The Final Move Articles

Iran's Army Runs its Baghdad Embassy

2007-11-08T01:34:00.000-06:00

By MICHAEL D. EVANS
published: November 7, 2007

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRG) is using Iran's Baghdad embassy as its headquarters for secret military operations against coalition forces in Iraq, according to an Iranian opposition group.
Mohammad Mohadessin, spokesman for the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the parliament-in-exile of the Iranian Resistance, said in a statement that the IRG had transformed the embassy "into the most important center for coordinating its terrorist and intelligence activities against coalition forces."
IRG officers hold top positions throughout the Iranian government – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for example – so it is not surprising the embassy is under its control. Mohadessin identified four "diplomats" as senior Guards officers, including Ambassador Kazemi Qomi. "They are directly responsible for supervising the transfer of shipments of weapons and ammunition ... from Iran to [the Guard's] proxy forces in Iraq," he said.
Although Teheran denies it, the US has ample proof the Iranians are behind much of the killing of American soldiers in Iraq, from supplying sophisticated bomb-making material for the IEDs that have caused hundreds of casualties in recent months to infiltrating fighters.
Ironically, in his first state visit to Iran in early September, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki asked his host, President Ahmadinejad, for his support in quelling the violence that threatens to destroy Iraq. Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying, ''Iran will give its assistance to establish complete security in Iraq, because Iraq's security is Iran's security.'' It was not reported whether Ahmadinejad was smiling when he said that, but evidently Maliki needed reassurance. Just a few weeks later, when both leaders were attending the opening of the UN General Assembly, they met again at the Blue Mosque in Queens, New York, following Ahmadinejad's speech at Columbia University.
Last week the US imposed sweeping new sanctions against the IRG, because of Teheran's support for terrorism and nuclear weapons ambitions. The ban targeted three of Iran's largest banks and eight individuals Washington said were engaged in trading missiles and supporting terrorist groups throughout the Middle East. This is the first time the US has put a military force of a sovereign government in the same category as al-Qaida, Hamas, and Hizbullah.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards is a select force of some 200,000 members that is separate from the country's regular military. It has its own ground, naval, and air divisions. Guards members in southern Iraq are training Shi'ite militias to use mortars and rockets, according to US Army Maj.-Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of US forces south of Baghdad. He noted that rocket attacks were becoming "more accurate and more effective" due to the Iranians.
Mohadessin also said the IRG had taken over some of Iran's most lucrative companies and is profiting from trade with the European Union. "Over the years the [IRG] has created financial sources which do not fall under the control of the government," he said. "A major portion of the $40 billion in [non-petroleum] EU trade is now done with [the IRG], its affiliates, and its front companies."
This would seem to be a good place for Europe to apply pressure and help stop Teheran's march toward manufacturing nuclear weapons. But that would be expecting too much, even of countries within range of Iran's ballistic missiles. Christiane Hohmann, spokeswoman for the EU External Relations Commission, said the 27-nation bloc had not yet imposed sanctions on Iran. "There is no economic embargo against Iran in place and no economic sanctions; there are export restrictions in place with regard to dual-use goods," she said.
Doesn't the word appeasement mean anything to the Europeans after World War II? Iran is less a theological regime than a military dictatorship, and the IRG dominates political, economic, and cultural life, while protecting the ayatollahs and Ahmadinejad from opposition at home. Besides being Iran's top imam, Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and has exploited his control over the IRG to fortify his rule.

Dr. Michael D. Evans is the author of the New York Times #1 bestseller, The Final Move Beyond Iraq.

Ahmadinapolis

2007-11-05T11:06:00.000-06:00

By MICHAEL D. EVANS
Published: November 2, 2007

Anyone who believes the upcoming Annapolis peace summit is going to achieve anything substantive by territorial compromise is ignoring the reality of a century of conflict. Pushing such an idea is the worst possible thing President George W. Bush could do. The evangelicals who elected him will forgive him for virtually anything -- Iraq, immigration policy, government spending -- but they will not forgive him for touching Jerusalem or the Bible Lands.

In fact, this idea would be a double political suicide. In the United States, it would be the worst possible thing a president with a popularity rating of 24 percent could do 12 months before an election that will seal his legacy. In Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose popularity rating is also a bare 25 percent, is inviting his own political demise by announcing his intention to resurrect the Oslo agreement and the Road Map -- as if he had a true partner in peace while Palestinian terrorists fire daily salvoes of rockets and mortars from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel.

The Islamofascists who deny Israel's right to exist while they send suicide bombers around the world to murder anyone else who disagrees with them don't consider Annapolis as mere theater. They attend conferences such as the Organization of the Islamic Conference summit in October 2003, where Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad made a comment typical throughout the Muslim world:
“If we are to recover our dignity and that of Islam, our religion, it is we who must decide, it is we who must act…We [Muslims] are actually very strong: 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.”

The Annapolis conference is not a peace conference, but an “appeasement conference” to coalition-build Arab nations in preparation for an attack on Iran. The Madrid conference in 1991 was the last significant US-sponsored peace conference. It was orchestrated by then secretary of state James Baker – who in fact is pulling the strings of the Annapolis parley behind the scenes under the auspices of the Baker-Hamilton Report.

Annapolis is a smoke-and-mirror show in preparation for an attack that could, in fact, accomplish President Bush's declared goal of preventing World War III – a war that Iran's nuclear armament program is bringing closer every day. So far UN sanctions have been shrugged off by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mullahs who control him. And as Iran continues to pursue Armageddon, one Gulf State after another is seeking to purchase nuclear components.

Meanwhile, while talking peace out of one side of his mouth, Syrian President Bashar Assad has quietly been following his Iranian masters' lead. The result was an object lesson for Iran, its allies, and imitators: Israel's bombing raid in September. While Israel's military censor would confirm only that a bombing raid took place in Syria, without specifying the target, The New York Times and other media have published photographs that clearly show the destroyed objective was a nuclear reactor. Intelligence organizations have revealed the reactor was designed by North Korea specifically to manufacture weapons grade plutonium.

ABC News reported in July that Israel had shared intelligence on the Syrian site with the US. When America declined to act, Israel decided it had to strike in self-defense. It did so over the reported objections of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who said Israel and the US should "confront not attack."

The previous world war showed the disastrous folly of confronting but not attacking Hitler. Humanity will avoid a new world war – a nuclear one – only by attacking the threat posed by Ahmadinejad's Iran. In June 1981 in Baghdad and in Syria in September 2007, Israel has shown what must be done to keep the peace.

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Dr. Michael D. Evans is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Final Move Beyond Iraq.

Free Enterprise, a Tool for Terror

2007-10-23T08:32:00.000-05:00

By Dr. Michael D. Evans
Published: October 19, 2007

The $1.1 billion in contracts awarded to Iran and China reported by the press October 16 to build two enormous power plants is simply an outward indication of what has been going on internally for several years. Iran has been using free enterprise as a cover for the QUDS Force, the 60,000-strong Mahdi Army led by Moktata al-Sadr, and other pro-Iranian militia.

One of the plants will be built in Sadr City, a Shi’ite area under the control of al-Sadr; the other will be built free-of-charge by Iran. It will be located between the two southern Shi’ite cities of Najaf and Karbala.

This is no different from the “bait-and-switch game” that Iran has played using humanitarian projects as a cover for terror operations with Hezbollah and HAMAS.

Behind every rock in Iraq is an Iranian company. Iran is buying the Iraqi people. They are using free enterprise as the vehicle to export a Persian, Khomeini/Ahmadinejad revolution.
Iran now has the second largest embassy in Baghdad and consulates in virtually every major city in Iraq. The embassy and consulates are nothing more than war rooms to fund and plan the battles against the Great Satan, America. While in Iraq on a State invitation from President Barzani earlier this year, I was stunned to learn that Iranians are the largest purchasers of property in Iraq and are selling everything from tea, televisions, and technology to fund terror.
During a trip to Tehran earlier this year, Al Maliki promoted “economic ties and other ties that contribute to combating terrorism and its challenges.” According to the Iraqi Prime Minister, Iran and Iraq have “a joint understanding that they are keen to solve the problems and sufferings of the Iraqi people. And they are both convinced that their cooperation may lead to helping Iraq restore stability.” Is this not akin to turning the hen house over to the fox and hoping that the end result will be idyllic peace between the two?
The two countries have enjoyed economic ties in recent years, and in fact, trade between the two former foes reached a level of over a billion dollars annually. Baghdad is seeking even greater economic ties with its most powerful neighbor in the region. According to al-Maliki, he and his Iranian counterparts discussed and signed “a number of cooperation memorandums.” Iran is, in fact, a desired vacation destination for Iraqis looking to escape their own war-torn country. And tourism agreements between the two countries allow Iranians by the hundreds of thousands to travel to Iraq. This provides an open border for terrorists who secrete themselves amongst the pilgrims.
When asked about the newly penned agreement between Iraq, Iran and China, a spokesman for the American military in Iraq was quoted as saying, “We are of course watching Iran’s overall presence here in Iraq. As you know, it’s not always as it appears. Their QUDS force routinely uses the cover of business to mask their real purpose as an intelligence operative.”
In meeting with Iranian diplomats at the Intercontinental Hotel on September 20, 2007, I was astonished to realize that they were, in fact, having diplomatic meetings to discuss economic deals in a Queens mosque near JFK. Al-Maliki and Ahmadinejad were both present at the meetings. The two leaders have four things in common: madrassas, mullahs, mosques and money. It is surprising that the following morning al-Maliki had breakfast with President Bush.

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Dr. Michael D. Evans is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Final Move Beyond Iraq.

Where's the Outrage?

2007-10-11T12:41:00.000-05:00

Dr. Michael D. Evans
Published: October 9, 2007

On September 25, 2007, President Bush met with Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki at the United Nations in New York City. The night before, al-Maliki had dinner with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a blue-domed mosque near John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. The dinner followed Ahmadinejad's Holocaust- and gay-denying speech at Columbia University.

Not only was Ahmadinejad allowed a privileged U.S. entrance visa, he was also afforded Secret Service protection during his secret meeting at the Queens mosque with the $600 billion man, al-Maliki. To believe that the meeting was not sanctioned by the White House is extremely naïve.

Obviously, al-Maliki delivered a message from President Bush to Ahmadinejad; and Ahmadinejad reciprocated. Al-Maliki and Ahmadinejad are joined-at-the-hip by their Shi’a faith. Al-Maliki has been protecting the 60,000 member, pro-Iranian, Mahdi Army for years.

How could Ahmadinejad and al-Maliki fly under the radar in the media capital of the world? How Bush, Al-Maliki, and Ahmadinejad could elude the news media in coordinating linkage deserves an Academy Award in "shuck-and-jive, shake-and-bake, and smoke-and-mirrors."

Ahmadinejad has defied the world with his maniacal obsession to usher in the Mahdi, the Twelfth Imam, by building nuclear reactors. Virtually every speech he delivers is laced with the words "the perfect human being." He insinuated this phrase into the three speeches he has delivered at the U.N., in an 18-page letter delivered to President Bush on November 29, 2006, and in a letter to the American people.

In meeting with Iranian diplomats at the Intercontinental Hotel as they returned from Columbia University, the minister and two advisors told me, "Yes, the Mahdi is coming back soon, possibly in two to three years. President Ahmadinejad speaks to him constantly. He was born in Iraq; His divine occultation began in an area near Samarra, Iraq. After his reappearance, he will establish his world capital in Kufa, Iraq."

