Did Assad and Maliki Facilitate the Rise of the Islamic State? An Interview with M. Zuhdi Jasser and Sherkoh Abbas
by Jerry Gordon (September 2014)
The rise of the Islamic State, formerly ISIS, amidst the Syrian Civil war and sectarian divide in Iraq raises questions of how this Salafist Supremacist group was left virtually undeterred? Was it perhaps with the acquiescence of both Shia leaders, Assad and Maliki, allies of the Islamic Republic of Iran? Moreover, did both Assad and Maliki fail to recognize the ultimate dangers of accommodating this Sunni extremist group, while affording it the opportunity to destroy opposition Sunni and Kurdish forces in their respective countries? Is this a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” an ancient proverb gone awry leading to the possible destruction of both countries? The untoward consequences of the actions of both autocrats have effectively pushed the US and others in the West to return to the Iraqi battlefield and possibly enter the fray in Syria. Endeavoring to combat the spread of the Islamic State may return thousands of foreign jihadists to threaten the EU, UK, Canada and the US. Warnings by Syrian secular opposition leaders like Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser of the American Forum for Islam and Democracy and Dr. Sherkoh Abbas of the Kurdish National Assembly of Syria went unheeded here in the US, despite testimony presented to Congress in March 2011.
Abbas in a Midah Israeli magazine interview in early July 2014 noted:
Assad has attempted to portray the Syrian revolution to the international community as a Salafi, Al-Qaida-led terrorist insurrection. So the same people Assad sent to Iraq to kill American soldiers while the US was liberating Iraq …were in Syria and working for him. They formed the various radical groups including Jabhat Al Nusra, the ISIS. These groups were all part of the Assad-Iran mechanism. They used them very successfully in Iraq, and …in Syria to “come to the aid” of the Syrian revolution. That led the Syrian people to perceive them as friends, oblivious … that they were meant to portray the revolution as radical and Al-Qaeda-linked and prevent any support from the international community.
[…]
We believe it’s all part of Maliki and Iran’s plan to sow chaos, induce panic in the international community and receive its support in their campaign against the jihadi threat to the entire Middle East, make sure no rebels receive any outside support and at the same time give themselves carte blanche to bomb and kill anyone inside Iraq with impunity. It also allows for Iran to send its forces into Iraq and control that region. To sum up, the Shiite Crescent, Iran, Iraq and Syria have implemented this dual plan with Russian support, and the Iraqi and Syrian people are paying the price.
A Wall Street Journal, report on August 23, 2014, “Assad Policies Aided Rise of Islamic State Militant Group” noted the double game that both Assad and Maliki played:
remarked on August 20th, concerning the barbaric beheading by IS of captive American photo-journalist James Foley in a video “Message to America:’
ISIL speaks for no religion. Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents. No just god would stand for what they did yesterday and what they do every single day. ISIL has no ideology of any value to human beings. Their ideology is bankrupt. They may claim out of expediency that they are at war with the United States or the West, but the fact is they terrorize their neighbors and offer them nothing but an endless slavery to their empty vision and the collapse of any definition of civilized behavior.
[….]
The United States of America will continue to do what we must do to protect our people. We will be vigilant and we will be relentless. When people harm Americans anywhere, we do what’s necessary to see that justice is done and we act against ISIL, standing alongside others.
Senator Jim Imhofe (R) ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee during a Fox 24 interview in Oklahoma City drew attention to reports that IS was plotting a mega bomb attack to destroy an American City. FBI sent an warning to major local police departments to be on the lookout for homegrown terrorist actions after an ISIS tweeted a threat depicting pictures of Chicago as a potential target. The Tweet said: ‘We are in your state/We are in your cities/We are in your streets/You are our goals anywhere.” According to Texas Congressman Ted Poe (R), a member of the House Judiciary Committee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, there has already been communications between Mexican Drug Cartels and IS. Texas Governor Rick Perry in a speech at the Washington, DC Heritage Foundation called attention to the vulnerability of the 1,200 mile border in the Lone Star State to possible ISIS infiltration.
Against this background in late July 2014, we convened a discussion about the debacle in Syria and Iraq with M. Zuhdi Jasser and Sherkoh Abbas on the Lisa Benson Show.
