Headlines:
• Iraq Crisis: The Country is Facing Imminent Break Up, Say Western Diplomats
• Will Obama Repeat His Iraq Mistakes in Afghanistan?
• Should China Fear Islamic Insurgency?
Iraq Crisis: The Country is Facing Imminent Break Up, Say Western Diplomats
Western officials fear Iraq is facing imminent break-up, as the jihadist takeover of the north seeks to carve the country into different religious fiefdoms. Using their strongest language to date, diplomats warned that the “sheer scale” of the crisis could defeat belated efforts by the country’s fractious politicians to resolve it. “We have used the word crisis about Iraq before, but this is the real thing,” a Western diplomat told the Telegraph. “There is no doubt about the scale of the threat that it poses to Iraq’s continued existence as a state, and it is also a threat to the wider region too.” The diplomat also voiced doubts about the ability of Iraq’s politicians, including Nouri al-Maliki, the country’s Shia prime minister, to bury their sectarian differences. While John Kerry, the US secretary of state, warned on Monday that greater unity was the only way to stabilise the country, the diplomat said the politicians were “trapped in a pattern that was hard to break out of.” “Iraq’s political leaders now mostly realise the problems,” the diplomat said. “But has it translated into action yet? It has not.” In a further sign of the West’s lack of confidence in Mr Maliki’s government, the diplomat disclosed that routine help for Iraq’s counter terrorism units was being limited because of “significant human rights concerns.” He added that heavy-handed policing by Iraq’s Shia-dominated security forces had led to “systematic alienation” of the Sunni minority. As a result, some Sunnis had actively helped the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (Isis) to take over the cities of Mosul and Tikrit. “Isis could not have done this on their own,” he said. [Source: The Daily Telegraph]
For several decades now, America’s plan has been to divide Iraq into three entities: A Kurdish North, Sunni centre and a Shia South. The divisions are based on the distribution of oil away from Sunni control and this gives rise to the notion of the US supporting a Shia crescent stretching from Lebanon to Yemen. The division of Muslim lands will never end unless Muslims return to Islam through the re-establishment of the rightly guided Caliphate.
Will Obama Repeat His Iraq Mistakes in Afghanistan?
If you like the unfolding disaster in Obama-abandoned Iraq, you are going to love Obama-abandoned Afghanistan. Just two weeks before Iraq descended into chaos, President Obama stepped into the Rose Garden to announce his plan to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2016. “It’s time to turn the page on more than a decade in which so much of our foreign policy was focused on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Obama declared. “Americans have learned that it’s harder to end wars than begin them — but this is how wars end in the 21st century.” If Iraq is how wars end in the 21st century, we’re in big trouble. Afghanistan will be no different if Obama goes through with his withdrawal plans. The Taliban is nowhere near as defeated today as ISIS was when Obama withdrew U.S. forces from Iraq. Just last week, the Taliban launched a major attack on NATO in eastern Afghanistan. Not only is the Taliban not militarily defeated, but it is winning the ideological struggle as well. Obama’s release of five senior Taliban leaders from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was a shot in the arm for the Taliban — celebrated as a “great victory” by their leader, Mullah Omar. The eventual return of the Taliban Five to Afghanistan will energize and embolden Taliban forces. If Obama withdraws, the Taliban will retake cities and territory it lost during Obama’s 2009 surge. At a bare minimum, it will restore control over large swaths of the country, and in a worst-case scenario it could take back Kabul and control the entire country. In either case, al-Qaeda will return to Afghanistan, reclaiming the safe haven it lost after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Moreover, with U.S. forces completely withdrawn, al-Qaeda will have greater freedom of movement across the border in Pakistan, because the United States cannot carry out drone strikes in Pakistan without bases in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, unless Obama acts, ISIS will consolidate its control over large swaths of Iraq and Syria — and could even take control of Baghdad. This will leave us with a situation far worse than the status quo before Sept. 11. Before Sept. 11, our enemies controlled one nation. Now they will control two — one Islamic caliphate in Iraq controlled by ISIS, and another in Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban and core al-Qaeda. These two caliphates will then compete for followers among the jihadi faithful by using their new safe havens to see which one can carry out the most successful attacks against the United States and her allies. The leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, issued a warning to Americans in January, declaring, “Soon we’ll be in direct confrontation. So watch out for us, for we are with you, watching.” [Source: Washington Post]
It is interesting to note that West is increasingly worried by the imminent return of the Caliphate, whereas some in the Muslim ummah still view the Caliphate’s return many years away. It is unfortunate to see the West who has its finger on the pulse of the Muslim ummah fretting about the Caliphate’s return, while some Muslims continue to proclaim that the Caliphate is a fantasy and their preferred ruling system is democracy.
Should China Fear Islamic Insurgency?
The presence of Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region can be traced back to the eighth century. Like many peoples of Central Asia, their experience was shaped by war and conquest. Now, more than half a century after Xinjiang officially became a part of greater China, the Uyghur, who account for slightly fewer than 50 percent of Xinjiang’s overall population, are still treated like strangers. They remain oppressed. China maintains strict religious policies across the country, and Islam is not exempt. For example, children under the age of 18 are forbidden from practicing religion. According to Greg Fay, Project Manager at the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), these laws are more lax in other regions, but are enforced with an iron fist against the Uyghur in Xinjiang. Though Islam in China has enjoyed a robust revival in recent years, the Uyghur are facing growing oppression. More people are being arrested for online religious activities, such as watching religious classes online or searching for religious texts, in Xinjiang than ever before. “The policy in Xinjiang has become more and more rigid,” Fay reflected. Uyghurs complain of religious, cultural and economic persecution by China’s Han-dominated government in Beijing and, much as Tibetans do, struggle to preserve their culture. Ostensibly to prevent the spread of Islamic extremism, China restricts the ability of Uyghurs to travel. The government’s efforts to crack down on Islamic violence began in 1998 with the “strike hard” campaign. Although this campaign was national in scale, in Xinjiang, it was solely focused on the Uyghur population. These security measures still result in hundreds of Uyghur arrests annually. Later, in the post 9/11 era, Beijing took advantage of the global culture of fear surrounding Muslims, and branded the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a Uyghur terrorist group that some experts doubt even exists, as a terrorist organization. In August 2002, during a period of increased U.S.-Chinese cooperation, the U.S. State Department added the virtually unknown ETIM group to its list of terrorist groups. It was removed soon thereafter, presumably because of a lack of evidence. [Source: The Diplomat]
No matter how hard the Chinese government tries to suppress the Muslims of Xingjian, they will not be able to extinguish the light of Islam. Allah says:
يُرِيدُونَ لِيُطْفِؤُوا نُورَ اللَّهِ بِأَفْوَاهِهِمْ وَاللَّهُ مُتِمُّ نُورِهِ وَلَوْ كَرِهَ الْكَافِرُونَ
“They want to extinguish the light of Allah with their mouths, but Allah will perfect His light, although the disbelievers dislike it.”
(Saf: 61)