A Persian/Shi’a revolution is spreading like an Ebola virus across Iraq while the world sleeps. The Sunni Gulf Oil States are in a state of panic, all shopping for nuclear reactors to counter a non-Arab existential threat. The Saudis are even building a 400-mile wall between Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

For the President of a country to define his foreign policy based upon an apocalyptic theological belief is completely insane. But it is just as bizarre for the Department and the White House to cry wolf while holding open the door to the chicken coop.
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Dr. Michael D. Evans is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Final Move Beyond Iraq, www.beyondiraq.com.

Close the mosque terror schools

2007-10-01T09:41:00.000-05:00

By Dr. MICHAEL D. EVANS
Published: September 30, 2007

This summer Italian police arrested an imam and two of his aides, all from Morocco, in a mosque in the central city of Perugia they were using as a "terrorism school."

The "religious" leader taught courses on preparing poisons, bomb making, and hand-to-hand combat. Perhaps most chilling, according to the Italian anti-terrorist police, the imam had downloaded videos from the Internet on how to pilot a Boeing 747 – presumably enough to fly one into a skyscraper.

The Ponte Felcino mosque held dozens of barrels of chemicals used to make explosives. Its grounds were used for weapons training and practicing ambushes and attacks. "We have discovered and neutralized a real 'terror school' which was part of a widespread terrorism system made up of small cells that act on their own," said police anti-terrorism head Carlo De Stefano.

Police said the cell was in contact with another organization, the Moroccan Islamic Combat Group, which is believed linked to al-Qaida and the 2004 Madrid bombings and 2003 attacks in Casablanca.

Islamofascism is being exported from the Middle East and cultivated in mosques linked throughout the world. One such linkage is a mosque in England that was involved in the mass murder of schoolchildren in Beslan.

The imam of London's Finsbury Park Mosque, Abu Hamza al-Masri, is in prison for terrorist activities. His mosque is the alma mater of one of the ringleaders of the Chechen terrorists, who in September 2004 took some 1,300 civilians hostage in Beslan, in the Russian Federation. The terrorists slaughtered 334 of the hostages, including 186 children.
It is important to note that the Beslan attackers were not all Chechens, but included an international group of terrorists. Russian intelligence sources said the group included a number of Arabs with connections to al-Qaida. They added that their monitors had picked up phone calls in Arabic from the Beslan school to Saudi Arabia and "another undisclosed Middle Eastern country."
Hamza's mosque was also home to Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, Zacharias Mossauoui, the so-called 20th hijacker of 9/11, and James Ujaama, serving a prison term in Seattle for aiding al-Qaida. The two British-born suicide bombers who murdered three people at an Israeli pub in 2003 also came from the Finsbury Park Mosque.
Who is behind these mosque terrorism schools? Terrorism expert William Dalrymple wrote in the New Statesman in 2005: “Since the oil boom of the early 1970s a policy of exporting not just petroleum, but also hard-line Wahhabism, became a fundamental tenet of Saudi foreign policy….”
Mosque schools, or madrasas, have been multiplying in Islamic communities throughout the world. They dominate the educational system in Pakistan and Egypt, and the Saudis are also exporting them to Africa. In Tanzania alone, Dalrymple writes, "they have been spending $1million a year building new madrasas. In Mali, madrasas now account for around a quarter of children in primary schools."
While Madrasas do provide some of the poor with literacy and hope for a better future, they are also breeding grounds for those extremist enough to be selected as suicide bombers.
In committee hearings in 2003, US Senator Charles Schumer revealed the role top Saudi officials, including Interior Minister Prince Naif, play in spreading Wahhabism by funneling money to mosques and madrasas – 18 in the United States alone. Wahhabism, which preaches violence against non-believers, is the faith of Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaida.
In the 1970s, the Saudi royal family made a deal with the devil: sponsoring Wahhabist imams to stay in power. Besides mosque schools, the deal includes bankrolling terrorism by paying terrorists' families compensation and protecting terrorists. After 19 Americans were murdered in the bombing of the Khobar Towers in 1998, it was Naif who prevented the trial of 13 Saudis indicted for the atrocity.
It's time to halt the terrorist production line by closing the mosque terrorism schools.

Ahmadinejad's Psychological Warfare

2007-09-28T08:38:00.000-05:00

By MICHAEL D. EVANS
Published: September 28th, 2007

In the spirit of universal horror and revulsion at the Holocaust, the UN was founded in 1945 by war-torn nations hoping to at last establish a foundation for world peace based on human rights. Why would a man who denies the Holocaust and declares that "With the force of God behind, we shall soon experience the world without the United States of Zionism" be allowed a forum to further insult the American people? Since 2005, Iran has threatened to bomb the State of Israel and Iraqi bases saying it has locked on its 600 Shahab missiles.

Advanced Iranian weapons are pouring into Afghanistan and Iraq and are being used to kill American troops, i.e. the Misagh-1, a portable surface-to-air missile with an infrared guided system; the RPG-29 rocket-propelled grenade; 240mm rockets; and EFPs (explosively formed penetrators), armor-piercing roadside bombs.
Why would Mahmoud Ahmadinejad want to manipulate and utilize the American media as a means to reach his goal? The simple answer is found in the statement he made on "60 Minutes," that he was waging psychological warfare. Writing this article from the fifth floor of the Intercontinental Hotel in New York City, Ahmadinejad’s "Ground Zero" for his psychological warfare, is an eerie feeling. I have held many meetings with his diplomats; it has become quite clear that they will not permit their reality to be distorted with the facts.
Osama bin Laden told Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, that fifty percent of the war on terror was a media war. Israel's President Peres told me that, in fact, it is ninety percent. Ahmadinejad understands how to manipulate the media to fight the war on terror and win it. He is doing precisely that.

Columbia University, the U.N., and the liberal Left media are playing into his hands by providing a platform which grants him world legitimacy. This terrorist presides over a fascist state known for its blatant support of terror, arrests men whose hair is deemed too long, and even worse, supports the death penalty for gays. The absurdity at Columbia is that the university has banned the ROTC from its campus because the ROTC would not support the "don't ask, don't tell" gay military policy. Yet, a man responsible for murdering gays is welcome.

The head of the Minuteman organization’s request for a meeting at Columbia over the immigration issue was cancelled. Now, a murderer and the man who has replaced Osama bin Laden as head of the “A” team of terror, the man who controls billions of dollars and tens of millions of people, and the head of several terror sub-contractors in the Middle East (HAMAS, Hezbollah, the Mahdi Army), has been granted a privileged visa.
Why did Ahmadinejad want to visit Ground Zero? It was certainly not to show his sympathy for suffering Americans; it was to exploit Ground Zero and use the hallowed ground as an arena to wage psychological warfare. It was to be a platform to build his case on why he believed we were attacked. (Like his Holocaust denial, he also denies that America was attacked by al-Qaeda.)

Iran has experienced a severe crackdown on social behavior and dress; women are barred from smoking in public and from attending stadium events. The liberal Left media has become the carrier to spread the Ebola virus of terror. By playing into Ahmadinejad's hands, the media has elevated him in the Middle East to the role of terrorist superstar defying the evil empire.
Ahmadinejad has become increasingly isolated at home and in the region because of his go-it-alone, ineffective policies. He is neither the head of state nor the commander in chief as Columbia University and the secular media claim; his support comes from the Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khameini, the supreme leader. His political strength depends on his ability to manipulate the media of the West for ideological purposes.

Iran's President controls civil government in Iran, and holds the title, "Guardian of the Revolution." The Iranian people have become so disillusioned that two of his ministers have resigned, the head of the central bank has resigned, and the chief judge criticized him for his mismanagement of the government. His effectiveness in manipulating the media of the West is responsible for the propagation of his ideological revolution. How shameful when Ahmadinejad could be easily ignored and marginalized. This would strengthen the hand of the Iranian people suffering under his fanatical fascist regime.

Ronald Reagan achieved that effectively by not allowing Yasser Arafat a privileged visa to enter the U.S. Ahmadinejad's PR tour is an insult to the American families who have lost sons and daughters in Iraq and in Afghanistan compliments of Iran. It is an insult to the Bush Doctrine on Terror: "If you harbor terrorists, you are a terrorist. If you train terrorists, you are a terrorist. If you feed a terrorist or fund a terrorist, you’re a terrorist; and you will be held accountable by the United States and our friends." Legitimizing Ahmadinejad effectively undermines the human rights organizations' leaders in Iran that have suffered imprisonment and even death for daring stand up to him.

It’s hypocrisy to tell Mexicans that love America and only want to come here to work, "We are throwing you in jail; you don’t have a visa," and provide a privileged visa to a terrorist/murderer who has threatened to wipe the State of Israel off the map and to send suicide bombers into the United States.

Ahmadinejad's speech at the U.N. will be no different than his last two when he proclaimed that the "perfect human being" was coming; and asked that he "make us among his followers, and among us who strive for his return." (September 2006) He truly believes that he is a 21st century John the Baptist that will usher in this Twelfth Mahdi through an apocalypse. That is what prompted his 18-page letter to President Bush declaring, "Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the Liberal democratic systems."
Ahmadinejad has an agenda; now he has a platform, thanks to the U.N., Columbia University and the liberal Left media.

Dr. Michael D. Evans is that author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Final Move Beyond Iraq, www.beyondiraq.com.

Why Ahmadinejad Speaks?

2007-09-28T08:36:00.000-05:00

By: Michael D. Evans
Published: September 27, 2007

One would think that by now, the President of Iran would remain silent when he comes to the United States knowing how unfavorably his words are received. Just the opposite is true. He seems to be looking for more opportunities to inflame the West as he did at Columbia University, at the U.N., and his propaganda media tour.

While staying at the Intercontinental Hotel (Ahmadinejad’s “Ground Zero” while in New York City), I noticed a group of Israel-bashing rabbis standing in the lobby. I approached them, and discovered they were from an organization named “Jews United Against Zionism.” They had just spent an hour with Ahmadinejad.

The rabbis presented Ahmadinejad with a silver fruit bowl to show their appreciation. It was engraved with the message: “We present this as a token of our appreciation for your sweetness and love of the Jewish people and all mankind.” According to Rabbi Yisrael Dovid Weiss, Ahmadinejad likes the Jewish people; but Zionism is an evil concept. He said that Ahmadinejad was not anti-Semitic and that he only wanted to get rid of Zionism and the State of Israel.

U.N. diplomats sitting in the lobby were humored by the scene. I asked the “why” question and found that they all agreed on one thing: Ahmadinejad is widely admired in the developing world for his defiance toward the West, especially America.

Ahmadinejad’s desire for major media coverage and world attention for saying the bizarre is carefully calculated by the Iranian Republican Guards for whom he speaks. It is designed to fire up the Shi’ite Islam revolution in the same way that The Ayatollah Khomeini did. He used the media to attack the West and overthrow the Shah of Iran. Khomeini could never have succeeded without the BBC and the U.S. media. To unite the ultra-religious Shi’ite masses, he had to play the role of David against Goliath and take on the “Great Satan.”

Certainly, Ahmadinejad is not seeking the approval of the “Great Satan”; rather he is speaking to enrage America. He speaks in an attempt to show the millions of undecided Muslim youth he is trying to recruit that he is the courageous prophetic voice of the Mahdi. He speaks to unite 400 million Shi’ites to support his version of radical Shi’ism. One Arab Sunni diplomat smilingly declared, “He is the Billy Graham of the Middle East, and you are paying for his crusades.”

