The only significant attempt that the United States government has made to confront the Islamic State’s ideology is the State Department’s Think Again Turn Away program, a rather embarrassing taxpayer-funded effort intended to make jihadists stop and think about what they’re doing and lay down their arms, but which in practice amounts to little more than Twitter trolling of Islamic State supporters. Alberto Fernandez, coordinator of the State Department’s Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC), which oversees the program, explained in April 2014, “We are actually giving al Qaeda the benefit of the doubt because we are answering their arguments. The way I see it is we are participating in the marketplace of ideas.”28
Since, however, the Obama administration is committed as a matter of policy not to discuss Islam and jihad in connection with terrorism, or to acknowledge that there is an ideology of violence and supremacism within Islam, it cannot confront jihadists even on Twitter—when it tries, it only betrays its failure to understand their perspective. When one jihadist on Twitter praised the Taliban’s 2001 destruction of the ancient Buddhas of Bamiyan, the Think Again Turn Away program responded: “Destroying ancient culture out of hatred and backwardness are a feature of al Qaeda’s ideology”—thereby demonstrating that the State Department has no understanding whatsoever of the jihadist imperative to destroy the relics of ancient non-Muslim civilizations so as to demonstrate the judgment of Allah and the victory of Islam.29
The quintessential example of the ineptitude, willful ignorance, and absolute ineffectiveness of the Think Again Turn Away program came in March 2015, when it tweeted as an example of the positive aspects of freedom of speech in the West a photograph of Muslim hard-liners in Britain manning an information table labeled “Shariah Law/Man Made Law: Which Is Better for Mankind?”30 It is unclear how the State Department thought that a photo of Muslims spreading Sharia in the West would move them to stop trying to establish it in Iraq and Syria or anywhere else.
Even if the Islamic State were defeated and eradicated, there are Muslims around the world, including in the United States, who share its worldview, motives, and goals. If the caliphate disappears, they will not. And if no one effectively challenges their beliefs, they will continue waging jihad for decades to come.
I Have Seen the Future, Brother, It Is Murder
Since they are not fighting the Islamic State adequately on either the military or the ideological front, the United States and its allies can look forward to more of what they saw during the Islamic State’s first year of existence: more bellicose threats, more Islamic jihad plots and attacks in the U.S. and Europe by individuals and groups, more Muslims from the West throwing everything away to join the Islamic State.
At very least, Muslims who leave the United States or other non-Muslim countries to wage jihad in the Islamic State should not be allowed back into their home countries; by joining or trying to join the Islamic State, they have declared their allegiance to an entity that is quite explicitly at war with their home country. Thus they should be treated as traitors. Yet even this obvious precaution against harboring jihadis and leaving ourselves needlessly vulnerable to jihad attacks at home is not being taken: Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson admitted in April 2015 that forty Muslims from the U.S. had already returned to America from the Islamic State. They were, he assured us, being closely watched: “We have in fact kept close tabs on those who we believe have left and those who’ve come back. A number have been arrested or investigated and we have systems in place to track these individuals.” However: “But you can’t know everything.”31
Indeed. And at this point, one wonders if the Obama administration knows anything.
In any case, the fact that potential jihadis are being watched is no guarantee that they will not carry out deadly attacks. After Man Haron Monis took customers at a chocolate café in Sydney’s Martin Place hostage at gunpoint, forced them to display an ISIS flag, and ended up dead along with two of his hostages, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott admitted that Monis had been “well known to State and Commonwealth authorities” for, among other things, sending harassing letters to the relatives of soldiers who had been killed in Afghanistan and posting “graphic extremist [read: jihadi] material online.”32
Only if there is a massive change in the political culture in Washington will effective action be taken against the Islamic State—or against the jihadis loyal to it in Western countries. How many more people will have to die before that change comes is anyone’s guess. In the Islamic State, the free West has a foe that challenges it to its very core. This is not just a war against a rival that is grabbing territory to which it is not entitled. This is not even just a war between two competing ideologies and worldviews—it is very much that, although only one side is fighting on that basis, but it is more as well.
