Inside the Revolution

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  203 See “Verbatim Transcript of Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing for ISN 10024,” March 10, 2007, http://www.defenselink.mil/news/transcript_ISN10024.pdf, accessed August 20, 2008.

  204 Cited by Warren Richey, “The Self-Portrait of an Al Qaeda Leader,” Christian Science Monitor, March 16, 2007.

  205 See The 9/11 Commission Report, Section 5.1.

  206 Ramzi Yousef was captured by Pakistani security forces in 1995 during a raid of a suspected al Qaeda safe house. He was later handed over to U.S. authorities, then tried in a federal court, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison without parole for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center attack.

  207 See The 9/11 Commission Report, Section 5.1.

  208 See “Substitution for the Testimony of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.”

  209 The Secret History of 9/11, Canadian Broadcasting Company, aired September 10, 2006. The documentary drew on material from previously classified interrogation notes.

  210 Cited by Walter Pincus, “New Bin Laden Tape Transcript Offers More Details,” Washington Post, December 21, 2001.

  211 See “Bin Laden Claims Responsibility for 9/11,” Canadian Broadcasting Company, October 29, 2004.

  212 See “Substitution for the Testimony of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.”

  213 Cited by George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm, p. 260, citing a Time article from December 24, 1998.

  214 Ibid, p. 269.

  215 See Sheikh Nasir bin Hamd al-Fahd, “A Treatise on the Legal Status of Using Weapons of Mass Destruction Against the Infidels,” May 1, 2003; cited by Tenet, p. 274. Also cited by Michael Scheuer, Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam after Iraq, p. 74.

  216 See Robert S. Mueller, III, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Global Initiative Nuclear Terrorism Conference,” Miami, Florida, June 11, 2007.

  217 See Tenet, pp. 259–260.

  218 Ibid, p. 279.

  219 See Josh Meyer, “Student Allegedly Talked of Assassination Plots,” Los Angeles Times, March 2, 2005.

  220 See David Stout, “Arab American Convicted of Plot to Kill Bush: Virginia Student Linked to Operatives of al Qaeda Network,” New York Times, November 23, 2005.

  221 See Department of Justice press release, September 8, 2005, http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/vae/Pressreleases/09-SeptemberPDFArchive/05/20050909alinr.pdf, accessed July 16, 2008.

  222 See FBI press release, March 29, 2006, http://washingtondc.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel06/wfo032906.htm, accessed August 13, 2008.

  223 See “Court Upholds Conviction in Bush al Qaeda Plot,” Reuters, June 6, 2008.

  224 See Stout, “Arab American Convicted of Plot.”

  225 See Jerry Markon and Dana Priest, “Terrorist Plot to Kill Bush Alleged,” Washington Post, February 23, 2005.

  226 Pronounced “Shween.”

  227 Fred Schwien, interview with the author.

  228 See Jerry Markon and Ben Hubbard, “Review Finds Slurs in ’06 Saudi Texts,” Washington Post, July 15, 2008.

  229 See transcript of report on Al Jazeera, June 17, 2008; see “Al-Jazeera TV Report on the Controversy over the Islamic Saudi Academy in Virginia,” MEMRI, clip 1799, June 17, 2008, http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1799.htm, accessed July 16, 2008; see also “Critics Dubs Saudi Islamic School ‘Terror High,’” Associated Press, November 24, 2007.

  230 See Markon and Hubbard, “Review Finds Slurs in ’06 Saudi Texts.”

  231 See R. James Woolsey, testimony delivered before the U.S. House Committee on International Relations Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, May 22, 2002.

  232 Ibid.

  233 Wahhabi Islam is also often referred to as Salafi Islam. Salafi in Arabic means “a pious or righteous ancestor.” Salafists, therefore, follow the fundamental, Radical version of Islam taught by their devout forefathers, such as Mohammad Ibn ’Abd al-Wahhab.

  234 See Stephen Schwartz, Director of the Islam and Democracy Program of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, “Wahhabism and Islam in the U.S.,” testimony before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, June 26, 2003.