While the Ahmadinejad delegation sat nervously in the lobby of the Intercontinental waiting for their superstar to appear (surrounded by law enforcement officials, FBI, Secret Service agents and etc.,) the Iran Minister gave me a lecture on how American has created all of the problems in the Middle East beginning in 1952.

Another Iranian diplomat traveling with the entourage said, “Listen, the entire Middle East crisis was created by your country; you are to blame. You blame it on us, but we know better. We blame it on your foreign policy. I must stop talking now; that guy is FBI.”

Later while I was talking with the very soft-spoken and seemingly ignored by the media Ambassador of Afghanistan, Said Jawad, the same Iranian diplomat tapped me on the shoulder. “The meeting at Columbia went too long; I will call you later. I’ve got to run now to a meeting with the Prime Minister in Queens.” Little did I know that meeting was at a Shi’ite, blue-domed mosque founded by the al-Khoei Foundation, one of the largest Shi’ite Muslim charities in the world.

It was apparently quite a meeting; attended by the Iranian delegation, the Iraqi delegation headed by Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, Prime Minister of Iraq, and his Shi’ite diplomats. These are all Shi’a brothers, joined at the hip, celebrating in America, and protected by the U.S. government. I wonder what they discussed as they sat cross-legged on the floor eating chicken biriyana, creamed spinach, roasted eggplant, hummus and salad.

On Tuesday, Ahmadinejad addressed the U.N. for the third time announcing the launch of the Iranian Coalition for Peace, based on monotheism. His was a fanatical sermon from a religiously fanatical madman, not a head of state. The last two speeches began with a fanatical appeal for the coming of “the perfect human being,” the Twelfth Mahdi. He made that same appeal in an 18-page letter to President Bush in May of 2006, as well as in his letter to the American people on November 29, 2006. The “why” is that he and his followers really believe that Ahmadinejad is in fact, John the Baptist, and will usher in the Twelfth Madhi through an apocalypse, and so do his followers.

The big question is why did the U.S. government give a privileged visa to Ahmadinejad? Why did President Bush not do to Ahmadinejad what Ronald Reagan did to Yasser Arafat in 1988, and “just say no” until Arafat denounced terrorism. The administration knew that Ahmadinejad was going to use American media to spread his ideological revolution. Why did we allow it?

President Peres of Israel told me that 90 percent of the war on terror is a media war. Osama bin Laden told Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that it was 50 percent. Regardless of the percentage – 50 percent or 90 percent - Ahmadinejad is winning the media war, and we are footing the bill. The U.S. media is turning Ahmadinejad into a global Islamic rock star by promoting his propaganda tours. Why would we want to give him a visa, let him have a platform as a diplomat, and give him tens of millions of dollars worth of free media? Isn’t that a bit like putting lipstick on a pig?

Many would think his mission failed because he embarrassed himself. Those who believe that do not understand the Middle East. He was embarrassed by the West, but the embarrassment will not be turned against him; it will, instead, only enflame all of those that he desires to recruit.

Ahmadinejad has displaced Osama bin Laden as the leader of the “A” team of terrorism and relegated him to the “C” team. Why? Bin laden doesn’t have $60 billion in the bank and 10 million followers willing to die for him. Bin Laden isn’t building nuclear reactors, nor does he have almost 200,000 terrorist sub-contractors on his payroll including HAMAS, Hezbollah and Mahdi Army in Iraq.

Michael D. Evans is the author of the New York Times #1 bestseller, The Final Move Beyond Iraq, www.beyondiraq.com.

Cancel Ahmadinejad's Visa

2007-09-23T23:17:00.000-05:00

By MICHAEL D. EVANS
Published: September 19, 2007

Should the president of a country who repeatedly calls for the annihilation of another country be given the right to share his genocidal views with the General Assembly of the United Nations?
If Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is allowed to incite the genocide of Israel at the UN podium next week, this will be more than another bizarre appearance by a dictator at New York's theater of the absurd – it will mean the denial of the very purpose of the United Nations.
The UN was founded in 1945 in the spirit of universal horror and revulsion at the Holocaust, by war-torn nations hoping to at last establish a foundation for world peace based on human rights. Since 2005, Ahmadinejad has denied that the Holocaust every happened while simultaneously declaring that Israel “must be wiped from the map of the world.”
The UN should act out of self-respect to deny Ahmadinejad access to its podium. If the world body fails to demonstrate a minimal amount of human dignity, the United States should not allow him in the country. Indeed, many political leaders – including John Bolton, former US Ambassador to the United Nations – called last year on the UN’s International Court of Justice to indict Ahmadinejad for incitement of genocide in calling for Israel’s destruction. The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide includes the crime of incitement to commit genocide.
So far only two presidential candidates, Republicans Mitt Romney and John McCain, have denounced Ahmadinejad's visit next week and demanded that the United States not let him in. Romney wrote in a public letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this week that “the despot is supporting Hizbullah’s terrorist efforts, flouting the international community through his nuclear weapons program, and supporting Shi'ite militia extremists in Iraq.”
At the other end of the moral spectrum, however, State Department officials have issued him a visa and defended Ahmadinejad’s right to address the assembly, arguing that the UN is the forum for member states to engage in dialogue. It is mind-boggling to consider what type of dialogue the State Department considers likely between Ahmadinejad and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

Last June, UN Secretary-General Ban mildly criticized Ahmadinejad's remark that the world would soon see Israel's destruction. At the time, Ban said he was "shocked and dismayed…Under the United Nations Charter, all members have undertaken to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state."
Israel isn't the only country threatened by Ahmadinejad's Iran, of course. Lately he boasted of having 600 missiles aimed at US bases in Iraq, not to mention Israel. That Iranian Revolutionary Guard soldiers are killing American troops in Iraq is a matter of record – but this is not the most serious threat.

As President George W. Bush told US war veterans in a speech last month, Iran endangers the entire world both by its pursuit of nuclear weapons and by supporting Islamist extremists in other countries.
"Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust," he said. As the world leader of Islamofascism, Ahmadinejad is determined to inflict more than one holocaust upon humankind.
If the US government were to summon the courage to revoke Ahmadinejad's visa, it would not be the first time America kept out a hatemongering supporter of terrorism. In 1988 the Reagan administration denied then PLO chairman Yasser Arafat a visa, citing his "associations with terrorism." True to form, the General Assembly quickly voted to hold a special session in Geneva, which Arafat addressed.

Ahmadinejad has rejected dialogue in favor of annihilation. He has repudiated the mission of the United Nations and it would add insult to injury for him to appear before it.

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Dr. Michael D. Evans is that author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Final Move Beyond Iraq, www.beyondiraq.com.

Bin Laden's anniversary message

2007-09-23T23:14:00.000-05:00

By MICHAEL D. EVANS
Published: September 11, 2007

US intelligence experts are busy analyzing the video message arch-terrorist Osama bin Laden sent to coincide with this week's sixth anniversary of his September 11, 2001 attack on the American people.

But while the experts explore for hidden meanings in Bin Laden's message, there are enough of his ideas out in the open for us to get the gist of it.

For one thing, in choosing to crawl out from under his rock for the first time in about three years to deliver his statement, Bin Laden was clearly timing his video to influence US public opinion on the eve of Gen. David Petraeus's report to Congress on the surge response.

Without knowing in advance what the general would say, however, Bin Laden could only boast - wrongly - that the latest US strategy was not working. Furthermore, he hinted, he plans to initiate his own surge to kick the forces of "the Great Satan" out of Iraq.

Despite being forced to live in hiding while being hunted relentlessly by the US and kept from mounting another attack on the scale of 9/11 for the past six years, Bin Laden somehow believes he has the upper hand. He wants the world to know that he will defeat America in Iraq just as the mujahedin defeated the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Strangely enough, the three main points of Bin Laden's nearly half-hour speech were global warming, the mortgage crisis in the United States, and the Democratic Party's failure to stop the war in Iraq – all of which he attributed to the evils of capitalism, plus American democracy's stubborn insistence on separating religion and state.

Bin Laden: "The entire human race is in danger because of global warming caused in large part by emissions from the factories of large corporations... Many of you are buckling beneath high-interest debts, insane taxes, and mortgages… As for why the Democrats have failed to stop the war, I state that it is the same reason former President Kennedy was unable to end the war in Vietnam - those with real power and influence are the capitalists…"
His answer to what ails the Great Satan - Americans must convert to Islam: "Islam will deprive [the war profiteers and large corporations] of the chance to swindle the people out of their money through arms deals and such, for Islam has no taxes and only limited alms that stand at 2.5 percent."
Are the evils of capitalism the best answer the world's most infamous perpetrator of Islamofascism can come up with after meditating in his cave hideouts for some half a dozen years? Is this his new fusion – the Quran and the Communist Manifesto?

Some say Bin Laden's gracious offer to permit the citizens of the United States to convert to Islam and thereby avoid destruction is a requirement of the Quran to give an enemy the opportunity to convert before attacking him. But I don't recall receiving such an offer before 9/11.

Besides displaying the evident lunacy of Bin Laden's political/religious thought, the new video is also being examined for clues about his physical health. Mansour Dadullah, a Taliban commander in Afghanistan, said in a video released last month that Bin Laden is "extremely healthy and active.''

We can all see one obvious change from previous tapes of the terrorist mastermind: he has apparently been dyeing his formerly gray beard to a dark black. I'm sure that among the 16 spy agencies in Washington that bring us those periodic intelligence estimates there is an office specializing in the analysis of terrorist facial hair. Why did Yasser Arafat prefer not to shave, for example, or why does bin Laden hate that gray?

Mass murderers have egos, too. The continuing challenge of Bin Laden's anniversary message to America is to keep fighting his lethal attempts to convert the world to his simple-minded idea of a solution to its problems.

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Dr. Michael D. Evans is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Final Move Beyond Iraq, www.beyondiraq.com.

Is the surge working?

2007-09-04T10:41:00.000-05:00

By MICHAEL D. EVANS
Published: September 4, 2007

Is the surge working? That is the question US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus will be called upon to answer next week as they testify before Congress.

The problem is that the American people could care less about what is happening 120 miles from Baghdad in the mostly Sunni Anbar province.

President George W. Bush dropped in for a surprise visit to “assure our friends that the American people do not abandon our friends." While the American people do not abandon their friends, the American government sometimes does. Twice before in Iraq we asked its brave Kurdish people to resist and fight Saddam Hussein and left them to be slaughtered by that ruthless dictator.

The $400 billion question is: Where's the beef? The Iraqi government is not in Anbar; nor is US money. If this is all about success, why did President Bush not go to Erbil instead, where 23% of the Iraqi nation lives in stability and democracy? Could it be because Kurdistan is dominated by liberal Sunni Muslims, and Bush did not want to offend the vast majority of Iraqi fundamentalists?

Why has the US deserted our base in Erbil and why are our Iraqi Kurdish allies fighting with old Russian AK47s captured from Saddam Hussein? Why would the US not want to invest in success in a place where there have been only two terrorist attacks in two years, and both of them have been by al-Qaeda?

It's time for President Bush to tell the American people – the war has been mismanaged; al-Maliki’s government is corrupt and cowardly; and surging to stability is not possible.