The challenge of the Islamic State is the challenge of destruction to creation, of conflict to peace, of tyranny to freedom. It is, without hyperbole, the challenge of death to life. One teenage Muslim girl from France who joined the jihad in Syria in 2012 wrote to her mother, “Mum, you’re too materialistic. All that matters is finding your daughter. You should know that I am no longer your daughter. I belong to Allah. I will never return to the land of the unbelievers. If your government of unbelievers should come to find me with an army, we will execute every last one of them, the Truth will win out, we are afraid of nothing. We love death more than you love life.”33
We love death more than you love life. This is civilization’s ultimate challenge. Will the lovers of death and destruction overwhelm and defeat those who love life and have created great civilizations that celebrate human creativity and achievement? Will all that is left of three thousand years of human civilization be reduced to rubble and a mindless religio-ideological lockstep?
The Islamic State is not just a challenge to Judeo-Christian Western civilization. It is a challenge to civilization itself—to the very idea of civilization.
And that is why, for all the advantages it enjoys today, it is doomed to fail. Life will always conquer death in the end. The human spirit will always prevail against the forces that would subjugate and enslave it.
Getting to that victory will not be easy. Besotted with propaganda and distraction, the West still doesn’t know what it’s up against. By the time it does, it may be impossible to avoid millions of deaths and unimaginable destruction, including that of the cultural and artistic patrimony of the Western world.
Yet if free souls prevail, and they will, the fight will not have been in vain.
And the lovers of life will rebuild again.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Barack Obama once famously said: “If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” He might say to me, “If you’ve got a book—you didn’t write that. Somebody else made that happen.”
I did write it, of course, but it took a village. Given the savagery and bloodlust of those about whom I have written here, I cannot name all of those who have provided me with information, guided my understanding, and informed my perspective in ways that show on every page of this book, but that doesn’t dim my appreciation of them, and I hope this note will suffice to express that gratitude to them.
Meanwhile, once again my editor at Regnery, Elizabeth Kantor, has taken the inchoate mass I turned in to her like Michelangelo taking a block of marble, and has made from it, alas, not a David or a Pietà but a Robert Spencer book—and while this book is no David, that doesn’t mean that she is no Renaissance-worthy artist. If there ever is a Renaissance of truth and honesty in America’s public discourse, and Regnery authors have anything to do with it, her sculpting skills will have played a large role.
Thanks also to Harry Crocker, Patricia Jackson, and the entire marvelous and nonpareil Regnery team. If they were a sports team, they would be the New York Yankees, with Michelangelo batting cleanup, and opposing manager Obama sitting glumly in the dugout while his team takes a
shellacking. Seriously, there is no better publishing house in the business, and I am proud that this is my eighth Regnery book.
My gratitude to some people is ongoing, for there are so many to whom the sine qua non label can be awarded. Chief among these is, of course, the great Jeffrey Rubin, without whom I might never have published a thing, and who at so many points gave me ideas, encouragement, and opportunities for which I can never overstate my gratitude. And my friend and colleague Pamela Geller has shown me by example how to maintain a healthful perspective and joy in life amid constant vilification and ongoing threats of blood and death. If there is any justice and historical memory, free people of successive generations will celebrate and laud her as one of the unsung heroes of this generation, a foremost champion of freedom in this rapidly darkening age.
It is for those free people of the future, if there are any, that I wrote this book.
NOTES
An ISIS Timeline
1.“The Islamic State,” Mapping Militant Organizations, Stanford University, March 10, 2005.
2.Daniel L. Byman, “The Resurgence of al Qaeda in Iraq,” Brookings, December 12, 2013.
3.Lee Ferran and Rym Momtaz, “ISIS: Trail of Terror,” ABC News, February 23, 2015.
4.“ISIS Applies Its Own Laws in Raqqa,” Al-Monitor, June 3, 2013.
5.Adam Schreck (Associated Press), “Al-Qaeda Claims Responsibility for ‘Bold Raid Blessed by God’ After Hundreds Escape Abu Ghraib,” National Post, July 23, 2013.
6.Ghazwan Hassan (Agence-France Presse), “Six Killed As Militants Overrun Iraq’s Samarra,” Daily Star (Lebanon), June 5, 2014.
7.Gwynne Dyer, “Iraq Falling in the Face of Jihadis,” Prince George Citizen, June 13, 2014.
8.Agence-France Presse, “Syria Says Giving Military Support to Kurds in Kobani,” Daily Star (Lebanon), October 22, 2014.
9.JohnLee Varghese, “3 Teenage American ‘ISIS Jihadi Brides’ Arrested in Germany While Trying to Flee to Syria,” International Business Times, October 22, 2014.