  235 See findings from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/quick_question20.html, accessed July 7, 2008. The data are drawn from “Mosque in America: A National Portrait,” a survey released in April 2001. This was part of a larger study of American congregations called “Faith Communities Today,” coordinated by Hartford Seminary’s Hartford Institute for Religious Research in Connecticut. Muslim organizations cosponsoring the survey are the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, the Ministry of Imam W. Deen Muhammed, and the Islamic Circle of North America. See http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/muslimlife/demograp.htm, accessed July 7, 2008.

  236 See “New Dearborn Mosque to Be the Nation’s Largest,” Associated Press, January 7, 2004. See also Joanne Viviano, “Muslim Worshippers Say Dearborn Mosque Was Overdue,” Detroit News, October 22, 2005.

  237 See “Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Invade American Mosques,” Special Report released by the Center for Religious Freedom, Freedom House, 2006, p. 2, http://www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/special_report/45.pdf, accessed July 7, 2008.

  238 Ibid, p. 38.

  239 Ibid, p. 48.

  240 Ibid, p. 57.

  241 Ibid, pp. 19–20.

  242 See Andrew Kohut, “Muslims in America: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream,” Pew Research Center, May 22, 2007, http://pewresearch.org/assets/pdf/muslim-americans.pdf, accessed June 24, 2008.

  243 For an excellent and more detailed analysis of the Islamist threat to Great Britain and the British society’s state of denial of the problem, see Melanie Phillips’s Londonistan.

  244 See Jason Bennetto, “MI5 Conducts Secret Inquiry into 8,000 al-Qa’ida ‘Sympathisers,’ The (UK) Independent, July 3, 2006.

  245 Ibid.

  246 See Robert Winnett and David Leppard, “Leaked No. 10 Dossier Reveals al-Qaeda’s British Recruits,” The Sunday Times of London, July 10, 2005.

  247 See “Young Muslims and Extremism,” U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office/Home Office, April 2004, presented to Prime Minister Tony Blair.

  248 See “Sharia Law in UK is ‘Unavoidable,’” BBC, February 7, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7232661.stm, accessed July 6, 2008.

  249 See David Machlis and Tovah Lazaroff, “Muslims ‘About to Take Over Europe,’” Jerusalem Post, January 29, 2007.

  250 Simon Kuper, “Europe Can Feel at Home with 16m Muslims,” Financial Times, September 16, 2007.

  251 Cited in Kohut, “Muslims in America.”

  252 “Muslims in Europe: Economic Worries Top Concerns about Religious and Cultural Identity,” Pew Global Attitudes Project, July 6, 2006, http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=254, accessed August 14, 2008.

  253 See John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, pp. x–xi.

  254 Ibid, pp. 47–51.

  255 Ibid, pp. 69–70.

  256 Other research suggests the 7 percent Radical figure may actually be too low. According to a 2007 Pew Research Center poll, 28 percent of Egyptian Muslims say they believe suicide bombings against civilian targets are sometimes or often justified; 17 percent of Turkish Muslims agree, along with 10 percent of Indonesian Muslims, 14 percent of Pakistani Muslims, 29 percent of Jordanian Muslims, and 46 percent of Nigerian Muslims. See Andrew Kohut, “Muslims in America: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream,” Pew Research Center, May 22, 2007, http://pewresearch.org/assets/pdf/muslim-americans.pdf, accessed June 24, 2008.

  257 Ibid, pp. 70–71.

  258 Cited by Karim Sadjadpour, Reading Khamenei: The World View of Iran’s Most Powerful Leader, p. 7.

  259 Cited by Steve Stalinsky, “The Iranian Threat: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,” New York Sun, February 9, 2005

  260 Cited by Naji, Ahmadinejad: The Secret History of Iran’s Radical Leader, p. 259.
>
  261 Cited by Sadjadpour, p. 15.

  262 Cited by Nasser Karimi, “Iran Leader: Bush Will Be Tried,” Associated Press, February 14, 2007.

  263 See Fars news, August 2, 2006, cited by MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 1230, August 4, 2006.

  264 Ibid.

  265 Cited by Stalinsky.

  266 Ibid.

  267 Cited by Naji, p. 144.

  268 Cited by Kenneth R. Timmerman, Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown With Iran, p. 42.

  269 Cited by Sadjadpour, pp. 21–22.

  270 In writing this chapter, I am deeply indebted to Kasra Naji, author of Ahmadinejad: The Secret History of Iran’s Radical Leader; Yossi Melman and Meir Javedanfar, authors of The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the State of Iran; and Alireza Jafarzadeh, author of The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear Crisis. They provided a treasure trove of biographical information, historical background, and geopolitical and cultural context.

