Saudi Arabia stews in policy hell: Spengler

Asia Times ^ | January 3, 2016 | David P. Goldman

[kabar]

Iran is a big problem, no doubt.

Iran is the biggest problem.

But they are on the Shi’ite side. Which does not explain al Queda, ISIS, and the whole majority of militant islamism. What is the driving force behind the rise in militant SUNNI Islamic fundamentalism?

They are competing against the non-arab Persians and the Shi'a. When did militant Islamic fundamentalism start in recent history? Check the year 1979. The mullahs humiliated the US holding our people hostage for 444 days. Our embassy was overrun twice after Khomeini came in. Who funded Hezbollah? Who blew up Khobar Towers? Who blew up the Marine and French Barracks in Beirut using suicide bombers?

What is the driving force behind the rise in militant SUNNI Islamic fundamentalism?

The same force that animates Shi'a fundamentalism. It is radical Islam that is the problem. It really doesn't matter whether it is Boko Haram, ISIS, AQ, Abu Sayyaf, Quds Force, the Haqqani Network, Kataib Hezbollah, or the many other Muslim terrorist groups around the globe. Trying to blame individual countries misses the point. It is like singling out individual families in the Mafia.

[BeauBo]

Well, you seem to have some sort of loyalty to Saudis or wahabbis, that makes you willing to bend over backwards (intellectually speaking) as an apologist, and deny their role in spreading and supporting militant Sunni extremism.

I don’t believe that you will be objective about that. Perhaps you were posted to the embassy there, drank the kool aid, and “went local”, or internalized the habitual self censorship required there. For whatever reason, you seem committed to ignoring the subtle indicators, as well as the glaring mountains of facts, that all these Sunni jihadis are wahabbi trained, and following wahabbi doctrines, except for agreeing on who is in charge. Wahabbism is militant sunni islamic fundamentalism.

You say that trying to blame individual countries misses the point - IRAN that is to blame.

You say that militant islamic fundamentalism only sprang up in the modern era after the Iranian revolution in 1979, and attempt to conflate all islamic militancy to shi’ite Iran. But I recall that the Wahabbi Ikhwan was murdering foreigners on sight back in the time of Abdul Aziz, that wahabbis slaughtered Shia by the thousands (man, woman and child) during the plunder of Karbala a century earlier, and that the Muslim Brotherhood led the muslim Handschar Divisions of the SS, while lobbying Hitler to adopt a genocidal final solution to the Jewish problem. The hundreds of wahabbis who attacked the grand mosque in Mecca in 1979 were not Iranian surrogates either.

Wahabbism must be refuted, discredited and bankrupted.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-yousaf-butt-/saudi-wahhabism-islam-terrorism_b_6501916.html

[kabar]

We can only go around this tree so many times. We just will have to agree to disagree.

You are obsessed with the Saudis. We could eliminate the whabbis and still have militant Islamic fundamentalism. Islam has a problem and we have a problem with Islam.

You say that militant islamic fundamentalism only sprang up in the modern era after the Iranian revolution in 1979, and attempt to conflate all islamic militancy to shi’ite Iran.

Another phony strawman. We have seen a dramatic rise in militant Islamic violence since 1979. Yes, historically Islam or the sword has existed for centuries ever since Islam was founded. But Iran provided the inspiration and the resources to demonstrate how an Islamic country could stand up and humiliate the Great Satan. The US and other colonial powers were shown to be paper tigers. Islam became the vehicle to destroy their influence and power. Read OBL's 1996 and 1998 fatwas declaring war on the US and its allies

In August of 1996, Osama bin Laden issued his first fatwa, a 30-page polemic entitled "Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places," against the United States and Israel. The central premise of this fatwa is that "the people of Islam had suffered from aggression, iniquity, and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist-Crusaders alliance and their collaborators." He chronicles the various "injustices" and concludes that, "It is no longer possible to be quiet. It is not acceptable to give a blind eye to this matter.

There are many reasons why we are seeing the spread of Islamic fundamentalism and it is not due primarily to the Saudis. It is anti-Western, anti-modernity. Predominantly Muslim countries are mostly poor and governed by corrupt dictators even with the veneer of democracy. Huntington was right about The Clash of Civilizations.

The hundreds of wahabbis who attacked the grand mosque in Mecca in 1979 were not Iranian surrogates either.

The Grand Mosque seizure occurred during November and December 1979 when extremist insurgents calling for the overthrow of the House of Saud took over Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

Shortly after news of the takeover was released, the new Islamic revolutionary leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini told radio listeners, "It is not beyond guessing that this is the work of criminal American imperialism and international Zionism." Anger fueled by these rumors spread anti-American demonstrations throughout the Muslim world—in the Philippines, Turkey, Bangladesh, eastern Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan. In Islamabad, Pakistan, the U.S. embassy in that city was overrun by a mob on the day following the takeover, who burned the embassy to the ground. A week later, in Tripoli, Libya, another mob attacked and burned the U.S. embassy.

I went to our embassy in Islamabad shortly after the attack to inspect the damage. The mob burned down the Embassy killing one Marine on the roof. They also burned down an apartment building on the compound. The Embassy staff was trapped in the communications vault with the carpet literally melting under their feet. They were able to escape when the fires forced the mob off of the roof and out of the building. The attack was planned with the perpetrators arriving in buses and armed. They used tire jacks to removed the protective grills on the windows. A total of four people were killed.

It took several years, but we were able to get the Pakistanis to pay for the rebuilding of the compound. IMO Pakistan has the most zealous and volatile Muslims in the world. They are fanatics. The fact that they have nuclear weapons should concern everyone.

The Iranians may not have been directly involved in the attack, but the inspiration of the Iranian Revolution must have played a part along with Khomeini's hatred of the Saudi Royal Family. And once it happened, Khomeini fanned the flames causing great damage to the US in terms of property and lives.

[BeauBo]

OK, thanks for chatting.

We will have to disagree about wahabbism. You see no evil, I can’t miss it.