Turkey's President Warns US to Quit Syria's Manbij

February 6, 2018

(AFP) - President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday warned the United States to withdraw any American forces from the Syrian town of Manbij, vowing Turkish troops would expand a cross-border military operation to the key strategic hub.

Erdogan blamed Washington for the presence in Manbij of fighters from the Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) and its Democratic Union Party (PYD) political wing, which Ankara sees as terror groups.

Turkey on January 20 launched a major operation aimed at ousting YPG forces from their enclave of the northwestern town of Afrin. However moving east to Manbij -- where unlike Afrin there is a US military presence -- would mark a major escalation.

Accusing Washington of breaking past promises, Erdogan said: "They (Americans) told us they will pull out of Manbij. They said they will not stay in Manbij... Why don't you just go?"

"Who did you bring there? PYD. Who did you bring there? YPG. Who did you bring there? PKK," he said.

Turkey considers YPG as Syrian offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has waged an insurgency since 1984 and is designated a terrorist outfit by Ankara and its Western allies.

"And then you tell us not to come to Manbij! We will come to Manbij to return it to its original owners," he added.

Turkey considers towns like Manbij to be originally Arab-majority territory whose ethnic balance was upset in favour of the Kurds during the seven-year civil war.

Turkey's Western allies, including the United States, do not classify the YPG as a terror group and have worked closely with its fighters in the battle against Islamic State jihadists.

In 2016, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance dominated by the YPG, captured Manbij from IS.

In a show of anger at Turkey's NATO ally, Erdogan asked the United States what it was doing in Syria in the first place.

"You do not have a border, you are not a neighbour (of Syria)," he said. "What's your business there? We have a 911 kilometre (566 miles) border."

Erdogan also accused US President Donald Trump and his predecessor Barack Obama of failing to tell the truth over US support for the YPG.

"They told us many things but unfortunately they did not tell the truth," Erdogan said. "Mr Obama did not tell the truth and now Mr Trump is heading down the same path."

Turkey's Erdogan: 'Confirmed Evidence' US-Led Coalition Forces Supported ISIS

"Erdogan hates Kurds, particularly secular ones. The Kurds hate him, but they really hate IS, and they have been fighting them from go. His sons trade arms for oil to IS. He's done prisoner swaps with them. He used a very suspicious 'coup' as an excuse to lock up the great bulk of the intellectual professionals in his country. The US has definitely allowed arms to end up in unfortunate places, but this guy is no trustworthy source. He's lying. He's a dictator." - paulie_purr

December 27, 2016

Independent Journal Review - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday made the bombshell claim that he has “confirmed evidence” that U.S.-led coalition forces provided support to terrorist groups in Syria, including ISIS.

Erdogan reportedly told reporters during a press conference in the Turkish capital of Ankara. In addition to ISIS, Erdogan claimed U.S.-led coalition forces have also provided support to the Kurdish militant groups YPG and PYD, according to Reuters.

“They were accusing us of supporting Daesh [Islamic State].”

“Now they give support to terrorist groups including Daesh, YPG, PYD. It's very clear. We have confirmed evidence, with pictures, photos and videos.”

U.S.-led coalition forces have actively helped Syrian rebels battling Bashar al-Assad, but have never openly assisted ISIS or other terrorist groups. Erdogan apparently did not release the “evidence” he purports to have.

However, the Obama administration has faced harsh criticism amid numerous reports that U.S. weapons were ending up in the hands of ISIS fighters.

Turkey Says CIA-backed Cleric, Fethullah Gulen, Plotted Failed Military Coup

Gulen wrote in his blog that "As someone who suffered under multiple military coups during the past five decades, it is especially insulting to be accused of having any link to such an attempt. I categorically deny such accusations." The truth is that Erdogan has little to gain from the extradition of Gulen, who has absolutely zero responsibility for what is increasingly likely a self-orchestrated coup. It benefits Erdogan far more to keep Gulen in the US — where he can use him as a perpetual scapegoat to "justify" his relentless power-grab — than to bring him home where his trial (and execution) would eliminate one of the biggest pretexts Erdogan has to be openly paranoid in public, and demanding ever more power. [ZeroHedge]

Donald Trump Adviser: U.S. Should Extradite Coup Suspect Fethullah Gulen to Turkey

November 10, 2016

Newsweek — Washington should extradite the exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen—who Turkey suspects of plotting a failed military coup in July—to Ankara, a top military adviser to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday.

“We need to adjust our foreign policy to recognize Turkey as a priority. We need to see the world from Turkey’s perspective,” retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn wrote for the conservative news website The Hill.

“What would we have done if right after 9/11 we heard the news that Osama bin Laden lives in a nice villa at a Turkish resort while running 160 charter schools funded by the Turkish taxpayers?”

He continued: “The forces of radical Islam derive their ideology from radical clerics like Gulen, who is running a scam. We should not provide him safe haven. In this crisis, it is imperative that we remember who our real friends are.”

Shortly after Trump’s win in Tuesday’s vote, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim congratulated the construction magnate on his win but also called for him to extradite the cleric, who has lived in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania since 1999.

Ankara has grown frustrated with Washington’s refusal to extradite Gulen over his alleged role in the failed takeover. But U.S. authorities are examining evidence of his purported role in the coup.

Gulen denies any involvement in the attempt to overthrow Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But Ankara maintains that the cleric’s strand of Islam, which he presents as moderate, infiltrated Turkish state institutions. The aftermath of the failed coup saw Turkish authorities purge state institutions of thousands of workers, either arresting or suspending them.

Lt. Gen. Flynn criticized the Obama administration for undermining Turkey as a partner, saying that the new administration must start to understand that Turkey “is vital to U.S. interests” and a “source of stability in the region.”

