The Field of Fight

by Lieutenant General (Ret. ) Michael T. Flynn

  What works? Ironically, Ronald Reagan proved to be the true revolutionary. While liberals like Carter invited the success of radicals who installed totalitarian regimes, Reagan supported democratic forces in both friendly and unfriendly tyrannies, from the Soviet Union to Argentina. Reagan knew what both Carter and now Obama reject: that America is the one truly revolutionary country in the world, and part of our national mission is to support democratic revolutionaries against their oppressors.

  Late in the third year of his presidency, Jimmy Carter had an epiphany when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. At which point, fear of Communism was no longer irrational in his eyes. He began the expansion of our military budget that ultimately made the United States so powerful that the gray men in the Kremlin did not dare to lash out at us when the bell tolled for the Soviet Empire.

  Obama (and our country) is now at a similar historic juncture. Does he now see the urgency of responding to the anti-American tyrants in Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, and Syria? Will he support their opponents? Will he ever come to grips with the likes of Radical Islamism and its allies? Not bloody likely!

  Secular Radicals, Jihadi Radicals

  On the face of it, the alliance between Russia and Iran is surprising. No doubt Vladimir Putin remembers that the Ayatollah Khomeini called upon Soviet dictator Leonid Brezhnev to convert to Islam, and Putin knows well that the Iranians sent thousands of Korans and many radical imams into the Muslim regions of the USSR. Putin himself waged a bloody battle against Radical Islamists in Chechnya, and they, too, had links to Iran.

  It seems very unlikely that Putin is pleased by the thought of a fanatical Muslim state virtually on his borders. One of the wisest analysts of Putin’s thinking, Walter Laqueur, notes in his book Putinism that “it is difficult to assess the prospects of the militant Islamic movement, because most of their activities take place underground. It seems probable that at least some of the militants of the Afghan war will invade the Central Asian republics.” He adds that Putin is reluctant (to fully integrate countries like) Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan into the Russian Federation, preferring governments with limited independence. Laqueur judges it is likely that “parts of Central Asia will remain danger zones.” These are areas where the Iranians have been actively sponsoring Shi’ite radicalism.

  These are very serious concerns, yet Putin has done a lot for the Khamenei regime. Russian involvement in Persian affairs goes back centuries, and I have pointed out that there are very close working relations between the two countries, the most spectacular example being the Iranian nuclear program. The nuclear reactor at Bushehr is a Russian product, as will be the next two reactors. Iran has contracted for billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment, as well as very good Russian antiaircraft missiles, the infamous S–300s. Finally, there is no denying the fact that the two are fighting side by side in Syria trying to save the regime of their mutual ally, Bashar al-Assad.

  How does one explain this superficially unlikely partnership? In part, it’s the old nostrum: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Putin has declared the United States (and NATO generally) to be a national security threat to Russia, and “Death to America” is the official chant of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Both the Putinists and the radical Iranian Muslims agree on the identity of their main enemy. Hence, one part of the answer is surely that their alliance is simply the logical outgrowth of their hostility toward America. Certainly it would be a mistake to describe the relationship as a warm embrace; there is precious little trust between the two, and if they fail to win in Syria, we can expect to hear some very nasty rhetoric coming out of Moscow and Tehran.

  Is this, then, simply an alliance of convenience? Is it to be explained by one of the hard rules of geopolitics—the existence of a common enemy? And does this account for the global alliance, from Pyongyang to Havana? What about the presence of ISIS and al Qaeda in the alliance? I don’t believe it is.

  The Russians and Iranians have more in common than a shared enemy. There is also a shared contempt for democracy and an agreement—by all the members of the enemy alliance—that dictatorship is a superior way to run a country, an empire, or a caliphate. There are certainly differences between the religious and secular tyrannies—the importance of Sharia law to the jihadis is perhaps the most significant—but both seek, and fight for, an all-powerful leader.

