.

During that raid, they captured documents which American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Ledeen called “a wiring diagram” of Iran’s terror networks in Iraq.

Iran is believed to be operating a number of intelligence offices in Iraq similar to the one in Irbil, to plan terrorist attacks against U.S. forces and supply money and equipment to insurgents.

“The mullah infiltration of Iraq is far more extensive than the U.S. has thought,” said Iranian exile Sardar Haddad. “They have infiltrated every single ministry, especially the defense and interior ministries, not just with one or two people, but massively.”

Referring to the Irbil incident, “It’s not five Iranian agents, but 5,000,” he added.
The U.S. is also investigating Iran’s alleged involvement in the kidnapping and murder of five U.S. soldiers near Karbala on January 20, and reportedly has detained two high-ranking Iraqi generals suspected of collaborating with the attackers.

I am told that those interrogations have turned up astonishing information, including documents sent by the Iranian regime to Prime Minister Nouri Al-Malaki, offering to “welcome” an extended visit to Iran by Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and top members of his Jaish-al Mahdi militia.

According to one source, the generals revealed the names of nearly a dozen top Iraqi politicians who were on the payroll of the Iranian government, including a Shiite member of parliament convicted and sentenced to death in Kuwait for his involvement in the 1983 bombings of the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait city.

Jamal Jafaar Mohammed is said to have fled to Iran in recent days, fearing U.S. forces would arrest him and send him to Kuwait. He was elected to parliament in 2005 as a member of Prime Minister al-Malaki’s Dawa party.

Yesterday, U.S. forces arrested deputy health minister Hakim Zamili, accused of helping Shiite militiamen to infiltrate his ministry. He was also accused of funelling money to Shiite death squads loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr.

The U.S. Cobra is finally standing on its tail. This strategy is clearly working.
In Tehran, shortly after the January 10 speech by President Bush, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei set up two commissions, terrified that the policies of President Ahmadinejad were taking his regime to defeat.

A domestic policy review board is examining Ahmadinejad’s dismal handling of the economy, which has led to increased unemployment and runaway inflation.

A national security and intelligence review board led by Khamenei’s son Mojtaba and his chief of staff, Akbar Hejazi, is looking at Iran’s nuclear face-off with the international community and its aggressive posture in Iraq.

According to Iranian exiles who have been following these events closely, a rift has developed between Ahmadinejad and senior Revolutionary Guards “professionals,” who believe the President’s overheated rhetoric and behavior is endangering the survival of the regime.

“It’s not that these professionals want to make peace with America and sing Kumbaya with the opposition,” said Shahriar Ahy. “Rather, they feel that Ahmadinejad has brought in undisciplined amateurs who are riding roughshod” over their agencies and “destroying all the work” the professionals have accomplished over the past twenty years.

Tehran’s reaction to the more forceful U.S. policy in Iraq gives the lie to the U.S. politicians and analysts who have been arguing that the United States must talk to Tehran.

In fact, it shows they were completely wrong.

Council on Foreign Relations Iran “expert” Ray Takeyh, Washington Post reporter Robin Wright, and pro-regime lobbyist Housang Amirahmadi have been saying for years that pressure on the regime in Tehran will be counterproductive, because it will unite the people behind the regime.

“They have even argued against using coercive diplomacy,” says Iran analyst Hassan Daioleslam.

But Daioleslam and others believe recent events have shown just the contrary. When the U.S. squeezes the Tehran regime, they retreat.

“Coercive measures work against Iran. They worked in 1988 at the end of the war with Iraq, and they worked again in 1996 when Europe and the United States took a hard stance against Iran. The hard-liners only got strong when the West was soft with them,” he says.

A strong faction has emerged in Congress arguing for the United States to “go soft” toward Iran once again. Among the best known advocates of this policy are Sen. Joe Biden, Sen. John Kerry, Sen. Hillary Clinton, and Sen. Chuck Hagel.

But Daioleslam says the “pro-Iranians are wrong because they base their policy on two false assumptions: first, that the people of Iran support the regime. Second, that the factions are united. Both assumptions are just plain wrong as any reader who opens an Iranian newspaper can see immediately.”

The Tehran regime understands the stakes in Iraq very well.

Former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, now a top advisor to the Supreme Leader, told the Iranian Student News Agency in August 2004: “What is happening in Iraq today will affect the whole region. If the Iraqi people resist and finally force the invaders to leave Iraq, that could become a model for the entire world because the Moslems will see that they could defeat the aggressors.”

Conversely, he argued, an American victory in Iraq could be fatal to the Islamic regime in Tehran.

As the insurgency deepened last year, Iranian Majles member Mojtaba Nia noted, “Every car exploded in Iraq will delay a month the American plot against us.”
Now we need to squeeze harder. It’s time for the U.S. Cobra to strike at the heart of the Iranian terror networks in Iraq, and shut down their supply lines once and for all.

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