CHAPTER TEN
THE WAR AND TERRORISM SCENARIOS
America’s enemies smell blood in the water.
Though I have been writing and speaking about this for years, I remain stunned by how few Americans realize that the leaders of al Qaeda and Iran have explicitly been pursuing a policy of economic jihad against the United States. Yet consider the following quotes:
“If their economy is destroyed, they will be busy with their own affairs rather than enslaving the weak peoples. It is very important to concentrate on hitting the U.S. economy through all possible means.”
—Osama bin Laden, December 2001[237]
“We will also aim to continue, by the permission of Allah, the destruction of the American economy.”
—Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, top deputy to Osama bin Laden, September 2002[238]
“Alongside the mujahadeen in Afghanistan, we bled Russia for ten years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat. . . . We are continuing this policy to bleed America to the point of bankruptcy. . . . Al Qaeda spent $500,000 on [the 9/11 attacks], while the incident and its aftermath have cost America more than half a trillion dollars. This meant that, by the grace of God, every dollar al Qaeda spent cost America a million dollars and a huge number of jobs. . . . This demonstrates the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan.”
—Osama bin Laden, October 2004[239]
“No politician can be found in the United States who is capable of saving the U.S. economy from this move toward the valley of downfall.”
—Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, April 2008[240]
“These days, [although] no incident has as yet occurred, oil prices have risen from $12 to $120 a barrel. Now try to calculate how high [the price] of this essential commodity will rise if the enemy acts in a foolhardy manner.”
—Mohammad Ja’far Assadi, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, August 2008[241]
The weaker the United States has grown economically, the more emboldened those who wish us harm have become—both to exacerbate our economic woes in the hopes of triggering our implosion and to steadily build their own strategic, conventional, and unconventional forces to prepare for the day when they believe they can overtake us or even destroy us.
The Threat of War
The good news: the United States remains the world’s only superpower. At the moment, America has the world’s most fearsome nuclear weapons force and the world’s most powerful and effective Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. It is critical that we maintain strong national defenses, maintain and enhance our ability to project force wherever we need to around the world, and keep a clear eye on our vital national interests.
What are these interests? I believe there are five:
1. We must always safeguard U.S. national security, including carefully protecting our homeland, our coastlines, and our borders.
2. We must prevent major threats by other powers to dominate or control Europe, East Asia, or the Middle East and the Persian Gulf.
3. We must maintain access to foreign trade.
4. We must protect Americans at home and around the globe against threats to their lives and well-being.
5. We must maintain unfettered access to resources, particularly energy resources, while specifically developing and defending our own energy resources.[242]
The bad news: other nations, ideologies, and religious movements are hell-bent on subverting, severely damaging, or outright incapacitating us. They are determined to remove from us the title of “world superpower” and claim it for themselves. Long ago they recognized this would not be easy to accomplish, but they have been patient and persistent, and they increasingly believe the U.S. will soon implode just as the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations imploded in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Real and serious threats to our vital national interests are emerging (and in some cases, reemerging) from countries like Russia, China, North Korea, and Pakistan. Each has conventional forces that could threaten our interests. Each has developed chemical and biological weapons. Each has developed nuclear weapons. Each has also developed ballistic missiles capable of delivering these weapons against our homeland or against our allies. What’s more, these nations are forming strategic regional alliances against us, and they are selling weapons and technologies to each other and to other enemies of the United States.
While some of these countries could attack us directly, they could also choose to attack our access to oil in the Middle East or our trade routes in Asia, across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal, or through the Suez Canal in hopes of bringing us to our knees financially. They could seek to unleash terrible biological attacks that would shut down international travel and trade. They could release computer viruses that would attack our banking and financial institutions and our communications systems. Now is no time to lower our guard. An open society like the United States is vulnerable to attack—especially at a time of economic weakness.
The Russian Threat
Russia, for example, is becoming increasingly hostile to the United States and is seeking to intimidate and bully our allies while threatening our interests.
Vladimir Putin, the highly provocative and controversial Russian leader, threatened in 2008 to aim nuclear-armed Russian missiles at American allies in Eastern Europe if the U.S. placed missile-defense systems there.[243] During the brutally cold winters of 2006 and 2009, Russia cut off oil and gas supplies to Ukraine, a democratic ally of ours, to undermine the government there, force Ukrainians to pay drastically higher energy prices, and warn the rest of Europe, which relies on Russian gas supplies, not to cross the Kremlin. In 2008 Russia actually invaded the nation of Georgia, another of our democratic allies in Eastern Europe. More recently, Putin denounced America as a “parasite.” He told students in Russia that the U.S. “is living beyond its means and shifting part of the weight of its problems onto the world economy, acting to some extent as a parasite on the global economy and its dollar monopoly position.”[244]
Russia, meanwhile, is selling advanced weaponry and even nuclear technology to Iran and other countries opposed to the U.S. The Kremlin has both strategic and conventional forces that could move southward to threaten Israel and attempt to gain control of the oil-rich Middle East. Indeed, as I wrote about in detail in my book Epicenter, Bible prophecies found in Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39 indicate that Russia will form an alliance with Iran, Turkey, Libya, Sudan, and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa to come against Israel in the last days. Trends over the last two decades—and notably in the past few years—suggest we are getting increasingly close to the fulfillment of the “war of Gog and Magog” prophecies.[245]
We must, therefore, be increasingly vigilant about this red storm rising. When Russia was the core of the Soviet Union, her leaders in the Kremlin actually threatened to “bury” the United States, and today, in light of certain leaders’ words and actions, we cannot assume they have all abandoned this objective.[246]
The Chinese Threat
China is also a serious concern for the United States.