Since the majority of Bush supporters are Evangelical Christians, why not invite them for a “come to Jesus” fireside chat? Maybe his Sunday school teacher can help him with his speech: “Babylon the great is fallen and has become a dwelling place for demons, a prison for every foul spirit and a cage for every unclean and hated bird…because she has made all nations drink of the wine of her fornication. “ (Rev. 18:2)

"Therefore is the name of it called Babel, because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth." (Gen. 11: 9) The truth is, Evangelical Christians consider Babylon cursed and no more believe that it will be blessed than the Arabs and Jews will sit down together to sup matza ball soup.

So what do we do now?

As Colin Powell has said many times: "If you break it, you own it." He did not say, "If you break it, get out as fast as possible." To ask Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to host a smoke and mirror magic show and unite Kurds, Sunnis, and Shi'ites into a cohesive government is a lot easier than asking Donald Trump and Rosie O’Donnell to tie the knot.

Yes, the Democratic Party is determined to pull out of the killing fields, whatever the cost in the lives of our allies. This is not to speak of Osama and Ahmadinejad, who will have won the Middle East Power Ball lottery.

The simple fact is the president needs to admit that stability and democracy is stupidity. Mullahs, madrassas, and mosques have been around for a very long time.

Iraq is in fact now the central front on the war on terrorism, as Osama bin-Laden planned. It's time to get out of the cities and fight the war on terrorism from the desert. Anything else is selling the American people a partial success – kind of like buying the farm and finding out you don't own the dirt. Anyone want to buy a tree house?

US plans to crush Iran forces in 3 days

2007-09-04T10:39:00.000-05:00

By MICHAEL D. EVANS
Published: September 4, 2007

The latest buzz out of Washington is the apparent revelation of a Pentagon plan to remove Iran's growing nuclear threat by a massive attack at some 1,200 military targets. This once-and-for-all strike would last three days and destroy Iran's entire military capability.
This does not seem to be a bluff on the part of President George W. Bush. On the contrary, according to Dr. Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security studies at the Nixon Center think tank, the Pentagon has chosen the strategy of a vast assault over pinpoint attacks on Iran's nuclear bomb-building network.
The idea behind such an attack is to eliminate both Iran's offensive capability and defensive response. There would be nothing left with which Iran could retaliate. As London's Sunday Times quoted Debat as saying, "They're talking about taking out the entire Iranian military."
One indication President Bush has decided to stop Iran's march to nuclear warfare is the sudden escalation of his rhetoric. As if to prepare the American people for a showdown, Bush said in a speech last week that the ayatollahs had put the Middle East "under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust."
This was a clear indication that the time of waiting for UN sanctions to take effect and for Iran to voluntarily step back from the brink had passed. As leader of the free world, the US is bound to act, as Bush said, "before it is too late."
The president's use of the term "holocaust" was deliberate, for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has both repeatedly denied that the Holocaust ever happened and at the same time has repeatedly threatened to "wipe Israel off the map" in a second Holocaust. Just as Israel didn't wait for UN sanctions before destroying Saddam Hussein's nuclear threat in 1981, Bush is clearly hinting that the US does not lack reasons to eliminate Teheran's threat.
This is not only because Iranian Revolutionary Guards troops are killing American soldiers in Iraq with weapons smuggled from Iran, and not just because Iran supports al-Qaida in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hizbullah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza, and not even because Iran is working as fast as it can to develop warheads for its Shihab ICBMs that can hit every capital in Europe.
These activities are just a warm-up for Iran's main mission, which is to foment and spread jihadist revolutionary chaos around the world. When they finish remaking their neighbor into the Revolutionary Islamic Republic of Iraq, the ayatollahs will next target America's Sunni allies in the region -- Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states – not to mention Afghanistan with its resurgent Taliban and then nuclear Pakistan. If Pakistan falls to the combined forces of Osama bin-Laden and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, no UN resolution could save the world from the coming dark age of Islamofascism.
It is probably no coincidence that officials from the Pentagon, the State Department, and the departments of Homeland Security and Energy have just recently concluded a four-month-long Iranian war game with Washington's Heritage Foundation think tank. The bottom line: destroying Iran's military capability is doable in a few days, and any retaliation by Iran cutting off oil supplies to America and its allies would be temporarily disruptive, but not critical.
Those who worry lest President Bush is setting the stage for America's next war in the Middle East should take a harder look at what we are about in Iraq. For we are already at war with Iran there – and a massive preemptive assault would be a righteous act of self-defense on behalf of mankind.
Perhaps French President Nicolas Sarzoky summed it up best last week when he warned that Iran could face an armed response unless it abandoned its nuclear pursuits. Iran, he said, presents the world with a "catastrophic choice" between "an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran."

The Second Coming of the Mahdi

2007-08-30T14:52:00.000-05:00

By Michael D. Evans
Published: August 30, 2007

In March 2006, Rakan bin Williams, an al-Qaeda commander stated: "I will not give any more clues; this is enough as a wake-up call. Perhaps the American people will start thinking about the magnitude of the danger that is coming their way."

The heart of the battle between darkness and light centers around the Islamic belief that an apocalyptic event will usher in the second coming of the Islamic messiah, the Mahdi.

The subject of the Second Coming is the most important subject in evangelical theology, outside the cross. Christians have not generally been exposed to the theological belief system of the second coming as it relates to the gravest threat faced by the world-an atomic Iran. Why is that such a grave threat? The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, wants to usher in the second coming of the Twelfth Imam or Mahdi through nuclear war.

The beliefs of the Iranian "Twelvers"-the followers of the Twelfth Imam who believe that the world must teeter on an apocalyptic precipice before their "savior" (the Mahdi) will return, may well impact our world dramatically long before Christ returns.

These "Twelvers," as they are sometimes called, number over ten million. With the ascension of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the position of power in Iran, we have heard much about the last known descendant of Hussein, Muhammad al-Mahdi, or the Mahdi. Al-Mahdi was the Twelfth Imam in the line of Ali who disappeared down a well at the age of four.

Refusing to believe that he was dead, his followers imbued him with timelessness. They declared him to be merely "hidden,"and that on some future date he would suddenly appear to reestablish an Islamic caliphate worldwide. Their eschatology, however, proved problematic; it espoused an apocalyptic upheaval in order for the Mahdi, or Hidden Imam, to ascend to his rightful place of leadership. These "Twelvers" championed the belief that every individual, regardless of their religious belief, would one day bow to Islam-or die.

The President of Iran believes this so strongly that he subtlety mentioned this in two U.N. speeches:
O, Almighty God, all men and women are your creatures and you have ordained their guidance and salvation. Bestow upon humanity that thirsts for justice, the perfect human being promised to all by you, and make us among his followers and among those who strive for his return and his cause. (First UN address, September 19, 2006)
And, invoking the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful during a second U.N. address, Ahmadinejad said:
O, Almighty God, bestow upon humanity the perfect human being [the Mahdi] promised to all by You, and make us among his followers. (Second U.N. Address, November 29, 2006)
While the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was a hero to Ahmadinejad, his true mentor is Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi. It is this man who has shaped much of Ahmadinejad's worldview. Yazdi is the director of the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute in Qom. He is also a member of the Iranian Assembly of Experts. Reputedly, the hard-liner Yazdi believes, "If anyone insults the Islamic sanctity, Islam has permitted for his blood to be spilled, no court needed."30

In my interview with James Woolsey, he touched on the subject of Yazdi and his influence over Ahmadinejad:
Ahmadinejad believes that the Twelfth Imam, the Hidden Imam, the Mahdi, went into occlusion, as he would put it-disappeared in the eighth century-and is waiting to come back. [Ahmadinejad] goes off every week or two to sort of commune with the Hidden Imam and get his instructions. [Ahmadinejad's] mentor is an Ayatollah named Mesbah Yazdi, who runs a school in Qom, in the holy city in Iran. The reason Mesbah Yazdi was exiled there in 1979 by the Ayatollah Khomeini was because Khomeini thought he was too radical. So Ahmadinejad's mentor was too radical for Khomeini.
The beliefs that surround their worldview have to do with working hard to get a lot of people killed as quickly as possible. So the prize of pain will summon the Mahdi. And then they also believe once the Mahdi comes, the world will only exist for a brief period of time. So Ahmadinejad is effectively on a campaign to see if he can't get the world to end.
What weapons are effective against an enemy such as this? Will those Muslims that do not share this Iranian president's worldview be enticed to take up arms against him? Can we even convince them that they are in as much danger as any infidel on the globe? Or will we simply sit idly by and allow the madmen, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mullahs in Iran who support him, to take the world by nuclear storm?

As with all false religions, there are parallels to the Scripture. For instance, the theology being taught by the Twelvers in madrassas in Iran is this:

-If a suicide bomber commits an act of martyrdom, they will feel neither pain nor fear. Bible parallel: I Corinthians 15:55: "O death, where [is] your sting? O grave, where [is] your victory?"
-The suicide bomber believes he/she will not die; all souls go into the ground awaiting the resurrection except the souls of martyrs. They go directly into paradise. This is an attempt to parallel the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and certainly parallels the statement of Christ to the thief on the cross: Luke 23:43: "And Jesus said to him, 'Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise."
-Once in paradise, a crown of glory with the jewel of the wealth of the world is placed on the head of the martyr. Biblical parallel: Revelation 2:10c: ". . . be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."

-They believe that they will be given not one mansion, but 72 mansions. The mansions will be inhabited by 72 black-eyed virgins (incorruptible.) Biblical parallel: John 14:2: "In my Father's house are many mansions: if [it were] not [so], I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you."

-The martyr is taught that he will be invited to a wedding. Biblical parallel: Revelation 19:9: "And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed [are] they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb."

- Another teaching is that the shedding of the blood of the martyr will atone for the sins of 70 of their relatives, thus exempting them from the horrors of hell. Biblical parallel: Hebrews 9:22: "In fact, we can say that according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified by sprinkling with blood. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins."
This is the heart of the spiritual battle that believers face.
"Now as He [Jesus] sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?" (Matthew 24:3)

Just as there are specific signs in the Scriptures that alert the child of God to watch for the return of our Lord, so there are specific signs in Islam. The difference is that Jesus admonishes us to, "Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man." (Luke 21:36) While Christians believe that God controls the events of the Second Coming of Jesus, Muslims believe that it is they who will orchestrate the apocalyptic events surrounding the second coming of the Muslim Messiah.

This is why Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is so intent in his efforts to achieve nuclear capability; he believes that it will be his mushroom cloud that calls forth the Mahdi to rule over a Muslim caliphate that extends worldwide.

What are the signs Muslim fundamentalists believe will signal the arrival of the Muslim messiah? What will announce the time when every creature worldwide will supposedly bow before Allah and declare that "there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet?"