The veteran general, who served as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, played an advisory role in Trump’s campaign and the president-elect is widely expected to appoint him to a prominent defense role in his cabinet.

Turks Can Agree on One Thing: U.S. Was Behind Failed Coup

August 2, 2016

New York Times — A Turkish newspaper reported that an American academic and former State Department official had helped orchestrate a violent conspiracy to topple the Turkish government from a fancy hotel on an island in the Sea of Marmara, near Istanbul. The same newspaper, in a front-page headline, flat-out said the United States had tried to assassinate President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the night of the failed coup.

U.S. Suspends Syria Ceasefire Talks with Russia, Blames Moscow

October 3, 2016

Reuters - The United States broke off talks with Russia on Monday on implementing a ceasefire agreement in Syria and accused Moscow of not living up to its commitments under the Sept. 9 deal to halt fighting and ensure aid reached besieged communities.

The confirmation that the U.S.-Russian talks on Syria have collapsed suggests that there is little hope, if any, of a diplomatic solution emerging anytime soon to end a 5-1/2-year-old civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced 11 million.

"The United States is suspending its participation in bilateral channels with Russia that were established to sustain the cessation of hostilities," U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.

Secretary of State John Kerry last spoke to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on Saturday, a senior State Department official said, after Kerry threatened last week to walk away from the talks.

In Moscow, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Russian news agencies the United States was trying to shift blame onto Russia, which in recent days had tried to sustain the agreement.

But Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces, supported by Iranian-backed militia and Russian air power, have since last week stepped up their offensive against rebel-held areas of Aleppo, Syria's biggest city, bombing hospitals and damaging water supplies.

In the northeastern city of Hasaka, a bomb killed at least 20 people at a Kurdish wedding, according to a Kurdish militia and a monitoring group.

A U.S. intelligence official said the bombing campaign was "one of the deadliest" since the civil war erupted in 2011.

"These air strikes, mostly focused on Aleppo, have utilized a wide variety of deadly munitions, including barrel bombs, thermobaric bombs, incendiary munitions, cluster bombs and bunker busters," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The end of the talks could trigger deeper U.S. consideration of military options such as providing more sophisticated arms, logistical support, and training to Syrian rebel groups, either directly or via Gulf Arab states or Turkey.

Turkey Entrenched in the Turbulence of the Middle East

Turkey's downward spiral into instability: How did it get here?

June 6, 2016

CNN - Turkey, once a paragon of relative tranquility in a volatile Middle East, is engulfed by insecurity -- as today's car bomb attack against a police bus in Istanbul cruelly illustrates. 

Suspicions will likely fall on the separatist militant Kurdish group the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which carried out similar incidents in Ankara last January and March.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will probably approve the lifting of immunity against the 50 pro-Kurdish members of parliament to facilitate criminal prosecutions against them and potentially dislodge them from their seats.

He will also use this tragedy to impress on Turkish voters that Kurdish and Islamist militancy can only be thwarted by transforming Turkey from a parliamentary system into a powerful executive presidency.

That argument does not hold water given that Turkey's mounting instability arises not from the type of governance, but from the over-centralization of power in presidential hands.

Almost a month ago, Erdogan deposed his own handpicked Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu due to the latter's attempts to carve out his own influence in government. 

Furthermore, Erdogan's ideological domestic and foreign policies have positioned Turkey at the heart of the factional, sectarian and ethnic strife tearing the region apart. 

His campaign to impose a single religious identity based on Sunni Islam, and instil a homogenous Turkish nationality on an ethnically diverse society, is a recipe for escalating social fissures and political violence.

Turkey Charged Two Journalists with Treason for Publishing Footage Showing Intelligence Agency Shipping Truckloads of Weapons to Opposition Fighters in Syria in Early 2014

Turkey's Erdogan says Obama spoke 'behind my back' on press freedom

April 3, 2016

Reuters - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan accused U.S. counterpart Barack Obama of going behind his back for criticizing Turkey's press freedom record and linked it to efforts to "divide" Turkey, media reports said on Sunday.

Obama said on Friday after meeting Erdogan on the sidelines of a nuclear summit in Washington that he was troubled by curbs on the press in Turkey and said he had urged Erdogan not to repress democratic debate in his country.

Turkey has drawn international condemnation for charging two journalists with treason for publishing footage that purportedly showed the intelligence agency shipping truckloads of weapons to opposition fighters in Syria in early 2014. Can Dundar and Erdem Gul of Cumhuriyet face life in prison.

"I was saddened to hear that statement made behind my back. During my talk with Obama, those issues did not come up," Erdogan told reporters, according to Hurriyet daily.

He returned to Turkey after a five-day trip to Washington on Sunday.

"You cannot consider insults and threats press freedom or criticism," Erdogan said.

Turkey has seized control of opposition newspapers and TV channels and cut the satellite feed of a pro-Kurdish channel, accusing them of terrorism-related activities. Erdogan has personally brought more than 1,800 criminal suits against individuals, including journalists and children, for insulting him since becoming president in 2014.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said at least 13 journalists are in jail for their coverage and described a "massive crackdown" that includes self-censorship and harassment of media-business owners.

Criticism of Turkey's press record seeks to "divide, shatter and if they could, swallow up Turkey," he said. "This is what I mean by mastermind. A mastermind is playing games over Turkey.

Erdogan and his supporters occasionally refer to a shadowy foreign "mastermind" that seeks to destabilize Turkey, a NATO member that shares borders with Syria, Iraq and Iran.