Beijing has a huge and growing conventional military along with its significant nuclear force. Together with an increasingly well-equipped air force, navy, and ground forces—including the launch in 2011 of its first aircraft carrier and the intensive development of a ballistic missile capable of destroying American aircraft carriers—Beijing has the ability to cut off our trade routes in the Pacific Rim, deny us passage through the Panama Canal (which they now effectively own), or seize the democracy of Taiwan, one of our key allies in East Asia.[247]
Yes, China is heavily engaged in commercial trade with the U.S., which binds our countries together. And no, China is not currently posing a direct military threat against us. But Beijing’s national strategy is known as taoguangyanghui, which can be translated as, “Hide our capabilities; bide our time.”[248] That is exactly what the Chinese are doing: carefully—at times stealth
ily—building their military forces while biding their time and waiting for the best moment to move. A careful study of the writings and sayings of the Communist leaders in Beijing clearly indicates they want to dominate the Pacific Rim and become a world superpower, if not the world superpower.
There should be no question that some Chinese leaders are prepared to use lethal force—even nuclear weapons—against the United States when and if they feel the time is right or if the U.S. gets in the way of one of their most cherished objectives. In late 1995, a top Chinese general told a Clinton administration official that the U.S. would not defend Taiwan if China were to attack and seize the technology-rich island democracy. Why? Because Americans “care more about Los Angeles than they do about Taiwan,” the general said in a statement widely perceived as a Chinese threat to rain nuclear weapons down on the California city if the U.S. were to get in China’s way.[249]
Then came this headline in the New York Times in 2005: “Chinese General Threatens Use of A-Bombs If U.S. Intrudes.” “China should use nuclear weapons against the United States if the American military intervenes in any conflict over Taiwan, a senior Chinese military official said Thursday,” the Times reported. “‘If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition onto the target zone on China’s territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons,’ the official, Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu, said at an official briefing.”[250]
China, along with other countries around the world, is also developing additional strategies to threaten us, including increasingly advanced cyberwarfare capacities to infiltrate, corrupt, and take down the computer systems that run our national defenses and national economy; antisatellite weapons to disrupt our military and civilian communications systems; and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) capabilities that could suddenly and catastrophically render our electrical and electronic networks, including our communications and banking systems, ineffective. As with the Russians, we dare not let down our guard with the Chinese.
The Iranian Threat
The Islamic Republic of Iran is of particular concern because its senior leaders believe that the Islamic Revolution that began in 1979 is now reaching its climax. They have stated publicly that the end of the world is increasingly close at hand. They have taught that the way to hasten the arrival or appearance on earth of the so-called Islamic messiah known as the “Twelfth Imam” or the “Mahdi” is to destroy Israel, which they call the “Little Satan,” and the United States, which they call the “Great Satan.”
What’s more, they have explicitly vowed to annihilate the United States and Israel and have urged Muslims to envision a world without America and Zionism. They believe Allah has chosen them to create chaos and carnage on the planet. The key leaders in Iran seem determined to accomplish their apocalyptic, genocidal mission. They are steadily enriching uranium and developing nuclear weapons. Tehran is building alliances with Russia, China, and North Korea and has cooperated with those countries on the development of offensive and defensive weapons systems. For example, they are building and buying increasingly longer-range ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads. These missiles are capable of hitting Israel and our allies in the Middle East and Europe. Before long, Iranian long-range missiles will be able to reach the continental United States. Already, Iran (along with several other countries) has the ability to attack the U.S. homeland or our allies around the world by firing short- and medium-range missiles from commercial container ships.[251]
Iranian leaders also continue to aggressively export their Islamic Revolution to countries throughout the Middle East and around the world. They are harboring scores of al Qaeda terrorists and leaders inside Iranian cities and allowing terrorists to crisscross their territory. They are making a concerted effort to enlarge the reach of terrorist operations by building strategic alliances with other jihadist organizations, regardless of their theological differences. They claim to be building a network of between forty thousand and seventy thousand suicide bombers ready to strike Israeli, American, and British targets.[252] What’s more, over the past decade they have sent suicide bombers, other insurgents, money, and weapons into Iraq and Afghanistan to attack American and coalition forces.