The signs that, according to Islamic fundamentalists, will usher in the Islamic messiah are:
> War
> Greater Materialism
> Decrease in knowledge of religious things
> Men outnumbered by women
> Acid rain
> Increased illegitimacy
> Rampant homosexuality
> Mothers ignored
> Increase in female singers
> Dancing into the night
> Taller and taller buildings
> Women in the workplace
> Women will look like men, and men like women
> Women will not bear children
> Increased earthquakes
> Time will seem shorter
> Smog
> People will prefer death to life

The word "Islam" is translated "submission", literally, submission to the will of Allah. Predestination is the fundamental basis of Islam. The Koran records, "Allah verily sends whom he will astray, and guides whom he will." (Koran 35:8)

Allah pulls the strings that control the faithful; man has no free will. His only choice is to bow before Allah in total submission... not out of love, but out of divine necessity. Jehovah God calls us first to love Him and then to love our neighbor: "So he answered and said, "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,' and 'your neighbor as yourself.'" (Luke 10:27)

The Muslim "Antichrist" or Dajjal is characterized as a red-faced Cyclops with unruly hair. His mode of transportation is a white ass that will bear him from place to place at lightning speed. The world - except for true Muslim adherents - will be led astray by the Dajjal. His despotic rule will extend worldwide until, Muslims believe, Jesus will return to a mosque in Damascus. He will slaughter all pigs, destroy all crosses and embrace Islam as the one true religion.

According to Muslim belief, Jesus and the Mahdi will join forces to fight and destroy the hated Dajjal. Following the victorious battle, Jesus and the Mahdi will create a worldwide caliphate under shariah, or Islam rule of law.

After the defeat of the Dajjal, the sound of a trumpet will be heard around the world; the sun will be extinguished; stars will plummet to earth; mountains will become piles of debris and the seas will erupt into a blazing inferno. The earth's inhabitants will be slain, only to be resurrected to stand before Allah and be judged. Man will be consigned to hell - a place of either excruciating heat or freezing cold. The favored Muslims, strict adherents to Islam, will be given glorious gowns laden with jewels. Of course, the seventh heaven will be the resting place for martyrs who battled the Great Satan and the Little Satan.

There are those among Islam's adherents who believe that George Bush is the Dajjal (Antichrist) and Osama bin Laden the Mahdi (Islamic messiah.) In fact, bin Laden has begun to sign his name, Osama bin Mohammed bin Laden. Many among bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization point to the fact that their leader has the features attributed to the Mahdi- distinctive forehead, protruding nose, gapped teeth, a black mole. Bin Laden is descended from Mohammad's daughter, Fatima, and was called forth from his cave in Afghanistan to fight the "Dajjal." In fact, bin Laden refers to President Bush as al-Dajjal and the United States as Dabbah (the beast that must be slain.)

Radical Muslims believe that Islam will prevail, not only over the United States, but over the entire world. They believe that history has been written by Allah, and that mankind is predestined to bow to Islam.

"For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect." (Matthew 24:24)

The Temple Mount For Sale

2007-08-29T12:53:00.000-05:00

By Michael D. Evans
Published: August 29, 2007

According to unnamed sources within the Israeli government, Israel is prepared to cede control of the Temple Mount to the Palestinians in an effort to reach a lasting peace agreement with the ever-insatiable, always unreliable PLO.
In talks with Mahmoud Abbas, it is reported that the Israeli government presented a plan that would relinquish control of the holiest site to all Judaism to the Muslims. Other sites near the Mount would be controlled by a consortium of Jews, Christians and Muslims. The Western Wall, the remaining relic of the last Temple, would remain under Israeli control. They are being pressured by the EU, the UN, Arab League and the U.S. to do this.
The disposition of the Temple Mount has long been the point of contention in negotiations between Israel and Palestine. Apparently, Israel is now ready to put that issue on the table. A similar offer was made to Yasser Arafat in January of 2001, an offer that would have given Arafat almost everything he wanted, including ninety-eight percent of the territory of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, all of East Jerusalem except for the Jewish and Armenian quarters, Palestinian sovereignty over the Temple Mount, conceding only the right of Jews to pray there, and a compensation fund of $30 billion. Arafat chose the route of launching yet another intifada against the Jewish people.

Diplomats within the EU are pushing for a final agreement to be reached before the conference scheduled by the U.S. takes place in November. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been pressing Abbas and Olmert to iron out their differences and have a workable plan to present to the participants at the conference.

In recent meetings between the two men, the concessions have, as always, been very one-sided: Olmert has ordered the release of 178 members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (a wing of Fatah - the terrorist organization that has been responsible for the many suicide bombings in Israel during the past 36 months.) Olmert is being pressed to release another 206 terrorists and remove security checkpoints that are essential in stopping these heinous attacks against the Jewish people. In yet another concession to the Palestinians, the IDF has turned patrolling duties in the West Bank over to Palestinian policemen (simply a more acceptable word for "terrorists.")
What has the Palestinian Authority given up in these talks? Nothing! As is the norm, Israel is the one doing the giving. Any receiving for Israel is on the end of a terrorist’s rocket launcher or suicide bomb. Nothing has changed to insure peace for Israel.
The Jews laid claim to the Temple Mount in the Tenth Century B.C. when King Solomon built the first resplendent Temple. The Muslims were Johnny-come-lately residents, having built the Dome of the Rock on top of the Temple Mount in 681 A.D. For all of the protestations that the Temple Mount belongs to the Palestinians, the city of Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Koran. Islamic tradition marks it as the spot where Muhammad purportedly took his midnight journey to heaven. The location was markedsimply by the phrase "the fartherest mosque." Only much later was the city pinpointed as Jerusalem.
Israel has been pressured in the past to relinquish land and the results have been catastrophic. Bethlehem, for example, has become a terrorist stronghold where it is unsafe for Christians to travel. Gaza has been returned to the PLO because of U.N. pressure; now Iran, through its proxy, HAMAS, controls the area and is making life miserable for everyone - Jews and Palestinians alike.

The pressure on Prime Minister Olmert is enormous. The danger of the land-for-peace initiative being led by the U.S. is that if it fails, the rockets will fall…and they will fall on Israel. The terrorists will begin attacking and killing Jews in yet another attempt to bring Israel to its knees. Their excuse will be that they are attempting to liberate the Temple Mount. If that succeeds, it will only embolden the terrorists to launch attacks in even greater numbers.

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Michael D. Evans is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Final Move Beyond Iraq, www.beyondiraq.com.

US intelligence: Iran Situation Bleak

2007-08-24T09:40:00.001-05:00

By MICHAEL D. EVANS
Published: August 24, 2007

The same people who last month told those of us who weren't living on another planet that al-Qaeda is likely to try attacking the United States again, have come out with another intelligence assessment, this time on Iran. The new National Intelligence Estimate -- reflecting the strategic consensus of the top experts of the US government's 16 spy agencies – says that the situation with Iran looks "bleak."
Bleak? A draft of the report obtained in advance by the Associated Press defines bleak as Iran still trying to manufacture nuclear weapons, still stockpiling ICBMs capable of reaching every capital in Europe, still threatening to "wipe Israel off the map," still infiltrating terrorists and weapons into Iraq, still being a fundamentalist Islamist theocratic military dictatorship.
For this we need 16 intelligence agencies? Do we actually need 16 agencies to conclude – one wonders how long it took – that Iran is still ruthless, fanatic, and continues to seek weapons of mass destruction – atomic, biological, or chemical – and would not hesitate to use them?
We have no doubt that Iran just keeps on doing pretty much what it has said it's been doing. The possible exception is that the Iranians so far deny doing what we know they have been doing -- helping fellow jihadists murder American soldiers in Iraq. This is not classified information but is, unfortunately, in dozens of news reports every day.
Is it news that we are still fighting in Iraq after six years and the war on global terrorism for at least as long, and despite our best efforts Islamist extremism is expanding? Don't we already know, with no estimate needed, that there is a rise in terrorist threats, that al-Qaeda has mutated and still threatens the US?
Iran is (still) supplying money and weapons to the Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim extremist group Hezbullah, which is on the US government list of terrorist organizations. But much closer to home is Iran's Revolutionary Guards, which President George W. Bush has decided to designate a terrorist organization.
About 50 Guards members are believed to be in southern Iraq training Shi'ite militias to use mortars and rockets, Maj.-Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of US forces south of Baghdad, told reporters this week. "We are concerned primarily about the training of Shi'ite extremists. We think there are about 50 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards," Lynch said. He noted that rocket attacks were becoming "more accurate and more effective" due to the Iranians.

The estimate draft states: "Iran has been intensifying aspects of its lethal support for select groups of Iraqi Shia militants, particular the JAM."
The new intelligence estimate also predicts Iran will continue as "a main backer" of Hezbullah, along with Syria. I don't mean to belittle the efforts of our intelligence community, but what possible other conclusion is there? Iran created Hezbullah, which has always been its proxy in Lebanon, backed by Iran's other proxy, Syria. What "main backer"? Iran is the only backer.
The estimate foresees no regime change on the horizon. Excuse me, but isn't Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – who is also commander in chief of the military – still in charge of the country, whose few dissidents either languish in prisons or have fled abroad?
Iran, meanwhile, claims to have uncovered American and Western spy rings and has thrown a number of Iranian-American tourists in jail. For this reason, the US government has warned citizens against traveling to Iran.
How should we act on the basis of the intelligence estimate? Maybe, since it confirms what we have always felt about the Iranians, that they sincerely want to obtain and would probably use nuclear weapons, we should at least consider a show of force. Perhaps with the Revolutionary Guards unit in Iraq providing a reason, a cruise missile attack on a Guards base inside Iran might be the wake-up call Iran needs.

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Dr. Michael D. Evans is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Final Move Beyond Iraq, www.beyondiraq.com.

Iranian Troops Threaten Kurdistan Region

2007-08-23T08:32:00.000-05:00

Dr. Michael D. Evans
Published August 23, 2007

President Bush’s recent move to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a “specially designated global terrorist” group has apparently emboldened the leaders of Iran’s elite military group to begin a more overt move against Iraq…and especially the Kurds in Northern Iraq. According to recent reports, Tehran has moved several thousand Revolutionary Guards units to an area north-east of Iraq. And they are not just on the Kurdistan border as observers.

Kurdistan villages high in the mountains near the Iranian border have been shelled by Revolutionary Guard forces. Two Iraqi women were wounded, livestock killed and property damaged. At least 1000 Kurds have fled their homes in fear for their lives. There are also reports of attacks on other northern Iraq villages and on the province of Sulaimaniya.

An Iranian army helicopter was reportedly downed and six Revolutionary Guards killed by Kurdish guerrillas. A Kurdistan Regional Government deputy minister, Jabar Yawar declared: “If this escalates, it could pose a real threat to the Kurdistan region, which is Iraq’s most stable area.” Mr. Yawar said he expected the U.S. and Baghdad to formally protest the attack against this “blatant violation of Iraqi sovereignty” to the government in Tehran.

Earlier this year during a State visit to Kurdistan, I stood on the Iran border high in the mountains of Kurdistan and wondered how long it would be before either Iran or Turkey made a move to invade the area. In meetings with President Mahmoud Barzani and Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani we talked openly about how the Kurds could help fight and win the war in Iraq, and what they would need to do so. That they are not lacking in determination is evident; however, the weapons needed to help the U.S. win the battle for Iraq are non-existent.

I found it strange that the U.S. has no base in Erbil to fight the war on terror. The greatest success story in all of Iraq, Kurdistan, is where America needs to invest its money rather than bleed money from that region into the coffers of the regimes that consider America the enemy. It is odd that $400 billion dollars has been spent in Iraq and the Kurds have no U.S. military equipment with which to help fight the war on terror and to stop an invasion by either Turkey or Iran. To see our allies using old, Russian AK-47s is an embarrassment.