Jasser: Welcome America to the broadcast of the Lisa Benson Show. This is Zuhdi Jasser from the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. I am author of A Battle for the Soul of Islam. Happy to fill in for Lisa. This is the only program on Salem Broadcasting fully dedicated to protecting the American homeland, the West and its closest ally Israel. Week after week the Lisa Benson Radio Show for national security matters brings accurate, measured and intelligent information. It’s my pleasure and honor to sit in for Lisa while she’s away. I’m also honored to be joined by our co-host my good friend Jerry Gordon who is a Senior Editor of the New English Review and it’s blog, The Iconoclast.
Gordon: Glad to be back.
Abbas: Hello Zuhdi, hello Jerry.
Gordon: Discourse is rather biased in some of the mainstream media and in the social media battles that have been erupting, since this third Gaza War against Israel began in early July. We at the National Security Communications Task Force were fortunate to have launched a countering social media campaign using both Facebook and Twitter that hopefully defeated those who represented Hamas. The real story in this conflict was the discovery of a mega 9/11 plot by Hamas using over 35 tunnels that were discovered by the IDF. U.S. intelligence estimated that there could be upwards of 60 tunnels that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) have excavated. Those tunnels were to be used for an attack on Rosh Hashanah this year. Hamas was to send hundreds, of suicide commandos through them to attack Israeli villages and towns in the South and infiltrate through the country to both kill and capture hostages. The rocket war took a very severe turn. That justified Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to unleash the ground incursion in Gaza to destroy those terror tunnels, rocket caches and fighters. At this moment something in excess of 1,900 Palestinians have been killed against 64 Israeli soldiers and three Israeli civilians. However that lopsided figure hides a number of things including the fact that upwards of seventy percent of those killed according to Al-Jazeera were men age 18 to 44 who are likely to be Hamas and PIJ fighters.
Gordon: Khaled Mashal, one of the leaders of Hamas who lives in luxury as you said in Qatar, was estimated to have wealth of over $2.6 billion. Compare that with a study that was done recently about 160 children in Gaza who died in the course of excavating those very tunnels that we have been talking about. That is atrocious behavior. In addition, you have what only could be called a whole string of Pollywood Productions akin to what happened in September 2000 with the al-Dura Blood Libel accusation against the IDF. That Blood Libel continues in the accusation by a Hamas representative who said on CNN that Palestinian children in Gaza were murdered so that Jews could use their blood to make Passover Matzohs. This after it took Israel thirteen years to finally to resolve that the al Dura killing never occurred.
Jasser: As we are talking about Hamas we see Egypt, the UAE, the Saudis and many in the mafia club of the Arab League have even come out against Hamas. Having said that, what are the dynamics that we see evolving now different than it has been in the past? On the one hand these frenemies promote radical Wahhabism and Salafism ideology funded with billions of dollars across the world. On the other hand, some are now on the same side against Hamas in this conflict. Even more so than we have ever seen before. What is the regional dynamic that you think is happening there?
Gordon: I think it was simply said by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu who indicated that Israel uses missiles to defend its people. While Hamas and its terrorist partners in Gaza use people to defend those missiles and rockets that they are sending against innocent lives in Israel.
Jasser: Let’s turn to a neighboring country that has seen almost 200,000 dead and five million people displaced and are continuing to suffer when we talk about Syria. Our next guest is Dr. Sherkoh Abbas, the veteran leader of the Syrian Kurdish community and President of the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria and a longtime friend in the trenches on the Syrian issue. Sherkoh, could you finish off the discussion on Israel and Hamas adding any thoughts you may have as we transition into discussing about Syria.
Jasser: Jerry, you want to start us off on a discussion on Syria?
Gordon: I want to focus on what is occurring in the Northeastern quadrant of Syria that is very dangerous. It is the return in massive force of a new and revitalized Islamic State formerly ISIS once a minor portion of Al-Qaeda that has vanquished Al-Qaeda itself. ISIS or IS has really conducted a barbaric jihad conquering large swaths of Syria and Iraq ejecting Christians and slaughtering Muslim opponents. Who aided the launch of ISIS in Syria and why has it emerged so rapidly as a major threat to the region and the West?