10.Sam Jones, “More than Half World’s Countries Now Producing Jihadis,” Financial Times, May 27, 2015.
11.Lora Mofta, “ISIS Nuclear Weapon? Islamic State Claims It Can Buy Nukes from Pakistan with a Year in Dabiq Propaganda Magazine,” International Business Times, May 23, 2015.
Introduction
1.Adam Withnall, “Iraq Crisis: Isis Declares Its Territories a New Islamic State with ‘Restoration of Caliphate’ in Middle East,” Independent, June 29, 2014.
2.Ian Johnston, “The Rise of Isis: Terror Group Now Controls an Area the Size of Britain, Expert Claims,” Independent, September 3, 2014; Janine di Giovanni, Leah McGrath Goodman, and Damien Sharkov, “How Does ISIS Fund Its Reign of Terror?,” Newsweek, November 6, 2014.
3.Barack Obama, “Statement by the President on ISIL,” WhiteHouse.gov, September 10, 2014.
4.David Remnick, “Going the Distance,” New Yorker, January 27, 2014.
5.Dan Merica, “ISIS Is Neither Islamic nor a State, says Hillary Clinton,” CNN, October 7, 2014.
6.“Syria, More Than 20 Thousand Foreign Fighters Have Joined the Jihad,” Asia News, February 11, 2015.
Chapter One: Born of Blood and Slaughter
1.Gary Gambill, “Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: A Biographical Sketch,” Terrorism Monitor, vol. 2, issue 24 (December 15, 2004).
2.Ibid.; Craig Whitlock, “Al-Zarqawi’s Biography,” Washington Post, June 8, 2006.
3.Gambill, “Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.”
4.Ibid.
5.Whitlock, “Al-Zarqawi’s Biography.”
6.Aaron Y. Zelin, “The War between ISIS and al-Qaeda for Supremacy of the Global Jihadist Movement,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, June 2014.
7.Gambill, “Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.”
8.Ibid.
9.Whitlock, “Al-Zarqawi’s Biography.”
10.“‘Zarqawi’ Beheaded US Man in Iraq,” BBC News, May 13, 2004; James Joyner, “Video: American Hostage Eugene Armstrong Beheaded [including selections from AP and Reuters reports],” Outside the Beltway, September 20, 2004.
11.Steven Stalinsky, “Dealing in Death,” National Review, May 24, 2004.
12.Jeffrey Pool, trans., “Zarqawi’s Pledge of Allegiance to Al-Qaeda: From Mu’asker Al-Battar, Issue 21,” Terrorism Monitor, vol. 2, issue 24 (December 15, 2004).
13.“Purported bin Laden Tape Endorses al-Zarqawi,” CNN, December 27, 2004.
14.Asif Haroon Raja, “From ISI to ISIL to IS to IS,” States Times, August 2, 2014.
15.Chris McGreal, “Barack Obama Declares Iraq War a Success,” Guardian, December 14, 2011.
16.Raja, “From ISI to ISIL to IS to IS.”
17.McGreal, “Barack Obama Declares.”
18.Ruth Sherlock, “How a Talented Footballer Became World’s Most Wanted man, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” Telegraph, November 11, 2014.
19.Aaron Y. Zelin, “Al-Qaeda Disaffiliates with the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham,” Washington Institute, February 4, 2014.
20.Adam Goldman, “Ohio Man Who Trained with Jabhat al-Nusra Is Indicted on Terrorism Charges,” Washington Post, April 16, 2015.
21.Ibid.
22.Erin McClam, “‘More Extreme Than Al Qaeda’? How ISIS Compares to Other Terror Groups,” NBC News, June 20, 2014.
23.Linda Qiu, “David Gregory: Al-Qaida Cast Off ISIS as ‘Too Extreme,” Politi-Fact, August 13, 2014.
24.Mark Tran, “Who Are Isis? A Terror Group Too Extreme Even for al-Qaida,” Guardian, June 11, 2014.
25.Steve Bird, “So Wicked That Even Al Qaeda Disowned Them: Letter Found at Bin Laden’s Hideout Warned of Islamic State’s Extreme Brutality,” Daily Mail, August 10, 2014.
26.Translated document #SOCOM 2012 0000004 from the cache of documents found at Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound, Washington Post, pp. 5–6, http://www.washingtonpost.com/r/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2012/05/03/Foreign/Graphics/osama-bin-laden-documents-combined.pdf.