The Kurds have willingly offered to fight alongside U.S. troops, sweeping from the north to the south in a surge to rid Iraq of terrorists crossing the border from Iran. This would put an end to Revolutionary Guards corps setting up Shi’ite militia and terror training camps in Iraq. According to U.S. Major-General Rick Lynch, “We think there are about 50 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards [training Shi’ite extremists] and escalating “indirect fire attacks” on U.S. troops in the region. Lynch says that the attacks are becoming “more accurate and more effective” and therefore, more deadly.

I believe the United States needs to move a major military base into Erbil. This has not yet happened even though Kurdistan not only welcomed U.S. troops openly, but also fought alongside them to take the cities in the north when the Turks refused to allow the U.S. to operate out of Turkey at the beginning of “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. Not one American soldier was killed during that Kurdish/U.S. operation.

The United States needs to reward stable regimes economically. To do it, the United States must stand up to Turkey and Iran, both of which hate the Kurds. The Kirkuk oilfields should be turned over to the Kurds that have, in the past, controlled the Kirkuk region.

President Bush must stand firm in his declaration that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard be named a “specially designated global terrorist” group. Such a move could mean increased scrutiny from those foreign companies that covertly do business with the military group, and of course, less money to fund terrorist activities in the coffers of the Revolutionary Guard.

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Dr. Michael Evans is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Final Move Beyond Iraq, www.beyondiraq.com.

Iran's Guards Threaten to 'punch' US

2007-08-22T11:33:00.000-05:00

By MICHAEL D. EVANS
Published: August 22, 2007

A high-ranking officer in the naval branch of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards defiantly warned this week that his force would turn the Gulf into a "hell" for his country's enemies if they attack the Islamic Republic.

His voice was among a well orchestrated chorus of Guards commanders responding to last week's decision by President George W. Bush to designate the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization.
"With the power the Guards have obtained now, if the enemies want to ... start a military confrontation, the Persian Gulf will become a hell for them," Ali Razmjoo, a naval commander of the Revolutionary Guards was quoted by Reuters as saying. "By using modern systems, no activities and threats by the enemies in the Persian Gulf would be hidden from us."
This is not an entirely idle threat. The Gulf is teeming with international shipping – a lot of supertankers – not to mention scores of US Navy ships in battle formation. A shore-to-ship missile that Iran supplied Hizbullah scored a direct hit on an Israel Navy missile boat during last summer's war, killing four sailors.

Of course, a Revolutionary Guards missile attack on a US warship would no doubt result in a devastating counterattack – but it still could be costly.

The Guards' reaction to news of its impending reclassification by Washington was somewhat strange. The Teheran daily Kayhan quoted Guards leader Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi saying he could understand Washington's anger at the force because of its "leverage" against the US.

"America will receive a heavier punch from the guards in the future," he said. "We will never remain silent in the face of US pressure and we will use our leverage against them."
Although Teheran has denied it, the US has ample proof the Iranians are behind much of the killing of American soldiers in Iraq, from supplying sophisticated bomb-making material for the IEDs that have caused hundreds of casualties in recent months to infiltrating fighters.
The "leverage" Safavi refers to is apparently the introduction of Revolutionary Guards troops into the fighting against American forces trying to keep the peace. Designating the Guards as a terrorist organization would be the first time the US put a military force of a sovereign government on the same list with al-Qaida, Hamas, and Hizbullah.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards is a select force of some 200,000 members that is separate from the country's regular military. It has its own ground, naval, and air divisions. According to the US Army, some of them are definitely up to no good in Iraq.
About 50 Guards members are believed to be in southern Iraq training Shi'ite militias to use mortars and rockets, Maj.-Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of US forces south of Baghdad, told reporters on Sunday.
"We are concerned primarily about the training of Shi'ite extremists. We think there are about 50 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards," Lynch said. He noted that rocket attacks were becoming "more accurate and more effective" due to the Iranians.
Besides its direct military threat to the ongoing conflict in Iraq, it is important to keep in mind the role the Revolutionary Guards plays in fundamentalist Islamic Iran. Its official name is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and as such it is the standard bearer of the so-called Islamic Revolution. It is both a military and an ideological force, as well as a prominent element in Iran's economy. A terrorist designation would enable the US to move against its many assets.
Today's Iran is less a theological regime than a military dictatorship, and the Guards dominates political, economic, and cultural life, while protecting the ayatollahs and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from opposition at home. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and has exploited his control over the Guards to consolidate his rule. Ahmadinejad is just one of the former Guards commanders he has elevated to a top political position.

Ahmadinejad: Israel waves Satan's flag

2007-08-21T07:59:00.000-05:00

By MICHAEL D. EVANS
Published: August 21, 2007

If anyone was wondering whether Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would ever try to top his 2005 threat to "wipe Israel off the map," he obliged on Saturday by declaring that the Jewish state is "the standard bearer of Satan" and would soon fall apart.

Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as he spoke at a religious conference. It's probably not significant that he referred to Israel as Satan's flag waver and not Satan himself, though the ayatollahs have referred to the United States as "the Great Satan" and Israel as "the Lesser Satan" ever since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
"The Zionist regime is the standard bearer of invasion, occupation, and Satan," Ahmadinejad said. "When the philosophy behind the establishment of a regime is in question, it is not unlikely that it will find itself on a course of decline and dissolution."
Most reasonable observers might think Ahmadinejad was referring to his own regime with that last statement. But perhaps it would be helpful to first consider just what an Islam means by Satan, big or small.
Like many concepts Islam inherited from the mother religions of Christianity and Judaism, Satan is rather familiar. In Islam, a divine being named Azazel (originally a Hebrew term for Hell), was thrown out of heaven for refusing to bow down to man, God's creation Adam.

In one Islamic version, Azazel conspired with a serpent to tempt Adam and Eve with the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; in another version, Azazel collaborated with a peacock to tempt Adam and Eve with forbidden wheat.

The popular name for the devil in the Koran is "shaitan", which comes from the Hebrew "satahn" that has come into English as Satan. As in Christianity, shaitan is the embodiment of evil, luring mankind into sin.
Because Muslims are forbidden from making images, Islam has no counterpart to the familiar red-skinned, horned and tailed, pitchfork-waving devil of Christianity. During the hajj, Shaitan is represented by a plain stone wall or pillar, which pilgrims throw rocks at.
Popular posters from the Islamic Revolution depicted then-president Jimmy Carter, Uncle Sam, or Israel dressed as Satan and standing over the shah, who was intertwined with a snake.
It should not be surprising to hear Ahmadinejad associate the Jewish state with Satan, after hearing him repeatedly deny the Holocaust while at the same time threatening to commit genocide against the Jews of Israel. What is more amazing is to hear him say, at the same religious gathering on Saturday, that "There is no way for the salvation of mankind but the rule of Islam over mankind."
It doesn't take a United Nations survey of our planet to realize that, of all the religions of mankind, Islam is probably the least likely to offer salvation to its own believers, let alone the world's non-believers. After 14 centuries of Islam, the Islamic countries' high rate of illiteracy, low industrialization, high poverty, low scientific achievement, and so on are a throwback to the civilization of the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century.
Ahmadinejad's primitive anti-Semitism would be hardly worth a comment, except that he is pursuing the manufacture of nuclear weapons with the declared intention of "wiping Israel off the map." In preparation for this great day, he offered a classically anti-Semitic rationalization at a conference in Teheran last year: "The basic problem in the Islamic world is the existence of the Zionist regime . . . It is a . . . regime that prevented the progress of the region's nations . . ."
If tiny Israel -- with no resources to speak of and surrounded by hostile Muslim countries bent on its destruction – can make the desert bloom and have the second highest number of NASDAQ listings after the United States, then maybe Ahmadinejad has it backwards. The basic problem in the Islamic world is Islam.

At War With Iran

2007-08-16T16:35:00.000-05:00

By MICHAEL D. EVANS
Published: August 16, 2007

All the speculation about whether the United States will eventually have to resort to force in order to keep Iran's finger off the nuclear button just misses the point. America and the Islamic Republic have been at war for a couple of years now, with Iranian infiltrators using Iranian arms to kill American troops.

Iranian-backed and Iranian-trained Iraqi warlords, like Muqtada al-Sadr and the so-called Special Groups, constantly engage US troops as they search tor al-Qaida terrorists. The "Special Groups terrorist network [is] known for facilitating the transport of weapons and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran to Iraq, as well as bringing militants from Iraq into Iran for terrorist training," according to a report by the Multinational Forces.

The Special Groups cells are considered to be the Iraqi version of Hizbullah, which ties in with European concern for the safety of its troops in Lebanon. The UNIFIL troops, particularly the Italians and the French, are sitting ducks in Hizbullah's shooting gallery, just waiting for the word from Teheran to cut loose and derail any peace talks.

President George W. Bush has denounced Iran for its nuclear program, for supporting terrorism, for threatening Israel, and for supplying the explosives used to kill and maim US troops. The president has also warned Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that Iran is a danger to the Middle East.

Except for not being a superpower, Iran resembles the Soviet Union of the 1980s. It challenges the West in a reckless game of nuclear chicken while sponsoring terrorism throughout the world, while its people have lost so much faith in its Islamist ideology that its secret police is taking increasingly harsh measures against opponents of the regime, which scoffs at United Nations' sanctions while counting its oil income.
The world waited about 70 years for the fall of the Soviet Union. The world does not seem to have that long to wait while Iran becomes increasingly dangerous – and not just to other countries. Ahmadinejad's regime has imprisoned hundreds of thousands of Iranians over the past several months just for violating the fanatical Islamic dress code. Security police have arrested and abused hundreds of university students, labor union leaders, and other would-be reformers.
Much worse, the Iranian government has executed more than 150 people since the beginning of the year, including women and teenagers. Ahmadinejad's method of choice is public hanging, often broadcast on television. There are reports that another 150 are to be hanged or stoned to death in the near future.
On the diplomatic front, the United States is trying to broaden UN-sponsored economic sanctions in an attempt to halt Iran's nuclear program. But no one expects such a logical campaign to work against a regime of religious fanatics.
This week the United States took a different kind of step to isolate Iran by declaring its elite Revolutionary Guard to be a terrorist organization. This appears to fit in with Vice President Dick Cheney's lobbying for air strikes against Revolutionary Guard training camps.
This week the United States designated Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a "specially designated global terrorist." This move against Iran's 125,000-member military elite makes the group's finances vulnerable to US intervention.

While the Revolutionary Guard is the first national military unit to be so designated, as opposed to non-governmental terrorist organizations like Hizbullah or Hamas, it is a logical move, given the ever-growing confrontation over Iran's nuclear threat. This is another signal from Washington for the mullahs to step back from the brink before it is too late.
We are already at war with the Islamofascists of Iran, if just at the skirmishing stage. Just as the forces of democracy had to fight the totalitarianism of the Nazis, and then stand firm against the totalitarianism of Communism until it collapsed on itself, so we must be prepared to do what is necessary to win this conflict.

Dirty Bombs Coming to a Theater Near You

2007-08-14T08:36:00.000-05:00

By: Michael D. Evans
Published: August 13, 2007

Al-Qaeda is planning new attacks on U. S. soil, according to a recently declassified report. The report names several terrorist organizations that "pose a persistent and evolving threat" to the U.S.

Officials who monitor various sources in order to make threat assessments have seen heightened reports of possible terrorist activity involving the U.S. In fact, a website based in Israel reports that al-Qaeda has forecast attacks in Miami, Los Angeles and New York. (It is no coincidence that these three cities house the largest Jewish populations in the U.S.) Just days ago, in fact, the city of New York suffered a major slowdown as radiological sites were set up in order to inspect vehicles capable of transporting radioactive cargo into the city.