U.S. is Conducting Another Program in Turkey to Train Syrian Opposition Fighters; the 2015 Training Effort in Turkey, a Country That Covertly Supports ISIS, Failed

The US military is now training dozens of Syrian fighters to stare down ISIS

April 1, 2016

Business Insider - The U.S. military said on Friday it has started training dozens of Syrian opposition fighters to battle the militant group Islamic State as part of a revamped program that aims to avoid mistakes that doomed its first training effort in Turkey last year.

Training for the first group of recruits includes how to identify targets for U.S.-led coalition airstrikes to allow coalition aircraft to better strike Islamic State from the air.

"That allows us to bring significantly more fires into play in any of these skirmishes, battles, and firefights that are taking place throughout Syria," said U.S. Army Colonel Steve Warren, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition.

Warren said no Syrian fighters had yet graduated from the program.

The Pentagon has declined to say where the training is being conducted, but U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have told Reuters it is in Turkey.

The failure of the original program, which sought to train thousands of fighters, has been a concern for President Barack Obama, whose strategy depends on local partners combating Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq.

The 2015 program was problematic from the start, with some of the first class of Syrian fighters being attacked by al Qaeda's Syria wing, Nusra Front, in their battlefield debut. At one point, a group of U.S.-trained rebels handed over ammunition and equipment to Nusra Front.

Instead of trying to pull entire units from the fight for training, as the Pentagon sought to do last year, the new program will take small groups of fighters from the front-lines for training.

"If it works we'll do more. And if it doesn't, we'll shift again," Warren said.

The U.S. strategy against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, where the Sunni militant group has carved out a self-declared caliphate, aims to force the collapse of its two major power centers of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

Armed Turkish Jets Infiltrate Greek Airspace, Adding to the More Than 1,300 Airspace Violations Last Year Around the Greek Islands in the Aegean Sea

Armed Turkish Jets Infiltrate Greek Territory As NATO Members Continue Old Feud

January 8, 2016

IBT - Greece accused Turkey of infiltrating its airspace late Thursday after four jets flew over disputed islands in the northeastern part of the Aegean Sea, according to the Greek Ministry of Defense, which also said that two of the aircraft were armed. The alleged flyover of the islands adds to the centuries-old feud between the two neighboring NATO nations in the Middle East.

“Ankara’s provocative actions are meant to tell the world that Turkey does not recognize the existing air and sea borders in the Eastern Mediterranean,” said Greece’s former deputy military chief of staff Frangoulis Frangos, according to a report Friday by Russian news outlet Sputnik.

The infiltration is the first of 2016 and adds to the more than 1,300 airspace violations that happened last year over a 10-mile airspace zone around the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea that Turkey refuses to recognize. More than 30 of those were directly inside the country's sovereign and non-disputed territory. In all, airspace violations from 2014 had doubled to more than 2,400 in 2015, according to the Sputnik report.

Turkish Military Expenditure Over Time | FindTheData

In November a Russian jet was shot down by a Turkish air force F-16 after it allegedly strayed into Turkey from Syria, adding to diplomatic strain between NATO and Russia over conflict in Syria and Ukraine.

German Politician Says Turkey Needs to be Pressured to Finally Stop Covert Support of ISIS

German MP: West ‘Should Put End’ To Erdogan’s Secret Ties With ISIS

As long as the Turkish President pursues a policy that contributes to the prosperity of terrorists in the Middle East, a resolution on addressing the situation in the region would be extremely difficult, German politician Sahra Wagenknecht said.

January 8, 2016

Sputnik News - Western countries should exert pressure on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and put an end to the secret relations of Ankara and Daesh (also known as Islamic State terrorist group), otherwise the conflict in Syria may escalate, Deputy Chairman of the Left Party Sahra Wagenknecht said in an interview with German magazine Spiegel

“The escalation risks are extremely high,” Wagenknecht said. “There are now 15 countries fighting in Syria, sometimes together, sometimes side by side, sometimes against each other. There is no common strategy,” she added.

According to the politician, the parties involved do not have any consensus regarding their actions. They don’t even have an agreement on the fact that the fight against the Daesh should be of the highest priority. For instance, Turkey has different priorities and maintains ties with jihadists.

“Erdogan has to be put under pressure to finally stop his covert terrorist support and close the Turkish border for the Islamic State,” Wagenknecht said.

At the same time, the German politician stressed that the military intervention plays into the hands of Daesh terrorists, because the airstrikes lead to a large number of civilian casualties, causing hatred and indignation among the local population.

“Germany is involved in a war, the course of which no one can really control,” the German politician stressed.

Since 2014, Daesh militants have seized vast areas in Syria and Iraq, and have declared a caliphate under the rule of Sharia law in territories they control.

After that the US formed a coalition of some 60 nations which has been carrying out airstrikes against the terrorists since September 2014. The mission has not been authorized by the Syrian government or the UN Security Council.
 

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia vs. Islamic Republic of Iran

A proxy war in the Middle-East

October, 2015    

The Maghreb and Orient Courier - The Middle East is currently the scene of a huge proxy war involving the oil-rich regional powers. Both countries are the main leaders for their own Muslim faith in the world, Sunni for Saudi Arabia, and Shia for Iran, and are supporting governments, legalized or banned opposition groups, or insurgency groups in those countries where popular protests have emerged in the recent years and have challenged legal powers.

Turkey Positions Itself as the Leader of Sunni Islam in the Mideast; Iranian Media Outlets Link Turkish President to Saudi Executions

Turkey, Which Sought Middle Ground, Enters Saudi-Iranian Dispute

January 8, 2016

New York Times - As the Middle East has descended into bitter sectarian conflict in recent years, Turkey has tried to remain above the fray, posing as an honest broker and peacemaker. Increasingly, though, it is being drawn into the conflict, and its preferred status as disinterested mediator is slowly becoming untenable.