  271 See Naji, pp. 61–62.

  272 Ibid, p. 62.

  273 Cited by Melman and Javedanfar, p. 23.

  274 See “Iran Hardliner To Contest Run-off,” BBC News, June 18, 2005, cited by Melman and Javedanfar, p. 35.

  275 See “Hardline Win in Iran Sparks Fears on Nukes and Extremism,” Agence France-Presse, June 25, 2005.

  276 Cited by Naji, p. 85.

  277 Cited by Naji, p. 86.

  278 See “Iran Official Alleges Election Fraud,” CNN, June 25, 2005; Michael Slackman, “Iran Moderate Says Hard-Liners Rigged Election,” New York Times, June 19, 2005; “Iranian Reformer Alleges Election ‘Rigged,’” Agence France-Presse, June 18, 2005; “Iran’s Rafsanjani Renews Firestorm Over Election Fraud,” Iran Focus, July 18, 2005

  279 See Iran News, October 15, 2006, cited by MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 1328, October 19, 2006, http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD132806, accessed on August 24, 2008.

  280 Ibid.

  281 Some biographers spell it “Saborjhian.”

  282 See Naji, pp. 4–5; Melman and Javedanfar, pp. 1–2.

  283 See Naji, p. 15.

  284 See official biography on the president’s Web site, http://www.president.ir/en/, accessed August 24, 2008.

  285 See Jafarzadeh, p. 16; also see biography on GlobalSecurity.org’s Web site, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iran/ahmadinejad-bio.htm, accessed August 24, 2008; see Dan Diker, “President Bush and the Qods Controversy: Lessons Learned,” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, March 6, 2007, http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=1&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=443&PID=0&IID=1516&TTL=President_Bush_and_the_Qods_Force_Controversy:_Lessons_Learned, accessed August 24, 2008.

  286 See Colin Freeman, “The Rise of Prof ‘Crocodile’—A Hardliner to Terrify Hardliners,” London Telegraph, November 19, 2005; Colin Freeman and Kay Biouki, “Ayatollah who backs suicide bombs aims to be Iran’s next spiritual leader,” London Telegraph, November 19, 2006.

  287 Cited by Naji, p. 99.

  288 Ibid, p. 98.

  289 Cited by Colin Freeman and Philip Sherwell, “Iranian Fatwa Approves Use of Nuclear Weapons,” London Telegraph, February 18, 2006. See also “New Iranian Fatwa: Religious Law Does Not Forbid Use of Nuclear Weapons,” MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 1096, February 17, 2006.

  290 Cited by Naji, p. 102.

  291 Cited by Jafarzadeh, p. 25.

  292 Cited by Jafarzadeh, p. 22.

  293 See Jafarzadeh, pp. 22–23.

  294 Cited by Naji, p. 47.

  295 Cited by Jafarzadeh, p. 22.

  296 See Naji, p. 49.

  297 Cited by Naji, p. 98.

  298 See Melman and Javedanfar, p. 50.

  299 Cited by Naji, p. 92.

  300 See Jafarzadeh, p. 31; see also Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future, p. 134.

  301 Cited by Melman and Javedanfar, p. 51.

  302 Cited by Melman and Javedanfar, p. 46 and Naji, p. 93.

  303 See Melman and Javedanfar, pp. 46–47.

  304 See Naji, p. 96.

  305 President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, address to the United Nations General Assembly, New York City, September 17, 2005, translated and distributed by the Islamic Republic News Agency, posted on www.globalsecurity.org.