Was it a prank? If so, it still managed to disrupt life on the streets of the Big Apple. Said Randy Larsen, CBS News terrorism analyst, "It's a cheap way to disrupt us; life is going to be more difficult for residents of New York City today. Traffic will be more difficult. It's something for al Qaeda to do, even if they have no capability whatsoever. Remember it's not a weapon of mass destruction, it's a weapon of disruption."

White House security advisor Fran Townsend said recently, "There should be no question right now that there is a strong relationship between core al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and al-Qaeda in Iraq meaning to do us harm."

The consensus is that worldwide counterterrorism efforts since 9/11 have hindered al-Qaeda's ability to attack the U.S. mainland. However, National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) analysts are concerned that as we move farther away from the events of 9/11, international cooperation designed to minimize the threat level will decline...or vanish altogether. Al-Qaeda has targeted seven U.S. cities (including the three affected by the recent "dirty bomb" scare), and threatened to kill 3 to 5 million Americans, which has always been Osama bin Laden's goal.

When I interviewed James Woolsey, director of the CIA (1993-1995) for my book, The Final Move Beyond Iraq, I asked about the possibility of a "dirty bomb" being brought into this country. According to Woolsey, "You could hide one, say, in a bale of marijuana. There are all sorts of ways to get across our borders with fairly large things-both our southern border and our northern border and our coasts. The amount of nuclear material you need for a bomb is twenty-five to thirty-five pounds-about the size of a volleyball or maybe a basketball. But getting an Iranian set of fissionable material, and then assembling a bomb once you’ve got it into the country, could well be done once they have that kind of material. And they don’t need to make it themselves in order to have it."

Former IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon told me that Iran would likely use proxies to deliver a "dirty bomb" as a means of distancing themselves from retaliation by either Israel or the U.S. This is already being done effectively in Lebanon through Hezbollah, in the PA through HAMAS, and in Iraq through Moqtada Al Sadr's 60,000 strong Mahdi Army. Ya'alon said the resulting casualties from a proxy-delivered "dirty bomb" could well be in the hundreds of thousands, depending on the quality of the materials used in a "dirty bomb."

Iran hopes to keep the international community at bay long enough to develop its own small nuclear arsenal - and once that is done, all previous bets will be off. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be within one strike of doing what he has claimed for years ought to be done: wiping Israel "off the map" as the first step toward the world he envisions as ideal-a world without Zionism and America. Iran has, in fact, now passed the 3000 mark in the number of centrifuges it possesses - enough to enrich uranium - and is well on its way to having 8000 by the end of 2007.

While al-Qaeda in Iraq has been responsible for the deaths of American troops in Iraq, it has not posed a direct threat to the U.S. mainland since 9/11. A report released by the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on threats to the U.S. states, "...al-Qaeda will probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of al-Qaeda in Iraq, its most visible and capable affiliate and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the [U.S.]."

Since being routed from Afghanistan following 9/11, al-Qaeda has been well-schooled in the use of IEDs (improvised explosive devices), conventional small arms, and in the ways and means to slip through security nets. Neither has the group given up on obtaining chemical, biological or nuclear weapons; nor would they have any hesitation to use such weapons.

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Dr. Michael D. Evans is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Final Move Beyond Iraq, www.beyondiraq.com.

Al Maliki in Bed with the Enemy

2007-08-14T08:33:00.000-05:00

By: Michael Evans
Published: August 10, 2007

While a report from the U.S. military declares that Iran is responsible for a particularly vicious type of roadside bomb (explosively formed penetrators) that are
used to carry out attacks against U.S.-led troops, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki is in Iran for his second State visit in less than a year. The purpose for his visit: Talks on how to improve Iraq’s security.

Al Maliki is, in fact, reaching out to the nation that is most responsible for the continuing turmoil within Iraq. Iran is seen as the central player in arming Shiite militia, providing training and/or funding for the terrorists that flood into Iraq from neighboring countries, and certainly with providing the kind of roadside bombs that are responsible for the deaths of both Iraqis and Americans alike.
Al Maliki is also in Iran to promote “economic ties and other ties that contribute to combating terrorism and its challenges.” According to the Iraqi Prime Minister, Iran and Iraq have “a joint understanding that they are keen to solve the problems and sufferings of the Iraqi people. And they are both convinced that their cooperation may lead to helping Iraq restore stability.” Is this not akin to turning the hen house over to the fox and hoping that the end result will be idyllic peace between the two?
The two countries have enjoyed economic ties in recent years, and in fact, trade between the two former foes reached a level of over a billion dollars in recent years. Baghdad is seeking even greater economic ties with its most powerful neighbor in the region. According to Al Maliki, he will also “discuss and sign a number of cooperation memorandums” with his Iranian counterparts. Iran is, in fact, a desired vacation destination for Iraqis looking to escape their own war-torn country. And tourism agreements between the two countries allow Iranian pilgrims to visit Karbala and Najaf. This provides an open border for terrorists who secrete themselves amongst the pilgrims.

To encourage cooperation and dialogue between the two countries, Iran has an embassy in Baghdad, and has consulates in major Iraqi cities. The embassy and consulates of this member of the axis of evil are nothing more than war rooms to fund and plan the battles against U.S. troops. While in Iraq on a State invitation from President Barzani earlier this year, I was stunned to learn that Iranians are buying up property in Iraq and are pouring a fortune into building fundamentalist mosques.
Iran is known as terrorist harboring and supporting state – the very entity about which President Bush spoke following 9/11: "If you harbor terrorists, you are terrorists. If you train or arm a terrorist, you are a terrorist. If you feed a terrorist or fund a terrorist, you're a terrorist, and you will be held accountable by the United States and our friends."
Now, with the U.S. State Department and Iranian officials playing coy little games with each other regarding “security in Iraq”, America finds herself squarely in her own crosshairs. America has violated its own policy against terrorism by negotiating with a terrorist state that harbors, arms, feeds and funds terrorists, not only in Iraq, but in countries around the world.

According to the number two U.S. military commander in Iraq, General Raymond Odierno, Shiite militias such as the massive Mahdi Army are still very active in Iraq. The general says that as much as 73 percent of the attacks against American troops are instigated by Shiite militiamen. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and its proxy, Hezbollah, are training the terrorists/militia and placing the bomb-making ingredients in their hands. General Odierno is also convinced that many of the 107mm rockets and launchers, and the 122mm mortars are compliments of Iran.
So, Al Maliki is in Iran. What will he accomplish? Will he send the signal that he welcomes Iran’s continued interference in Iraq? Will he slyly indicate to the Iranians that he would like their help in thwarting the plan to rid his country of the terrorists and insurgents that arrive daily from Iran and from Syria? Exactly what is it that Nouri al Maliki hopes to accomplish with these overtures to the mad mullahs of Tehran and their anointed leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
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Michael D. Evans is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Final Move Beyond Iraq, www.beyondiraq.com.

Tea With Terrorists

2007-08-14T08:31:00.000-05:00

By MICHAEL D. EVANS
Published: August 9, 2007

It is against US law to provide "aid or counsel" to terrorist groups as defined by law, such as Hamas or Hizbullah. Some governments, like Israel, have a similar policy, while others believe it may be a good idea to talk to even the most fanatic Islamist groups.
However, even governments that subscribe to the no-talk doctrine have made exceptions. There have been talks with the IRA, the African National Congress, and Iran during the Lebanese hostage crisis. Even the Israeli government, which condemns such talks because it lends the terrorists credibility, has negotiated with Hizbullah for the exchange of prisoners.

But it's one thing to negotiate with terrorists who have seized hostages – and are bargaining to trade them for some advantage – and to talk with terrorists who are not out to trade, but to destroy. Al-Qaida didn't take hostages on September 11, it made a gruesome declaration of war by murdering some 3,000 Americans.

Terrorism is sometimes excused as the tactics of the weak against the strong, as if those who employ suicide bombers to blow up buses or skyscrapers are somehow doing so because they are the underdogs and have no other resort, unlike powerful, legitimate governments. This naïve tendency to morally equate terrorists and governments insults the victims of terrorism, or their memories.

Terrorists are not people who just drive a hard bargain, they are people who commit crimes against humanity in the service of whatever cause they claim as their own. Their ideology is their justification, not common morality. As Lenin said, the purpose of terrorism is to terrorize. The hostages on United Airlines Flight 93 understood that the rules of the game had changed and acted accordingly, with great heroism. Being threatened with death was pointless after they realized they would die anyway.

Is not talking with murderers different from letting them talk to us? Apparently there is some bizarre kind of competition among leading American newspapers to publish articles by representatives of outlawed terrorist groups Hamas and Hizbullah. In one, The Washington Post printed an op-ed by Hizbullah Sheikh Muhammad Fadlallah, in which he argues that the meaning of jihad is “no different than any human and civilized concept of self-defense.” This is the same Hizbullah that fired – without provocation -- some 4,000 rockets at the civilian population of northern Israel last summer.

Similarly, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times have recently published self-serving op-eds by Hamas spokesmen Ahmed Yousef and Mousa Abu Marzook. This raises a number of important questions. Is the reason such respected journals are opening their pages to the voices of terrorism because they believe racist murderers deserve to be heard, even if they deny the right to exist of a sovereign state and member in good standing of the United Nations?

Is it because there are actually some uninformed readers who don't already know that Hamas is committed to destroy Israel? Could it just be that Hizbullah and Hamas have hired such good PR firms? Would The New York times have printed an op-ed by Josef Goebbels? Maybe next we going to be treated to one by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, explaining why wiping Israel off the map is a great idea – and besides, the Holocaust never happened.

With all the wooly-headed blather about "why don't you just sit down and talk things over" with those people – those people who air their grievances by blowing other people up -- nobody has (yet) invited Osama bin-Laden to publish an op-ed. Maybe there is (so far) enough common sense left in the editorial offices of our leading newspapers to avoid such an atrocity.

Just as we don't need to read the thoughts of those who would murder us, so we don't need to talk with them either. Talking with someone means there is some common interest to discuss. There is nothing to talk about with terrorists.

Al Sadr Stole U.S. Weapons

2007-08-08T08:39:00.000-05:00

By Michael D. Evans
Publsihed: August 8,2007

Congressional watchdogs reported that the U.S. is missing over 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles in Iraq. This is the work of the “Baghdad Mafia” and its godfather, Moqtada Al Sadr. Dr. Mike Evans spoke with high level government contacts in Iraq who told him that many of the armaments are in the hands of Iranian sub-contractor, Al Sadr and his Mahdi Army. Evans was the first U.S. journalist invited for a State visit earlier this year by President Barzani. While in Kurdistan, he met with dozens of government officials. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing they would be targeted by Iran if identified.

According to the Iraqi officials with whom Evans spoke, Iran now has control of this large cache of U.S. weapons, and, it is safe to say that some of these same weapons have been used against U.S. troops in recent months.

Al Sadr is the son of Ayatollah Muhammad Al Sadr, who is said to have been murdered by Saddam Hussein’s henchmen in 1999. While the younger Al Sadr does not hold an official position in the Iraqi government, his influence is felt extensively. It is widely recognized that the Mahdi Army and not al-Qaeda is public enemy # 1 in Iraq.