Late Thursday, for example, Turkey said it had summoned the Iranian ambassador to register its objections to reports in Iran’s state-controlled news media linking a visit by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, late last month to the kingdom’s execution of a Shiite cleric.

The execution of the cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, among 47 men put to death on terrorism-related charges, and the subsequent sacking of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, ruptured relations between the Sunni monarchy in Saudi Arabia and Shiite-led Iran, setting the region on edge.

Turkey, a Sunni-majority country, has pursued an aggressive foreign policy in the Middle East in recent years in an effort to expand its influence and to position itself as the region’s leader of Sunni Islam. In doing so, it has sought to occupy a middle ground in the dispute between Saudi Arabia and Iran. As a number of Sunni-led countries in the region, including Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, sided with Saudi Arabia, Turkey sought to calm tensions by advocating dialogue and offering itself as a possible mediator.

On Friday, as Iranians throughout the country turned out to protest the sheikh’s execution, chanting “Death to Al Saud,” a reference to the Saudi royal family, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey warned that the tensions were “further enhancing antagonism in the region.” At the same time, a spokesman for the Turkish government, Numan Kurtulmus, pointedly noted that Turkey does not have the death penalty — a veiled criticism of Saudi Arabia.

Yet, the rift between Saudi Arabia and Iran is presenting a growing challenge.

While Ankara is trying to rebuild its relationship with Riyadh — fractured during the Arab Spring, when Turkey supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Saudi Arabia opposed it — it also seeks to maintain some semblance of a relationship with Iran, despite the two countries supporting opposing sides of the civil war in Syria. Turkey, like Saudi Arabia, has supported Sunni rebels seeking the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, while Iran has been one of Mr. Assad’s chief supporters.

Fethullah Gülen's Islamic Group is CIA Front, Ex-Turkish Intel Chief Says

All evidence suggests that NATO Turkish Gladio networks picked up Gülen as a potentially useful asset years ago. As their agenda changed with the collapse of the Soviet Union, their role for Gülen changed as well and doors were opened for him to play that role. So in a true sense we can say that the Gülen Cemaat is the nothing more than the projection of an idea from Langley Virginia CIA headquarters, an idea from essentially stupid people there who believed they could use him and they could abuse religion as a cover to advance their design for global control, what David Rockefeller calls One World Government. Unlike the CIA’s Mujahideen Jihadists like Hekmatyar in Afghanistan or Naser Oric in Bosnia, the CIA decided to give Fethullah Gülen a radically different image. No blood-curdling, head-severing, human-heart-eating Jihadist. No, Fethullah Gülen was presented to the world as a man of “peace, love and brotherhood,” even managing to grab a photo Op with Pope John Paul II, which Gülen featured prominently on his website. The Gülen organization in the US hired one of Washington’s highest-paid Public Relations image experts, George W. Bush’s former campaign director, Karen Hughes, to massage his “moderate” Islam image. The ideas and manipulations of the CIA and US State Department are collapsing everywhere today, but they are blinded by their own arrogance. Just look at their absurd mess they created with the neo-nazis in Ukraine. [Source]

On December 9, 2015 attorney Robert Amsterdam held a press conference in Washington DC to announce a new civil suit against the U.S.-based Turkish imam Fethullah Gülen, and share the latest developments from the global investigation into a wide array of alleged abuses and unlawful conduct with the Gülen movement’s charter school empire. A full video of the press conference is below:



BFP Exclusive- William Engdahl on Operation Gladio, Fethullah Gülen & One World Government

By William Engdahl 
February 10, 2015
 

“CIA’s Graham Fuller: One of the early advocates of using Muslim Brotherhood & Gülen Cemaat to advance US foreign policy.”
The following is the translation of an interview with William Engdahl conducted by journalist Deniz Ülkütekin of Turkey’s Cumhuriyet:

1. As I read you started to research about Gulen Cemaat when you came to Turkey for a conference. What was the thing that attracted your interest about Gulen and his members?

WE: I am a geopolitical researcher and author now for more than thirty years. My prime theme is geopolitics or how power is organized in our world by whom, to what aim. When I was invited to Turkey on a speaking tour for one of my books, a Turkish journalist who since has become a trusted friend suggested if I wanted to understand what was going on in Turkey, a country I have long considered to have a far more positive role than she has played within NATO, I should look deeply into the Gülen Cemaat. That began a long process as I began to realize the deeper agenda behind the façade of Rumi that Gülen and his people project.

2. Our first knowledge about Gülen is his struggle against communism via a foundation (which was a NATO agenda indeed). So could we say that Gülen and his CIA relationship started long ago?

   WE: Yes, all evidence suggests that NATO Turkish Gladio networks picked up Gülen as a potentially useful asset years ago. As their agenda changed with the collapse of the Soviet Union, their role for Gülen changed as well and doors were opened for him to play that role.
   
   So in a true sense we can say that the Gülen Cemaat is the nothing more than the projection of an idea from Langley Virginia CIA headquarters, an idea from essentially stupid people there who believed they could use him and they could abuse religion as a cover to advance their design for global control, what David Rockefeller calls One World Government.
   
   Unlike the CIA’s Mujahideen Jihadists like Hekmatyar in Afghanistan or Naser Oric in Bosnia, the CIA decided to give Fethullah Gülen a radically different image. No blood-curdling, head-severing, human-heart-eating Jihadist. No, Fethullah Gülen was presented to the world as a man of “peace, love and brotherhood,” even managing to grab a photo Op with Pope John Paul II, which Gülen featured prominently on his website. The Gülen organization in the US hired one of Washington’s highest-paid Public Relations image experts, George W. Bush’s former campaign director, Karen Hughes, to massage his “moderate” Islam image. 
   