Jasser: I think Sherkoh what people should understand is that there is a sort of evil alliance that happens. ISIS as a Sunni radical group went into Iraq and Assad stood on the sidelines. Assad, and Sunni Arabs stood on the sidelines because the generals wanted to see Maliki go down and allowed them to flourish in Northern Iraq. It fed their strategy to destabilize Maliki so we see this happening in every Arab country. In Syria Assad has not bombed the ISIS areas because he uses them to legitimize murder and pillaging.
Abbas: I echo exactly what you said. I think there is a lack of leadership, lack of any ideas but I wonder if that begs the question. Who is benefitting from all of this chaos? Iran has benefitted, Russia is benefitting, all of the enemies of the West, enemies of democracy, enemies of the U.S., Israel, Europe. All the democratic groups within Syria in the Middle East are losing so somebody else is benefitting. We lost billions if not trillions in liberating the Iraqi people, U.S. handed them back to Iran. In Syria they had a perfect opportunity to do something there. Again we lost that opportunity. I start to wonder why everything is going to benefit Iran and Russia?
Jasser: We have seen ISIS kill twelve to fifteen Imams just in the past week in Northern Iraq. Muslims are, I believe, are the first victims. The moderate Muslims that should fight this.
Abbas: You are absolutely right. In the past three months more than 1,000 Kurdish young people, from 14 to 30 years old, had their heads were cut off by ISIS in Syria. Again this group PYD or YPG is forcing the Kurds to work with them against the Syrian opposition. This group hijacked the Kurdish cause just like the Syrian regime and terrorists hijacked the Syrian Revolution. They are working in contact with General Muhammad Mansoura and General Ali Mamlouk, and preventing any reference to Kurds! Radical Islamists / ISIS and PYD/YPG have been staging the fights. As a result many Kurds have been killed.This is Assad’s policy of divide and conquer. Now the Kurds are being slaughtered in that area. We need to ask ourselves, what is the root cause and what can be done? I think the root cause is really about putting dictators in their place or removing them. The map of the Middle East needs to be redrawn. We need a democratic group who can influence and become the engine of change in that region. Iraqi Kurdistan has been a great example protecting Christian minorities and others. It is a democratic friend of the US, and the West. The Kurds could be a model in the Middle East. After all there is an Israeli nation, a Turkish nation, a Persian nation and 22 Arab nations. Why shouldn’t there be a Kurdish nation? Having a Kurdish nation in the region could be influential in promoting democracy and preventing or eliminating ISIS/ISIL.
Jasser: But are you calling for a redrawing of the Syrian borders?
Jasser: And the key is to be evolved beyond two sides. There are more than two sides on the battle in Syria and Iraq and elsewhere.
Gordon: I agree. Israel has made efforts to alleviate the humanitarian concern of those Syrians on the Golan frontier by establishing a field hospital there to take care of them. In more serious cases they are airlifted to the major medical centers in Central Israel for treatment. I think that has been appreciated by what we understand from those Syrians who have been involved.
Jasser: I think you know ultimately as we look for what the right policies are moving forward we need leaders, perhaps not in the Obama administration, but leaders in Washington, to begin to call out not only the Russians but the Iranians. Syria has become a client state of Iran and we need to link the reason the nuclear talks are failing to the fact that they see us doing nothing in Syria. Putin basically sees that as a green light no different when the Russians saw our lack of activity in Syria to allow them to do whatever they want in Ukraine and elsewhere. We need to begin to have this conversation and pressure that will develop a strategy for promoting liberty. What is the legacy of our faith? Is it to leave Hamas and ISIS behind or is it to actually leave modernity and vibrant democracies that protect all faiths, Jews, Christians and others in the way our founding fathers did in America. To pray for the safety of all, the West, Israel and its fight for freedom.
Thank you Jerry Gordon from The Iconoclast and Editor of the New English Review. Thank you Sherkoh Abbas, of the Syrian Kurdish community and thank you most especially to Lisa Benson for the opportunity to share our thoughts with her listeners. This is Zuhdi Jasser from the American Islamic Forum for Democracy wishing you all well. God Bless America. Take care.
Listen to the Lisa Benson Show with Drs. M. Zuhdi Jasser, Sherkoh Abbas and Jerry Gordon:
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