  Recent public opinion polls in Russia show that the great majority of young people believe “there was a national leader deciding all important political issues concerning the presence in the future of their country; the rest of the people had no influence on this, and there was no reason to change this state of affairs.” The dividing line between religious and secular tyranny is often fuzzy, and, except for the Communist regimes in North Korea and Cuba, none of our enemies accepts the notion of separation of church (or mosque) and state. The Russian Orthodox Church is now far more powerful than it was during the Communist years, and, contrary to conventional wisdom, Radical Islam played a major role in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq long before our arrival in 2003.

  Religious convictions are far more potent in recruiting followers, whether by mass movements or nominally secular regimes, than intellectual tracts or legalistic documents. Religion provides believers with the meaning of life; even the mightiest of dictators can’t do that. This is nowhere better demonstrated than in the history of the Islamic State, which was spawned by Saddam Hussein himself.

  It was long said that Baathism, the official doctrine of Saddam in Iraq and the Assads in Syria, was an Arab secular socialism. It was proclaimed during the seizure of power in both countries, and was often cited as the ideological basis for their close ties with the Soviet Union. Based as it was on the Soviet model, Baathism was an effective system for tyrannical rule, but it did not inspire the people. During the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the “godless” nature of Saddam’s regime was a centerpiece of Iranian propaganda, and it was quite effective. As a result, Saddam made a basic change in his foreign policy in the summer of 1986, when the Iraqi Politburo (Pan-Arab Command) decided to support foreign “religious currents.”

  This led to Iraqi support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, for the radical regime of Hassan al-Turabi in Sudan, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and eventually for al Qaeda. Within Iraq, the Baathist regime starting funding (mostly Sunni but sometimes Shi’ite) mosques and imams. When Baath Party founder Michel Aflaq, a Christian atheist, died in 1989, official eulogies claimed he had converted to Islam. In November of that year, the Saddam University for Islamic Studies opened its doors in Baghdad, the Koran had become required reading (even in official party headquarters), and four years later Saddam announced a full-fledged Faith Campaign.

  We’re talking 1993, ten years before the U.S. invasion. From then on, the ruling Iraqi elite became increasingly Islamized, so that when the insurrection was organized to fight us and our allies, it was largely led by men who had received two kinds of professional and ideological preparation. As officials of the Baathist state—particularly from the intelligence and counterintelligence branches—they had undergone training by the intelligence organizations of the Soviet Empire. Kyle Orton, Middle East analyst and blogger, and others rightly stress that “All of the leaders of ISIS’s Military Council, its most important institution, have since 2010 been [former regime officials].” (https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2015/12/12/the-islamic-state-was-coming-without-the-invasion-of-iraq/)

  These men had also received religious indoctrination, and, by 2003 the main precursor of ISIS (the small but growing organization led by Zarqawi) had established religious requirements for new members; they had to pass an entrance examination.

  Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was the driving force. He arrived in Baghdad in May 2002 with other top al Qaeda figures. He moved around the country, recruiting individuals such as Aleppo-based Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the Islamic State’s powerful official spokesman, and setting up the ratlines through Syria that would bring the foreign fighters to the Isla
mic State’s predecessor (al Qaeda in Iraq). The Assad regime was complicit in Zarqawi’s actions at this time, too, not only in forming the networks that brought the foreign fighters to the Islamic State but in the assassination of USAID worker Laurence Foley in Amman, Jordan. In November 2002, Zarqawi again returned to Iraq and took up residence in Ansar al-Islam–controlled territory, an Iranian proxy. Zarqawi and his band of Ansar fighters fled to Iran during the initial stages of the 2003 U.S. invasion. From interrogations conducted during our operations in Iraq, we learned that for a short period in the spring of 2003, Zarqawi was “detained” by Iran and then subsequently released. While there is little information as to why they detained him, one can only speculate that Iran likely worked with and advised Zarqawi on his future plans for taking over Iraq.

  In Saddam’s case, he had brought thousands of foreign fighters into Iraq, many through state-directed mosques which were connected to international Islamist networks, and these fighters, under the command of the heavily radicalized loyalist militia, the Fedayeen Saddam, were almost the only resistance against the Coalition invasion.