   The ideas and manipulations of the CIA and US State Department are collapsing everywhere today, but they are blinded by their own arrogance. Just look at their absurd mess they created with the neo-nazis in Ukraine.

3. As it's a very conflicted subject, how do you certainly believe that Gülen and CIA work together?

   WE: This is not merely my view but that of very knowledgeable Turkish analysts and even the former Turkish MIT senior figure, Osman Nuri Gundes, former FBI Turkish-American translator Sibel Edmonds, and others have documented his deep links to very senior CIA people such as Graham Fuller.  When Gülen fled Turkey to avoid prosecution for treason in 1998, he chose not to go to any of perhaps a dozen Islamic countries which could have offered him asylum. He chose instead the United States. He did so with the help of the CIA. The US State Department tried to block a special “preference visa as an alien of extraordinary ability in the field of education” permanent visa status for Gülen, arguing he was basically a fraud with a fifth grade education and no special Islam scholar. Over the objections of the FBI, of the US State Department and of the US Department of Homeland Security, three former CIA operatives intervened and managed to secure a Green Card and permanent US residency for Gülen.
   
   Intervention by three current or “former” CIA people--George Fidas, who was US Ambassador to Turkey and an ex CIA Deputy Director; Morton Abramowitz who was described as at least “informal” CIA, and CIA career man who spent time in Turkey, Graham E. Fuller. They got Gülen asylum in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania. That certainly suggests a strong tie at the very least.

4. Was the relationship between Gulen and the CIA depending on both parties’ benefits? If so what were their benefits? How did CIA support Gulen to develop and grow his foundation?

   WE: Yes, clearly. For the Gülen Cemaat it enabled a vast business empire to be created which gained more and more influence by placing its people inside the police, the courts and education ministry. He could build his recruiting schools across Central Asia with CIA support. In the USA and Europe, CIA-influenced media like CNN gave him beautiful free publicity to overcome opposition to open his schools across America. For the CIA it was one more tool to destroy not only an independent secular Kemalist Turkey, but to advance their Afghan drug trade worldwide and to use Gülen’s people to destabilize opponent regimes that the CIA network in Washington, the “deep state”, wanted to get rid of.
   

Europe, Sympathetic to Iran, Slams Saudi Executions; Qatar, Jordan, Djibouti and Turkey Back Saudi Arabia; Turkish President Calls Saudi Arabia's Execution of Shia Leader "a Domestic Issue"

Europe, Sympathetic To Iran, Slams Saudi Executions

Europe is showing a lot less willingness than the U.S. to look the other way on the Saudi executions.

January 6, 2016

Antiwar.com - Historically cozy US-Saudi relations have kept the Obama Administration relatively quiet on the weekend Saudi execution of a top Shi’ite cleric, a move that US officials warned them against and which they did anyhow.

Europe, however, is showing a lot less willingness to look the other way on the Saudi executions, and while the Saudis scramble to get other Sunni nations to cut ties with Iran, the incident seems to be increasing Europe’s sympathies for Iran, and by consequence bolstering their ties.

It’s not surprising, as Europe has already been critical of Saudi war crimes in Yemen, and is opposed to the death penalty in general, making the execution of a religious leader on the basis of his sermons kind of a no-brainer for them to condemn.

Meanwhile, Iran is seen as increasingly reasonable, scrambling to comply with the terms of the P5+1 nuclear deal, and quick to condemn protesters attacking the Saudi embassy in Tehran. The Saudis are treating it as a government plot, but Iran arrested dozens of protesters involved in the attack and has made it clear publicly they don’t endorse attacks on the embassies.

Indeed, Iran was making a public show of being part of a community of critics against the Saudi execution, with President Rouhani hosting the Danish Foreign Minister in Tehran before issuing a statement warning that the Saudis aren’t going to distract attention from the “criminal” execution by simply cutting ties with Iran.

Qatar the latest to back Saudi Arabia in Iran row

January 6, 2016

Al Jazeera - Qatar has become the latest country to back Saudi Arabia in its dispute with Iran, recalling its ambassador to Tehran on Wednesday in response to the attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions last weekend.

Jordan, Djibouti, and Turkey also expressed pro-Saudi positions on Wednesday after the embassy attacks in Iran that followed the execution of a renowned Shia leader in Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the execution of 47 men for terrorism charges in Saudi Arabia was "a domestic issue". One of those put to death was Shia Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr - a move that stirred sectarian anger across the region.

"Forty-six of those who were executed are Sunni and they are executed because they are affiliated with al-Qaeda. One of them was a Shia religious leader. This decision was previously taken and Saudi Arabia implemented it. This is their decision," Erdogan said in a speech in the capital Ankara.

Turkey Finances ISIS with $2 Billion Annually by Exporting Oil Stolen from Iraq and Syria; Erdoğan Setup a Secret Hospital in Turkey for Wounded ISIS Jihadists

Russia shows proof of petrol trafficking by Daesh via Turkey

In response to the provocations of the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, according to whom accusations should not be made lightly, the Russian government organised a Press conference by their assistant Minister for Defence. He presented proof that we have been publishing in our columns for more than a year – that Turkey, as a state, is responsible for the export of petrol stolen by Daesh in Iraq and Syria, thus offering between one and two billion dollars of annual revenue to the terrorist organisation. This traffic continues in violation of the pertinent resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.

December 3, 2015

Valentin Vasilescu - A Press conference was organised at the Ministry for Defence of the Russian Federation on the 2nd December 2015 – present were the assistant Minister for Defence, Anatoly Antonov, the head of operations, Lieutenant-General Sergueï Rudskoy, and the commander of operational management, Lieutenant-General Mikhail Mizintsev.