27.The twenty-one-page letter found at bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound did contain a principled argument from Islamic texts against causing unnecessary casualties among innocent Muslims in, for example, mosque bombings and suicide attacks in marketplaces. (See translated document #SOCOM 2012 0000004, pp. 11–21.) But that argument was aimed only obliquely against ISIS—its main target seems to have been the Pakistani Taliban. And as we shall see later in this chapter, ISIS founder Zarqawi developed an effective answer, firmly grounded in Islamic law and authorities, to the misgivings of his sometime sponsors in al-Qaeda about the savage tactics he favored. In fact the author of the al-Qaeda letter seems to be on the defensive when it comes to the rulings of Islamic jurisprudence on the treatment of Christians—at one point having to argue that “some of the rulings of the scholars concerning Jihad” no longer apply because “they were released when Islam was strong, mighty, and defensible.” Perhaps his feeling that he wasn’t on strong ground explains why he didn’t want to confront ISIS on first principles—dismissing “the statements of the scholars” as “irrelevant” to the kind of tactical discussion he wanted to have: “We are here talking about the interest and the priorities not about the roots of the issue.” (Ibid., p. 7). Somehow harder-line jihadis never seem to have much trouble justifying their atrocities from Islamic texts and rulings. It’s any Muslim who argues for moderation—even when, as in this case, the relative “moderate” is an al-Qaeda spokesman!—that has the more difficult task.
28.“Look Who’s Talking: John Brennan,” Fox News, March 23, 2015.
29.“Jihadists ‘Bulldoze Berm’ Dividing Iraq from Syria,” Agence France-Presse, June 11, 2014.
30.Adam Withnall, “Iraq Crisis: Isis Declares Its Territories a New Islamic State with ‘Restoration of Caliphate’ in Middle East,” Independent, June 20, 2014.
31.Sherlock, “How a Talented Footballer.”
32.Janine di Giovanni, “Who Is ISIS Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?,” Newsweek, December 8, 2014.
33.Martin Chulov, “Isis:
The Inside Story,” Guardian, December 11, 2014.
34.Ashraf Khalil, “Camp Bucca Turns 180 Degrees from Abu Ghraib,” Los Angeles Times, January 19, 2005.
35.Chulov, “Isis.”
36.Sherlock, “How a Talented Footballer.”
37.“Zawahiri’s Letter to Zarqawi (English Translation),” Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/zawahiris-letter-to-zarqawi-english-translation-2.
38.“Letter Addressed to Atiyah,” from the tranche of documents taken from Osama bin Laden’s compound and released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on May 20, 2015, http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ubl/english/Letter%20Addressed%20to%20Atiyah.pdf.
39.Ali Ibrahim Al-Moshki, “AQAP Announces Support for ISIL,” Yemen Times, August 19, 2014.
40.Paul Cruickshank, “Al Qaeda in Yemen rebukes ISIS,” CNN, November 21, 2014.
41.Ibid.
42.“Top Commander of al Qaeda in Yemen: Beheadings Are ‘Barbaric,’” CBS, December 8, 2014; Alessandria Masi, “Difference between Al-Qaeda and ISIS: Senior AQAP Leader Holds ‘Press Conference,’ Said Beheadings Are ‘Big Mistake,’” International Business Times, December 8, 2014.
43.Ibid.
44.Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo, trans. Henry Yule, ed. and annotated Henri Cordier (John Murray, 1920), chapter 23.
45.Bernard Lewis, The Assassins: A Radical Sect In Islam (Basic Books, 1967), 12.
46.Polo, Travels, chapter 24.
47.Ben McClellan, “Controversial Aussie Muslim Backs Right to Fight for Islamic State,” Daily Telegraph, December 5, 2014.
48.Loubna Mrie, Vera Mironova, and Sam Whitt, “‘I Am Only Looking Up to Paradise,’” Foreign Policy, October 2, 2014.
49.Muhammed Ibn Ismail Al-Bukhari, Sahih al-Bukhari: The Translation of the Meanings, trans. Muhammad Muhsin Khan (Darussalam, 1997), vol. 9, book 93, no. 7142.
50.Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, Sahih Muslim, trans. Abdul Hamid Siddiqi, rev. ed. (Kitab Bhavan, 2000), no. 4554.
51.Ibid.
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