  The war in Iraq foreshadowed the alliance against us, and showed that secular and religious forces, movements, and countries could join forces. Notice again, for example, that Zarqawi went from Iraq to Iran at the start of the war, and then returned. There was no love lost between Saddam and the Iranians, and Zarqawi was not an Iraqi instrument by any means, but both regimes helped him.

  The interplay between religion and pure power is also on display in some of the captured ISIS documents published in the Western press. German analysts have been struck by the striking similarity between ISIS bureaucracy—especially when it comes to spying on their own residents—and the notorious Stasi system of control in Communist East Germany (Stasi was the intelligence arm of the former East German regime under Soviet Communist dictatorship). No surprise here; since so many of the top officials of the Islamic State came from Saddam’s regime (most of whom were trained by Communists), it was only to be expected that their Sharia-based caliphate would resemble the Soviet bloc.

  Thus, religious fanatics and secular tyrants work quite well together, transcending even deep ideological divides. The most dramatic example comes from the infamous case of the grand mufti of Jerusalem in the 1930s and 1940s, Amin al-Husseini, and his efforts to forge an operational relationship between Nazi Germany and his own Muslim Brotherhood.

  Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu catalyzed the discussion of the historical origins of contemporary Islamist anti-Semitism in European Nazi and fascist regimes in the last century, which has produced some useful and thoughtful contributions, but in the process an important part of the story has gone lost. It’s the part of the story that deals with Husseini’s ties to Soviet Communism. Lenin and Stalin have somehow failed to claim their rightful places at the top of the pedestal of evil; Hitler’s got it all to himself. But in the case of Husseini, and indeed of jihadism more generally, any serious discussion must make room for the Communists. Listen to the late scholar Laurent Murawiec in his masterpiece The Mind of Jihad:

  Starting in the 1920s and 1930s the Communist Party of Palestine (CPP) was the great instructor of the pan-Islamist nationalist movement led by the grand mufti Amin al Husseini in the fine arts of communist agitprop, the conveyor of crucial Marxist-Leninist concepts, such as “imperialism” and “colonialism.” It pioneered the application of European political categories to the Middle Eastern scene in general, and the Jewish-Arab conflict in particular. Most of the ugly repertoire of modern Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism came from the Soviet Union (with only the racial-biological component added by the Nazis). The CPP taught the Arab extremists the use of Bolshevik rhetorical devices previously unknown. The “anti-imperialism” so imported by the Communists was remarkably ingested by the Muslim extremists, to the point of becoming integral to their conceptions and expression. It merged with traditional jihadi views that animated the Arabs of the region. In the amalgamation of Bolshevism with jihad that turned out to be so crucial to modern jihad, this was crucial to training the Arabs in Soviet-style politics. (Laurent Murawiec, The Mind of Jihad, p. 238)

  As Murawiec’s last sentence suggests, the Brotherhood’s Palestinian leader learned a great deal about politics from the Kremlin, and he worked very closely with the Communists throughout his career. It wasn’t only the Nazis who inspired him; he was a true student of twentieth-century totalitarianism, and he created a toxic poison of Nazi racism—and its concrete application—and Soviet Communism. Both elements were later central to the Ayatollah Khomeini, who similarly combined German-style anti-Semitism with Soviet methods of organizing revolution. As Husseini worked with the Palestinian Communist Party to acquire and maintain power, so Khomeini worked with the Iranian Communist Party—Tudeh—to overthrow the shah and create the Islamist tyranny we see today.

  There are many important lessons in the history of the evolution of the concept of jihad in the last century.

  First of all, in the years prior to the beginning of World War II, would-be revolutionaries throughout the world often borrowed methods and doctrines from both Nazis and Communists. Don’t forget that Hitler and Stalin cooperated diplomatically and militarily to dismember Poland, and the Nazi-Communist alliance only ended with the German invasion of Russia.