According to the commanders of the Russian army, the main source of finance for the terrorists of the Islamic Emirate is the illegal sales of petrol products, and the only beneficiary of this petrol smuggling operation is Turkey [1]. According to the Russian generals, the political directors of Turkey, via the family of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, are implicated in the trafficking of contraband by the Islamic Emirate [2].

Every day, more than 8,500 tanker trucks are implicated in the trafficking of petrol by the Islamic Emirate, a long column transporting more than 200,000 tons of petrol into Turkey. The Russian generals presented a map showing the three main routes by which the IE smuggles petrol from Syria and Iraq into Turkey.

The first route, leaving the oil-fields of Raqqa (north-east Syria), passes through western Syria, where the Russian Su-24 was shot down, and where, on 25th November 2015, surveillance satellites photographed 395 tanker trucks waiting to unload Syrian petrol in the port of Dörtyol, and 60 others in the port of Iskenderun. The Russian generals estimate that an oil tanker full of smuggled petrol leaves Turkish ports every 24 hours.

Gulenists Donate Heavily to Members of Congress from Both Sides of the Political Aisle

Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has proclaimed that Fethullah Gülen is a U.S. agent. There is no formal organization of followers of Fethullah Gülen, a prominemt Muslim preacher living in the the United States. What does exist, however, is an education system, from kindergarten to university in Turkey, the country's largest newspaper "Zaman", TV channel and radio station "Samanyolu", a network of business enterprises, who support the concept of "Hizmet" (mutual aid). It is believed that in the past 20 years, followers of the teachings of peace, tolerance and dialogue among civilizations significantly strengthened their positions in the Turkish state power structures (especially in the police and gendarmerie), economic ministries, and show business. Gülen supporters around the world number between five and seven million people. However, Cemaat does not have a formal structure or membership. The movement is a truly international network structure formed around the spiritual leader, but devoid of the hierarchy of leaders. In Turkey, the popularity of the movement is quite high (previously estimated by experts at 15-20% of the population); however, is not sufficient to fully conquer the minds of the religious voters. Primarily, this is due to the fact that the Islamic electorate has been captured by supporters of Erdogan, who, in turn, is one of the political heirs of the Milli Görüş National Outlook movement. The Cemaat education network “seeks to breed a ‘new generation’ of socially integrated Muslim believers who will eventually achieve high government positions.” The Cemaat movement’s general approach to education is reminiscent of missionary activity practiced by the Roman Catholic Church's “Society of Jesus”, commonly known as the Jesuits. [Source]

Fethullah Gülen’s Movement Secretly Funded 200 Trips to Turkey for US Lawmakers and Staff

October 29, 2015

USA TODAY — Fethullah Gülen’s movement has secretly funded as many as 200 trips to Turkey for members of Congress and staff since 2008, apparently repeatedly violating House rules and possibly federal law, a USA TODAY investigation has found.

The group has been accused by the Turkish government of attempting a coup in that country. Turkish leaders have asked the United States to extradite Gülen from the remote compound in rural Pennsylvania where he has lived for 20 years.

A dozen different Gülen groups have sponsored congressional travel since 2008 and have filed forms with the House certifying that they were paying for the trips. But a USA TODAY investigation found many of those disclosures were apparently false. Some of the Gülenist groups claimed to be certified nonprofits, but they do not appear in state or IRS databases of approved charities. Groups that did register with the IRS filed tax forms indicating that they did not pay for congressional travel. And five of the groups admitted to congressional investigators earlier this year that a Gülenist group in Turkey was secretly covering the costs of travel inside Turkey for lawmakers and staff.

Congressional disclosures show the Gülen-backed trips totaled more than $800,000 in free travel for lawmakers and staff.

In July 2015 Buzzfeed website revealed that the supporters of the ideology of the Gülen movement in Turkey and the U.S.A. in the last 8 years have spent 1.5 million dollars for lobbying against the Armenian Genocide recognition. The following is excerpted from the Buzzfeed article:

Liberal Democrats like Yvette Clarke, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Al Green, and conservative Republicans like Ted Poe and Pete Olson have all benefited from donors affiliated with Gülen in one way or another. Gülen himself reportedly told followers in 2010 that they could only visit him in the Poconos if they donated to their local congressman, according to the Wall Street Journal, though Gülen has denied the comment. Many of New York’s Gülenist donors are based in Sheepshead Bay, a working-class neighborhood on the southern edge of Brooklyn that is home to a tight-knit Turkish community. Several local Gülen sympathizers told BuzzFeed that they feel attracted to the movement because of its tolerant religious ideas and its center-right, pro-business politics. Many of them have donated sums to the same U.S. politicians — including Rep. Yvette Clarke and Rep. Ed Towns, both New York Democrats, and Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat from Texas. Several members of the community said the Gülen movement operates out of the local branch of the Turkish Cultural Center, and that it counts many prosperous business owners as sympathizers. Suleyman Aydogan, the vice president of the Brooklyn branch of the center, said he supports the movement and has personally met Gülen, also said that he has done fundraising for New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte and for Sheepshead Bay Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz.

Followers Of A Mysterious Turkish Islamic Cleric Have Donated Heavily To Hillary’s Campaign And Family Charity

November 22, 2015

The Daily Caller - Members of a secretive Turkish Islamic movement that is at the center of a congressional ethics committee investigation have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and to her family’s charity, a Daily Caller investigation has found.