Al Sadr and his Mahdi Army once enjoyed the blessing of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. Al Sadr was protected from interference by American troops, and in return, Al Maliki enjoyed the support of the Mahdi Army. It was Al Sadr’s ragtag band of fanatics that provided Al Maliki’s government with some legitimacy in the eyes of the Iraqi people. Al Maliki made Al Sadr part of the Iraqi political scene, showered him with funds and bestowed authority on him.

Al Sadr’s impact in Iraq was evident in July when he pulled 30 of his deputies and six ministers from Al Maliki’s government. This was a blatant attempt to damage the Iraqi government beyond repair.

Al Sadr’s Mahdi Army is also widely involved in corruption and extortion using tactics such as kidnapping, robbery, and of course, the always lucrative trafficking in stolen weapons. And, as is usual for these he-men terrorists, they hide behind innocent women and children, often forcing entire families to provide protection and anonymity.

Al Sadr has moved his command center to Iran, according to Evans resources. His followers, however, are adamant that he is still in Iraq and is being protected by his supporters. Theories abound regarding Al Sadr’s reasons for lying low, the most well-known and oft-repeated being that he is a target of U.S. forces.

Iran is the center of gravity for Middle East terror. This is due in large part to Ahmadinejad’s obsession that he will be the one to usher in the Mahdi, the Twelfth Imam, and will control the world. The puppet, Ahmadinejad, and the mullahs that pull his strings, are using proxies and sub-contractors throughout the Middle East in the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, and are using his fervor to possess nuclear weapons to achieve their end.

The Mahdi Army now has more than 60,000 troops in Iraq. Now, Tehran is apparently in control of some 190,000 U.S. weapons that will considerably improve their arsenal and provide excellent training tools for the next battalion of Mahdi Army recruits in Iraq.

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Dr. Michael Evans is the New York Times #1 bestselling author of The Final Move Beyond Iraq. www.beyondiraq.com

Coming Clean About Footbaths

2007-08-06T23:10:00.000-05:00

By MICHAEL D. EVANS
Published: August 7, 2007
Author: Dr. Evans is the author of several N.Y. Times Bestsellers including the #1 Bestseller, The Final Move Beyond Iraq.

There is a growing movement on American universities to grant Muslim requests for prayer times, prayer rooms, and ritual footbaths. This is spurring a renewed debate on the separation of church – or mosque – and state. Aside from the question whether Islam is being treated preferentially over other religions, there is a more sinister issue: the link between Muslim student organizations and Islamist terrorism.

The debate was triggered by news that the University of Michigan-Dearborn is planning to install footbaths in at least two campus restrooms at the request of the local branch of the Muslim Student Association (MSA), to facilitate the ritual foot-washing some Muslims perform before praying the required five times a day.

When journalist Debbie Schlussel broke the story, it appeared to be an isolated incident. Then university spokesman Terry Gallagher insisted that footbaths for Muslim students is a growing trend on American campuses, citing Boston University, Cal State-Fullerton, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Washington University of St. Louis, as installing footbaths. He told Schlussel that, "We wanted to be part of that trend in accommodating Muslim students."

The fact that public universities and public funds are constitutionally barred from supporting any religion is not the problem (the Michigan footbaths are to cost some $27,000). This is a case that was made for the American Civil Liberties Union and I would be surprised if they weren't already preparing a challenge in the courts.
What is far more worrisome is where this new campus trend is coming from and what it means. According to spokesman Gallagher, the footbath initiative is the result of "years of ongoing negotiations with the Muslim Student Association." This group, which has some 150 branches in campuses throughout the US, is not your everyday student interest group or religious association.
The Chicago Tribune in 2004 exposed the radical MSA as an American branch of the notorious Egyptian terrorist group, the Muslim Brotherhood. This group, which became well known for its part in the murder of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981, played a key role in the 9/11 attack on the United States.
While no one is suggesting the average Muslim student is involved in terrorism, one cannot ignore the fact that certain exceptional Muslim students are. Recently Syed Maaz Shah – the former head of the Muslim Student Association at the University of Texas-Dallas -- was convicted of illegally possessing firearms while attending a Muslim terrorist training camp where he allegedly sought to kill Americans.
According to Stephen Schwartz, policy analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, "MSA presents itself as a campus-service organization not much different from other collegiate faith groups. But the reality is very different, and deeply sinister. MSA is a key element in the Wahhabi lobby, and a cornerstone of the conspiracy by Saudi-backed extremists to control American Islam, as well the public discourse about Islam in America."
The MSA is on record as defending the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and its chapters have distributed the propaganda of Osama bin Laden on their Web sites. In addition, the MSA has strong ties with the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, which is directed from the Saudi capital, Riyadh. WAMY's US offices in Virginia have been a main focus of the federal investigation of funding by Islamist terrorist groups following 9/11.

The Muslim Brotherhood is dedicated to recreating the Islamic civilization of the caliphates of the 7th and 8th centuries, with all that implies for non-believers, not to mention women's rights. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood created Hamas and its supporters helped found al-Qaida.

The Brotherhood also arranged for Mohammed Atta and the other 9/11 terrorists to attend al-Qaida terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, where they planned the worst terrorist assault on America so far. The issue on US campuses today is not about Muslims having ritually clean feet, but Muslims with blood on their hands.

“Allah Collapsed the Bridge"

2007-08-06T14:26:00.000-05:00

By Dr. Michael D. Evans
Published: August 6, 2007

On Monday, August 1, an eight-lane bridge on Interstate 35W, the main north-south route through Minneapolis, collapsed during the 6:00 PM rush hour. A somber Governor Tim Pawlenty said, “This is a catastrophe of historic proportions for Minnesota.” The nation looked on in horror as views of the catastrophe were played out again and again during evening newscasts.

Television ratings were just as high in the Middle East in Iran, Syria, the Palestinian Authority, and even in countries many would consider conservative and less hostile to the U.S., but the reaction to the news of the bridge’s collapse was vastly different. Multitudes were jubilant as they repeated again and again, “Allah collapsed the bridge.”

Why would millions of Muslims be delighted to hear the news of such a terrible tragedy? They believe the collapse of the I-35 bridge over the Mississippi River was “Ensh’allah” – “God is willing.” They believe that this evil is truly the will of Allah, a punishment for the deeds of the “Great Satan.”

The collapse of the bridge in Minneapolis will embolden terrorists to renew their plan to attack America, more than America’s ambitious surge in Iraq. If one truly believes that Allah is already attacking the “Great Satan”, it takes little for jihadist recruiters to convince a “wanna be” to strap on a suicide pack and head West.

Radical Islam thrives on its hatred for the “Great Satan” – America – and the absolute belief that Allah has given radical Islam the power to defeat their enemy. They believe this can be accomplished in the same way the U.S.S.R. was defeated in Afghanistan.

Had a democratic election been held in Saudi Arabia following the rout of the Russian Army in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden would have been elected by a landslide. Millions of cassette tapes were distributed with messages idolizing bin Laden’s rock star status. His followers truly believed that the shahideen in Afghanistan were responsible for the collapse of the entire Soviet Union. They are now convinced that they will, through the power of Allah, defeat the U.S. in Iraq. The U.S. will collapse as did the U.S.S.R.

Al-Qaeda quickly launched a jihadist message following the Minneapolis bridge collapse in an attempt to unify recruits from numerous terrorist organizations. An Internet banner boldly proclaims, “Coming soon God willing? Wait for the big surprise.” Animated photos of Osama bin Laden and some of his key lieutenants appear with pictures of President George Bush and President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan.

Not only are the terrorist organizations united by their hatred of America which began long before the attack on 9/11, they are also united by their belief in bigotry and in divine intervention. To a radical Islamist, the terrible event in Minneapolis was a Super Bowl event. Not only did they react with glee over Allah collapsing the bridge, they compared it to the suicide bombing that collapsed a bridge in Baghdad on June 10. In the minds of radical Islamists, the collapse of the Minneapolis bridge was a sign from Allah that all of the land of the “Great Satan” will soon collapse.

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Dr. Michael D. Evans is the New York Times #1 bestselling author of The Final Move Beyond Iraq – www.beyondiraq.com.

Bush Climbs to the Summits

2007-08-05T09:37:00.000-05:00

By MICHAEL D. EVANS
Published: August 5, 2007
Author: Dr. Evans is the author of several N.Y. Times Bestsellers including the #1 Bestseller, The Final Move Beyond Iraq.

In his latest bid at high-level problem solving, President George W. Bush has invited representatives of the major industrialized and developing countries to a summit on climate change in Washington the last week of September. The climate meeting will be one of five summits the president is holding between July and late fall.

Bush held a smaller-scale summit with Britain's new prime minister, Gordon Brown, last month in Washington. While their two-day meeting was little more than a formal welcome to the successor of Tony Blair, it did reinforce the special relationship between the two countries, even as Brown was seen as distancing himself from Bush on Iraq by working for a speedier troop withdrawal.
Bush's next bid at summitry takes place this week, when he hosts Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai for a strategy discussion on increasing Karzai's control over his country. The two are expected to address the new al-Qaida resurgence, the thriving trade in opium, and Afghanistan's relations with Iran. Bush is expected to pledge to do everything possible to persuade the Taliban to release its Korean hostages.
Next month President Bush will attend a summit on "Security and Prosperity Partnership" in Quebec. He will join Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper for the trio's third summit since 2005, the State Department says, to “develop common approaches to transnational security threats and to expand economic productivity by streamlining trade among the countries.” Some critics have suggested that these summit meetings are aimed at merging the three nations into a "North American Union" similar to the European Union.
Of course, no round of summitry would be complete without one on the Middle East. On July 16, Bush proposed holding an international conference later this year aimed at restarting peace talks. He said the parley would be "a moment of choice in the Middle East" and administration officials hoped that the leading moderate Arab country, Saudi Arabia, would attend, even though it does not have diplomatic relations with Israel.

Nobody was really surprised when the Saudis dropped their initiative for a land-for-peace deal between Israel and the Muslim world, apparently fearing an al-Qaida attack or worse – a coup attempt, an Israeli intelligence official said last week. "We estimate the Saudis got cold feet over suspicions of Iran and fears of terror attacks sponsored by Iran and al-Qaida," the official was quoted as saying.

It seems that plans for the last summit of the Bush diplomatic season are running into trouble. Not just the Saudis are reluctant, but the Israelis are, too. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's cabinet reportedly moved quickly to limit the scope of intended discussion. The feeling in Israel, still plagued by daily rocket attacks by terrorists in the Gaza Strip, is that it is premature to discuss issues such as borders, let alone the status of Jerusalem, with Palestinians fighting it out between Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and former prime minister Ismail Haniya.
"Israel has openly stated that we're willing to talk about issues of 'political horizon' and about how to achieve the vision of two states for two peoples," said Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for Olmert. "But we have been very clear that we are not willing to discuss at this stage the three core issues of borders, refugees, and Jerusalem."
In Damascus, President Bashar Assad at first scoffed at the idea of a summit as a desperate move by Bush for a substantive achievement before leaving office. He graciously let it be known later that Syria would participate if Israel made some concessions in advance, such as giving up the Golan Heights.
For his part, Abbas has stated what he would demand at the summit: immediate talks on a final-status agreement. With the West Bank ruled by Abbas's Fatah and a Hamas-controlled Gaza, Bush's final summit of the season is unlikely to yield him the legacy of peacemaker.