A Monthly Newsmagazine from Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT)
To Gain access to thousands of articles, khutbas, conferences, books (including tafsirs) & to participate in life enhancing events

Guest Editorial

The West’s open and covert warfare against the Islamic movement

Abu Dharr

1

While the public mind waits to see what drama we will have next in the American-led (but Israeli inspired) war on Islamic self-determination, otherwise known as “the war on terror”, zionists or people working for them succeed in assassinating ImadMughniyyeh, a commander of Hizbullah, in – of all places – the diplomatic quarter of Damascus, the capital of Syria. This is a major development that needs more that simply journalistic analysis; it needs to be placed in the context of the political and military clash of wills between the Islamic state in Iran in particular, and the Islamic movement in general, on the one hand, and the imperialists in Washington and the zionists in Tel Aviv on the other, who have taken the Islamic movement at their enemy no. one. To better understand this larger picture, we need to understand the broad strokes of what has become an all-out attempt by the Israeli-American axis and its allies to bring the Islamic state in Iran to its knees.

Let us begin with 9/11. This was far more than just an attack on America by Islamic activists associated with “al-Qa’ida”; however we understand the events of the day, their deeper roots can be traced back to the support given by the US to the Saudis to promote their particular brand of anti-Shi‘i Wahhabism in the Sunni world after the Islamic Revolution in Iran. These groups prospered during the Afghan jihad, developing deep and untraceable links with Western intelligence agencies, even as they were turning against the West in their thinking and action. What happened on 9/11 was carefully thought out, meticulously planned, cautiously executed, and skillfully propagandized by an exclusive group of people with a common cause. Who was involved in this, and who knew how much, will probably never be established. What is clear, however, is that some in America were prepared to take advantage of the attacks to launch a series of policies within a grand strategy to dehumanize Muslims and demonize what they saw as an up-and-coming Islamic resistance, antithetical to their globalization and new world order scheme.

The blaming of Muslims for the worst act of terrorism in human history prepared the ground for the imperialist military body – with its zionist head – to concentrate its firepower on areas of the the world that it regarded as crucial for its geo-strategic agenda. What happened after 9/11 was a calculated refocusing of the imperialist-zionist war machine from Islamic Iran to the broader Islamic movement in general. The catalysts for this rearrangement of warfare against the forces of Islamic resistance and self-determination were the unwitting and politically naive salafis, who could not realize that they were being used as pawns in a global game, to which they themselves contributed by their simplistic rush to a jihad in Afghanistan and their millennium old suspension of a Qur’anic mode of thought. The jihad in Afghanistan during the 1980s turned out to be a bonanza for the zionistsembedded in the American establishment and the imperialists embedded within Arabian officialdom: the Soviet Union, the evil empire, was defeated by these “jihadis”, who were similar intended to defeat the up-and-coming force of an Islamic renaissance, with Islamic Iran as its locomotive engine.

As this zionist-imperialist shift of gears was in process, there were and are some politicians within Islamic Iran who also did not know what had hit them. In the aftermath of 9/11, they interpreted some of the diplomatic signals from Washington to be positive and encouraging. In response, many within the “reformist” trend of thought in Iran were eager to campaign for a “dialogue of civilizations” and eventually the normalization of relations with the shaytan-e buzurg. This reflected both a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the West, and a deep ambivalence about Iran’s role and responsibilities in the global Islamic resistance movement.

This grand American strategy appeared, for a couple of years after 9/11, to have a chance of achieving its objectives. But as American military losses began to mount, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the “coalition of the willing” began to shrink, and the imposing investment of trillions of dollars into this disappointing project were showing no economic returns, except for the profits of the military multinationals, the strategy that appeared so promising in its early stages turned into a disaster for its sponsors and executors. The US military occupation of Iraq, which had been expected to provide political leverage against Islamic Iran, has gone awry. The US-sponsored military occupation of Palestine suffered a shocking setback when Israeli forces were bloodied and virtually crippled in Lebanon in the summer of 2006.

Now the clock is ticking. The American presidential elections due to take place this year demand that something be done to bolster the Republicans. The fall-back position is to rely on what is left of American diplomatic capital in the Arabian capitals. Enter Amman, Cairo, Beirut, Riyadh, and Baghdad, among others. The US means business. It has run out of gimmicks, it has depleted its treasury, and it is running out of time. Which of these beholden governments will step up to rescue the US’s confused war on terrorism? In their rush to respond to Washington’s recruitment-drive in the past year, there has been a fallout betweenRiyadh and Damascus. Accusations and denunciations have flown between officials from the two regimes; tensions are still running high between them. It is significant that the Islamic State in Iran has had cordial if not fraternal relations with the Syrian rulers since the Islamic Revolution, and has cultivated much improved relations with Riyadh in recent years. The war by proxy between Tehran and Washington has taken a detour through Riyadh and Damascus. These two authorities have in their own ways made in-roads into the Islamic movement and the Islamic State. But conversely, Riyadh exerts disproportionate influence within the larger Islamic movement, while Damascus cooperates with the Islamic State in Iran, particularly in terms of the liberation of Palestine from zionism and the protection of Lebanon from it.

Al-Shaheed Imad Mughniyyeh, however, had nothing to do with this hidden political situation. He was a no-nonsense mujahidwho was on the most-wanted list in Tel Aviv and Washington. And try as it might, Saudi Arabia could not do anything to divertHizbullah from its Islamic revolutionary course. In 2006, as Hizbullah fought heroically to defend Lebanon from the zionists, Saudi Arabia was vocal about accusing Hizbullah of beginning the summer war of 2006 against Israel, saying that it was foolish and premature. The Saudi press have also repeatedly tried to undermine Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbullah, and one of the most popular leaders of the Muslim world, for example reporting that there was opposition to him within Hizbullah, and even that he had been overthrown from his position in the organization.

There are now multiple investigations going on to get to the bottom of the assassination of Imad Mughniyyeh, by Syrian andHizbullah agencies. It is also clear that in an imperialist-zionist dominated world, there will be no official investigation by any international organizations to determine who was responsible for what was clearly a political assassination, illegal under international law. Yet everyone knows who was really responsible; Israeli sources have indulged in open self-congratulation, even as their government has publicly denied any involvement.

The “reformers” within the Islamic State, the “liberals” within the Islamic movement, and the fifth-columnists here and there may have sighed when they heard the news that Imad Mughniyyeh had been killed by a car-bomb in Damascus, of all places. Thezionists, through their imperialist channels and Arabian connections, may think that they have scored a big hit. What none of them appear to understand is that Muslims also believe in an eye-for-an-eye code of retaliation. Beyond the contradictory political languages of imperialism, Zionism, and their “Iranian” and “Saudi” interlocutors, the war keeps on expanding. And those who say that diplomacy is war by another means, they should also understand that war is war however you look at it.


1
Article from

Crescent International Vol. 37, No. 1

Safar 23, 14292008-03-01


Sign In


 

Forgot Password ?


 

Not a Member? Sign Up