Longstanding Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan Transitioned from Head of Government (Prime Minister) to Head of State (President) in 2014

After his Strasbourg EU visit, the pope moves on to EU-aspirant Turkey. Turkey’s President and former Primer Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is a Fethullah Gulen disciple.

Erdogan hosts people's pope, in plush new palace

November 28, 2014

AFP/Reuters - Pope Francis, in his Alitalia jet, arrived in Turkey on November 25, 2014, his first visit to the country. The austere Argentine will be President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's guest of honor in Ankara's controversial new, 1,000-room presidential palace. 

On Pope Francis' first of his three day in the country,  his mission was to strengthen ties with Muslim leaders while condemning violence against Christians and other minorities in the Middle East. Francis held talks with then-President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Mehmet Gormez, the top cleric in the Muslim-majority secular country.

The visit came as the self-styled "Islamic State" laid claim to large parts of Iraq and Syria, just across Turkey's southern border. At the time, Turkey was sheltering over 1 million refugees from Syria, thousands of them Christians.

The 77-year-old Argentine, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, moved on to Istanbul with a visit to the Hagia Sophia — the great Byzantine church that was turned into a mosque in 1453 and now serves as a museum — one of the highlights on his itinerary.

Some 2,700 police supervised the visit in Turkey's capital, Ankara, with more than 7,000 officers ready for Francis' Istanbul appointments.

A palace fit for a … president

Francis became by far the highest profile guest ever to visit Turkey's new presidential palace, inaugurated in October 2014 to coincide with longstanding Prime Minister Erdogan's transition from head of government to head of state.

The building is by no means universally popular. The lavish, 1,000-room palace cost just over 500 million euros (well over $600 million) so far, with a major mosque complex and other extensions still reportedly planned.

The presidential palace, tentatively called Ak Saray ("White Palace") was built under controversial circumstances, in a wooded area within the Ataturk Forest Farm in Ankara. The construction went ahead despite environmental concerns and court orders, prompting its critics to instead call it Kacak Saray ("Illegal Palace").

ISIS Has Ties to U.S. NATO Ally Turkey

Killed ISIS Commander’s Cell Phone Shows Direct Ties To Turkish Intelligence

Former US Department of State senior adviser David Phillips said, “Turkey’s role has not been ambiguous — it has overtly supported the ISIL. It has provided logistical support, money, weapons, transport and healthcare to wounded warriors.”

December 28, 2015

The Fifth Column - An ISIS commander was killed in Salahuddin province and his body was searched. A cell phone retrieved from the corpse revealed messages from Turkish intelligence services proving the NATO country was providing security for ISIS militants when they traveled between Turkey and Iraq. This is the second NATO country implicated in assisting ISIS troops. The first was Canada.

The IS commander was killed by Hashd al-Shaabi, a loyalist volunteer force. Jabbar al-Ma’mouri, a leader within the force made the announcement. He said,

“The mobile phone also contains other important information which cannot be disclosed now, and it has been delivered to the specialized security groups for further scrutiny.” 

Turkey and the ISIS share two enemies: President Assad of Syria and the Kurdish people. This incident comes on the heels of the Turkish Air Force shooting down a Russian plane engaged in operations against the Islamic State. Ten days ago, Turkey invaded Iraq briefly. It sent its troops to within a few hundred miles of where the phone was recovered. Turkish artillery has also rained shells down on the Kurdish community of Kobane.

While the western media seems to be overlooking and downplaying NATO support for the Islamic State, some senior US officials are speaking out. Former US Department of State senior adviser David Phillips said, “Turkey’s role has not been ambiguous — it has overtly supported the ISIL. It has provided logistical support, money, weapons, transport and healthcare to wounded warriors.”

Across the border in Syria, President Assad blasted western adventurism in Syria and cast the NATO powers as an obstacle to peace. He said,  

“There are only a few countries ready for this. No one dares to establish contact with Syria to resolve the situation as long as it does not appear on the agenda of the United States.” 

Kurds of All Denominations Could Ultimately Destroy the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq

Syria’s Kurds Have Nearly Tripled Their Territory Fighting the Islamic State in 2015

December 22, 2015

Vice News - Amid the chaos in Syria, the country's Kurds have managed to resist the advances of the Islamic State and carve out a zone of unprecedented autonomy in their own lands.

Over the past year, the YPG Kurdish militia beat back the Islamic State (IS) and nearly tripled the size of Kurdish-controlled territory in Northern Syria, all the while helping shrink the size of the IS caliphate by around 14 percent.

That's according to a new report by the IHS Jane's, a private intelligence company that analyzes international security issues,  and has been tracking the ground war in Syria.

As a result, the Kurds are essentially in control of their own mini-state — which they call Rojava — that runs across the Turkish-Syrian border. Administered by the Democratic Union Party (PYD) the political arm of the YPG, the government in Rojava has reached an understanding with the Assad regime that allows the Kurds to govern their own territory, while beating back IS from the borders.

"The Kurds have had autonomy thrust upon them," explained Michael Gunter, a professor of political science at Tennessee Tech University, and the author of Out of Nowhere: The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War, a recent study of Kurdish politics in Syria. "There's no way they will go back to a subservient position of not controlling their own lands anytime in the future."

