Today, the Iraqi people have voted in overwhelming numbers for democracy. The message will resound throughout the corrupt precincts of the Middle East. The Iraqis deserve our congratulations, as do the American military and George Bush, for allowing us to see this day. Pajamas Media has a full round-up of the important news from Iraq.
Unfortunately, "no good deed goes unpunished"; paradoxically, the success of the Iraqi elections means that the next few months and years are likely to be extremely perilous times.
The success of democracy in Iraq means that the days of entrenched tyrants and despots of the Muslim world are numbered; it is a thunderous rejection of the reactionary forces of "stability" and a direct challenge to the political order. Even more significantly, it is a challenge to those who believe they rule, or should rule, by divine right; those who know the will of Allah and follow his commands to torture, behead, rape, and brutalize all those who do not acknowledge their supremacy.
In the euphoria of the day, with Syria reeling but still deadly and Iran boasting of their desire, while suggesting their capacity, to destroy the Jews, it is worth noting the dangers in the near future.
The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, in their latest briefing, wonders:
Zarqawi and Israel: Is There a New Jihadi Threat Destabilizing the Eastern Front?
Dore Gold and Lt. Col. (res.) Jonathan D. Halevi
Al-Qaeda's global strategy has been to seek the weakest link in any region it hopes to penetrate. Al-Qaeda thrives in weak or failed states like Sudan, Afghanistan, remote Iraqi Kurdistan prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion, or Chechnya. If the state structures are in a process of being built up, al-Qaeda is seeking to destabilize them by increasing insurgent activities. That has been the primary goal of Zarqawi's network in Iraq and is likely to become his chief political strategy in Syria and Jordan. All of this indicates that the region to Israel's east is likely to enter a period of greater instability.
In light of recent attacks in Jordan, this is not an unlikely formulation. Furthermore, the New York Sun reports the assertion by Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon, former chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Force, that Saddam's chemical weapons (which Zarqawi had planned to use in a massive attack on Amman last year) are now in Syria:
The Israeli officer, Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon, asserted that Saddam spirited his chemical weapons out of the country on the eve of the war. "He transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria," General Yaalon told The New York Sun over dinner in New York on Tuesday night. "No one went to Syria to find it."
The notion shared by the Saudi wahhabists, the Iranian mullahs, al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, and various other flavors of Islamic fascism is that the Koran is the literal word of Mohamed and that his calls for violent jihad and the imposition of Shariah law are requirements of all Muslims. They argue about particular interpretations of the Koran (or perhaps more accurately, they argue over who among them should do the interpreting) but all agree their duty is to enlarge the world of Islam, using force when necessary. It is unclear if there is any room for a reformation in Islam, but thus far, the semi-mythical "Moderate Muslim" has been most conspicuous by his absence.
There are three reasons to expect the Islamic fascists to escalate (if they can) at this time:
1) They have very little choice; they are losing the war and are in grave danger of becoming completely marginalized if they do not reassert themselves. Syria and Iran, along with the Palestinians, are the only remaining open supporters of terrorism in the pursuit of Islam that remain. The duplicitous Saudis are more circumspect but their corrupt rule is also at risk, both from democracy and from the Islamists. They are running out of time and they know it.
2) The Islamists have always been impatient and have traditionally over-reached. Their greatest success, 9/11, was a disastrous failure for them since it lead directly to their loss of their primary sanctuary in Afghanistan. If Ahmadinejad has a bomb, he will use it, which would be a tactical error of the worst kind since it would likely lead to the destruction of Iran as a functioning state.
3) Desperate people do not think or act rationally. This would be funny if it wasn't so disturbing:
Hamas terrorists will carry out attacks inside Israel if it invades Iran, the political leader of the Palestinian group said Thursday.
"If Israel plans to invade Iran, then we will intensify our fight against Israel. We are in the same front," Khalid Mashaal told a press conference in Tehran.
The Islamists, working separately but with common, often overlapping goals, are committed to creating more mayhem and we forget it at our own risk. The next few months are likely to determine if they are successful in forcing the clash of civilizations they want and need or if our efforts to democratize the central country in the Arab Middle East will have been enough to short circuit their efforts.
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