  Second, German and Soviet tyrannies had a lot in common, and radical Muslims freely picked elements from each in the creation of a jihadi ideology and the structure of Islamist states, whether the Islamic Republic of Iran or the current Islamic State.

  Third, as in the case of Husseini, it is a mistake to look at Muslim tyrants as Middle Eastern versions of a specific Western dictatorship. They are attracted to, and inspired by, earlier totalitarian regimes.

  Keep your eyes on that word “totalitarian.” That is the key concept.

  This also helps clarify the nature of the global alliance we face. The countries and movements that are trying to destroy us have worldviews that may seem to be in violent conflict with one another. But they are united by their hatred of the democratic West and their conviction that dictatorship is superior. So while it may appear that, say, there is little in common between Communist North Korea and radical Shi’ite Iran, or between the leaders of the radical Sunni Islamic State’s “caliphate” and the Iranians, in fact it is no more difficult for them to cooperate in the war against us than it was for Hitler and Stalin to cooperate in the 1930s and 1940s.

  Not that ideological differences are trivial. Ever since al Qaeda was smashed in Afghanistan in late 2001, al Qaeda leaders found haven in Iran. This meant that the world’s preeminent Sunni terrorist organization had an operational base within the world’s preeminent Shi’ite country. That relationship has always been strained, and top al Qaeda leaders have often chafed at having to submit to Iranian discipline. Sometimes bin Laden himself would erupt angrily at the Iranians. Yet, as we learned from documents captured when bin Laden was killed at his secret location in Pakistan in 2011, he received considerable assistance. At a minimum, the ability for al Qaeda terrorists to transit Iran was very useful.

  The public would know a lot more about this complex relationship if the Obama administration would permit the publication of the (more than a million) documents seized by operatives of the Sensitive Site Exploitation team at bin Laden’s compound immediately following his death. That very important body of information constitutes what a senior U.S. military official calls “the single largest collection of senior terrorist materials ever.” (quoted by Thomas Joscelyn and Stephen Hayes, www.wsj.com/articles/stephen-hayes-and-thomas-joscelyn-how-america-was-misled-on-al-qaedas-demise-1425600796)

  Disappointingly, only a couple dozen of those documents have been made public, and the Defense Intelligence Agency’s numerous summaries and analyses of the files remain classified. But even the public peek gives us considerable insight into the capabilities of this very dangerous global organization. One letter to bin Laden reveals that
al Qaeda was working on chemical and biological weapons in Iran. Another document mentions negotiations with the government of Pakistan. Others provide details of operations under way in Africa, and still others speak of preparations for Mumbai-style attacks on European cities. Given the scale of ISIS-inspired or directed attacks we’ve seen in Europe, in the United States, and elsewhere around the world, I’d say we better smarten up and pay more attention to these and other Radical Islamist statements.

  Our guys fighting al Qaeda in Afghanistan and elsewhere badly wanted to know what we could learn from the bin Laden files, and in fact we learned a lot. Contrary to what the administration was saying at the time (during the 2012 election campaign between Obama and Mitt Romney), when the president and his supporters were assuring the American people that al Qaeda was broken and on the run, we learned that their strength had roughly doubled. We were still facing a growing al Qaeda threat. And it was not just in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. We saw it growing in Yemen. And we clearly saw it growing in East Africa and elsewhere across North and West Africa. The threat wasn’t going away, it was expanding.

  The bin Laden documents also show that al Qaeda is extremely attentive to public opinion. Over and over, bin Laden condemns the bloody brutality of other radical Muslim organizations, and he is especially agitated by videos that show the terrorists killing other Muslims. Unlike the Islamic State, which used the videos to recruit thousands of new jihadis, al Qaeda strove to keep a low profile, counting on its doctrine and the effectiveness of its operations to expand. I certainly would not say that al Qaeda is a “moderate” organization. They intend to destroy us and their passion for a caliphate is no less intense than the Islamic State’s. While their ideology is the same, the two organizations have different tactics, and time will tell which of them has judged the situation more accurately.