Also troubling are the alliances Iran is making with countries like Venezuela, an increasingly hostile Turkey, and an Egypt troubled by growing chaos, all of which are demonstrating growing anti–U.S. sentiments. Some dismiss Iran as a nuisance and not a threat, but the mullahs and ayatollahs who rule Tehran and believe in the coming of the Twelfth Imam are truly evil and must not be overlooked or underestimated, for to misunderstand the nature and threat of evil is to risk being blindsided by it.
The Threat of Al Qaeda and Other Terror Groups
The events of September 11, 2001, taught us the hard way that terrorism—especially from radical Islamic jihadists such as al Qaeda and the Taliban, but also from the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, Hamas, and other non-state actors—represents a clear and present danger to the United States. Unfortunately, even after a decade of hot war with the jihadists, this is still true.
In Inside the Revolution, I posed the question “How many Radicals are there worldwide?” To find the answer, I looked to authors John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, who in 2007 published Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think. Esposito is a professor of Islamic studies at Georgetown University and founding director of the school’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Mogahed, herself a devout Muslim, is executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies. The book these two experts wrote presents the findings of “a mammoth, multiyear Gallup research study . . . the largest, most comprehensive study of contemporary Muslims ever done.”[253]
The good news from their research was that approximately 93 percent of Muslims worldwide fit Esposito and Mogahed’s definition of a “moderate”—peaceable, nonviolent, and traditionally religious but unlikely to pose a threat to Western security interests. The deeply disturbing news, however, was that about 7 percent would be classified as Radicals. That is, they are supportive of anti-American and anti-Western terrorism, believe it is fully justified, and thus are sympathetic of and potentially helpful to violent Islamic extremists. Unlike the moderates, these people pose a serious threat to American national security and to our allies and interests worldwide.
While 7 percent may at first seem like a relatively small number, the implications of such results are daunting. Seven percent of 1.3 billion Muslims equals 91 million people. It may comfort some Americans to know that the vast majority of the world’s Muslims are peaceful people. But it is far from comforting to know that 91 million Muslims are politically radicalized. After all, were these 91 million people to form their own country—the Islamic Republic of Radicalstan, for example—they would represent the twelfth-largest country on the planet, having about twice the population of Spain, nearly three times the population of Canada, almost ten times the population of Sweden, and more than twelve times the population of Israel. What’s more, some researchers say Gallup’s 7 percent figure significantly underestimates the number of Radicals out there, meaning there may be many more.[254]
What does this mean for the U.S. in terms of national security? For one thing, if the U.S. and our NATO allies completely withdraw from Afghanistan before the country is secure and the government in Kabul is truly stable and capable of using its military and police forces to keep terrorists out of the country, Afghanistan could once again become a safe haven for our enemies. We must not take our eye off the ball. We must make sure the Afghan threat is neutralized.
The same is true of Iraq. In my view, President Obama made a serious mistake by pulling all U.S. forces out of Iraq by the end of 2011. He seriously failed in his negotiations with Baghdad to maintain an American presence. We certainly made progress toward establishing a peaceful, stable Iraq, but by withdrawing precipitously, I am concerned the Obama administration may have unwittingly created a pol
itical and military vacuum that the Radicals of Iran, al Qaeda, and elsewhere could exploit, leading to new threats in Iraq to us, our allies, and our national interests.
We should all be deeply grateful to our brave and heroic military and intelligence forces for killing Osama bin Laden and capturing numerous top operatives since 9/11. At the same time, we must remember that the al Qaeda terrorist network and similar radical Islamic groups remain a major threat to the national security and economic vitality of the United States, the State of Israel, and our Western allies. While al Qaeda in particular has certainly been badly damaged by U.S. and coalition forces in recent years, they are by no means defeated. Rather, they are doing everything they can to reconstitute themselves in Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere around the world. They are building new alliances, recruiting new jihadists, raising more money, acquiring more weapons, and plotting new attacks. We must remain vigilant.
The jihadists, after all, no longer want to merely frighten us; they want to annihilate us. They are no longer interested in merely inflicting minor damage on planes, trains, buses, restaurants, malls, and other “soft targets.” Rather, they are plotting to inflict catastrophic damage on the U.S. and our allies. To accomplish their objectives, they are actively seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction—chemical, biological, and nuclear—along with ballistic missiles capable of reaching all of Europe and the United States. They are recruiting followers who are religiously and ideologically committed to helping them carry out their plans and ready to infiltrate the American homeland and set off catastrophic attacks from the inside.
In 1998, Osama bin Laden was asked whether al Qaeda had nuclear or chemical weapons. Bin Laden’s response was that “acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so.”[255] What was particularly troubling was that bin Laden made the statement the same year Pakistan tested nuclear weapons.
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