  306 See accounts by Amir Taheri, “The Frightening Truth of Why Iran Wants a Bomb,” Sunday Telegraph, April 16, 2006; see also “Claims of Communication with Imam Mahdi,” Emrouz, December 12, 2005; Arash Motamed, “The Appearance of Imam Mahdi in 2 Years,” Rooz online, a popular Iranian dissident Web site, October 18, 2005; Hossein Bostani, “Ahmadinejad in Touch with 12th Imam,” Rooz online, November 5, 2005; Melman and Javedanfar, pp. 55–57.

  307 See Hossein Bostani, “Ahmadinejad in Touch with 12th Imam,” Rooz online, November 5, 2005; and Amir Taheri, “The Frightening Truth of Why Iran Wants A Bomb,” Sunday Telegraph, April 16, 2006.

  308 Cited by Melman and Javedanfar, p. 41.

  309 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, text of address to “A World Without Zionism” conference, Tehran, reported by the Iranian Students News Agency, October 26, 2005, cited by MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 1013, October 28, 2005.

  310 See Y. Carmon, “The Role of Holocaust Denial in the Ideology and Strategy of the Iranian Regime,” MEMRI Special Dispatch Series - No. 307, December 15, 2006.

  311 “Iran’s Ahmadinejad Declares Holocaust Is a Myth,” Reuters, December 14, 2005.

  312 See “Russia Agrees to Sell Missiles to Iran,” Associated Press, December 2, 2005; Lyuba Pronina, “Moscow Inks Arms Deal with Tehran,” Moscow Times, December 5, 2005.

  313 “Iran Received 12 Cruise Missiles with a 3,000-Km Range from Ukraine, Capable of Carrying Nuclear Warheads,” Ha’aretz, December 21, 2005.

  314 Ali Akbar Dareini, “Iran Votes to Block Nuclear Inspections,” Associated Press, November 20, 2005.

  315 “Iran’s Army Takes Control of Nukes,” Pakistani Daily Times, October 6, 2005.

  316 For this quote, as well as an excellent and detailed analyis of the behind-the-scenes political tensions created by Ahmadinejad’s rise to power and devotion to the Mahdi, see the paper by A. Savyon, “The ‘Second Islamic Revolution’ in Iran: Power Struggle at the Top,” MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 253, November 17, 2005.

  317 Ibid.

  318 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, “Iranian Leader Opens Up ,” interview with Mike Wallace, CBS News, August 13, 2006, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/09/60minutes/main1879867.shtml, accessed August 25, 2008; Scott MacLeod, “A Date with a Dangerous Mind,” Time magazine cover story, September 17, 2005 issue, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1535827,00.html, accessed August 25, 2008; Ahmadinejad, “NBC Exclusive: Ahmadinejad on the Record,” interview with Brian Williams, NBC News, September 20, 2006, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14911753/, accessed August 25, 2008; Ahmadinejad, “Interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,” interview with Anderson Cooper, CNN, September 20, 2006, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0609/20/acd.01.html, accessed August 25, 2008.

  319 Ahmadinejad sent his letters to President Bush and Chancellor Merkel in May 2006. In both letters, he urged the leaders to convert to Islam and accept his vision of world events. “Ahmadinejad hoped to follow in the footsteps of many great men in history who urged world leaders and opponents to submit to the will of Allah and convert to Islam,” wrote one biographer. “These attempts had begun 1,400 years earlier when the Prophet Mohammed sent emissaries to kings and emperors far and wide to invite them to embrace Islam. More recently, Ayatollah Khomeini had written to President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989 to suggest, ‘Islam could fill the intellectual gap that the demise of Communism has created for the Soviet Union.’” (Kasra Naji, Ahmadinejad: The Secret History of Iran’s Radical Leader, p. 197.)

  320 See Joel C. Rosenberg, “Mesmerized Media: When Will Ahmadinejad’s Radical Religious Beliefs Get Covered?” National Review Online, September 20, 2006, h
ttp://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Zjg2MjgxZmVkNDkxOGZiN2RiMWNiZjUwYjhjOTMxZWU, accessed August 25, 2008. See also Joel C. Rosenberg, “60 Minutes’s Missed Opportunity: What Mike Wallace Should Have Asked Ahmadinejad,” National Review Online, August 14, 2006, http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=MjZmMWFkNTE2YTRiZGQ4YTliZTllMzg2MTM3NzIyOWQ, accessed August 25, 2008.