ISIS Sees Turkey as Its Ally; Draft Deal is Reached to Normalize Ties Between Israel and Turkey

Fethullah Gulen has been called the “most dangerous Islamist” in the world. He has amassed a fortune—thanks, in part, to the CIA—of $25 billion. The Turkish government remains controlled by Gulen, and Gulen has wielded political allegiances in Washington that have resulted in the placement of Turkish Muslims in the CIA, NSA, FBI, and other national security organizations. He has created well-heeled lobbies to promote the cause of Islam and to develop Islamic candidates for political office. He has formed close friendships with Bill and Hillary Clinton, former Secretaries of State James Baker and Madeleine Albright, and George W. Bush. Gulen has also established thousands of schools throughout the world, where students are indoctrinated in the tenets of political Islam. More than 100 of these schools, funded by American taxpayers, are located in the United States. He lives in his fortress in the Poconos of Pennsylvania. - Paul L. Williams, Ph.D., The Last Crusade, Mounting Crisis Between Turkey and Israel Created in Pennsylvania, June 1, 2010

1857 Mt. Eaton Road, Saylorsburg, PA (Gulen's Headquarters)

In November 2014, Newsweek interviewed a former ISIS member going by the pseudonym Sherko Omer. Sherko told Newsweek of how he left his native Iraq hoping to join the fight against Assad in Syria, but soon found himself caught up in a horrifying sectarian war, unable to escape: "My parents are practicing ­Muslims and prior to leaving for Syria I regularly went to the mosque for Friday prayers. I never joined a political party or organisation but I had friends who were members of Kurdistan Islamic Group (KIG) – and it was KIG who gave us the contacts in Turkey to go to Syria. When the three of us went to ­Turkey in October 2013 most of those who crossed into Syria ended up at ISIS border camps. This is what happened to us. Others were jihadists who knew what was going on and believed that if they died fighting for Allah they would go to heaven; and there were some who had come to join organisations such as the al-Qaida branch in Syria, the Jabhat Al-Nusra. While with ISIS, I noticed that the field captains and commanders spoke fluent Turkish. I rarely heard them speak in Arabic. ISIS commanders in Raqqa openly talked about the best foreign jihadists crossing into Syria from Turkey. Once, I heard that some ISIS foreign jihadists had been stopped by the Turkish border guards and police, but such were the ISIS connections that they were soon freed and safely on their way to Syria."

In September 2014, Rozh Ahmad of YourMiddleEast.com was the first to interview Sherko Omer. Sherko told Ahmad: "In October 2013 we got contacts from several people close to the Kurdistan Islamic Group (Komal) in my hometown, Halabja [Iraq]. We were told that the contacts were members of the Free Syria Army (FSA). We met the contacts in Turkey and they took us to a hotel for few days. Afterward, they took us to a training camp on the Turkey-Syria border and we found ourselves at an ISIS (or IS) camp instead of FSA. They had no beards, dressed in modern clothes and even took us to a hotel in the Turkish city of Kilis. We therefore assumed that they were FSA not IS, as did many others who came to Turkey to join the Syrian opposition but joined us at the IS camp... My commander said Kurdish YPG was an infidel secularist army and impure, arguing that each jihadist has the duty to first purify his own people and if we were all pure then infidels would not exit. The commander and others too gave me examples of Palestine and Israel as well as Kosovo and Serbs. They told me jihadists should first fight impure Muslims of Palestine and Kosovo to purify them and this way Israelis and Serbs would not exist. This was argued against my Kurdish people too. I joined a new battalion; we went back to Turkey and crossed the Turkish border to enter Serekaniye. [The Turkish soldiers at the Ceylanpinar Turkish border post] just turned a blind eye. We were initially told by the IS field commander to fear nothing because there was cooperation with the Turks at the border. The watchtower light caught us and our commander said everybody should stop but do not look at the light. He talked on the radio, then the watchtower light began to move after 8-10 minutes and that was the signal saying we could safely cross the border."

Reconciliation pact struck with Turkey: Israeli official

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signaled a possible warming of relations with Israel, saying that the entire region would benefit from the normalization of ties. Last year, Erdogan spoke out strongly against Israel's operations in Gaza, accusing it of committing genocide and "barbarism surpassing Hitler."

 December 17, 2015

AFP/AP - Israel and Turkey have reached "understandings" to normalise ties, at a low since the Israel naval raid on a Turkish flotilla headed for the Gaza Strip, an Israeli official said Thursday.

In 2010, Israeli commandos stormed the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara, the largest ship in an aid flotilla for the besieged Gaza Strip. One Turkish-American and seven Turkish citizens died in the raid and one more, who was in a coma, died in 2014. . 
 
In the aftermath of the raid, Turkey became one of the strongest critics of Israeli actions in Gaza.
 

U.S. Supported Radical Islamist Groups in Syria and Iraq That Eventually Morphed Into ISIS

In 2012, the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria were the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and the Salafists, an ultra-conservative, orthodox movement within Sunni Islam, taking a fundamentalist approach toward Islam, from which ISIS draws is radical, violent, merciless beliefs. According to a 2012 DoD document, "if the situation unravels, there is a possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria, and this is exactly what the opposition [rebels backed by the U.S. and its allies] want in order to isolate the Syria's Shia regime, which is considered a strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran)." It was a plan by the U.S. to use the Salafist movement to overthrow Syrian President Assad.

Syria is overwhelmingly Sunni Islam. That in and of itself is no big deal, as 85% of all the Muslims in the world are of the Sunni persuasion. The other 15% of Muslims in the world are of the Shi’a/Shi’ite variety.  So Syria is mostly Sunni. BUT Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, like his entire family and the ruling/military elite of Syria, is an Alawite. Alawites are a prominent minority religious group who describe themselves as a sect of Shi’a Islam. Some conservative Sunnis do not even recognize Alawis as Muslims at all, especially in places like ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia [a U.S. ally]. Of course, the ultra-conservative Sunni Saudis also don’t much like the straight-up Shi’as either…speaking of which… Do you know any other places that are Shi’a Islam? If you said Iran, then give yourself a hit off the hookah! And now you know why some other Arab states also hate Syria: the Syrian leadership has deep and entrenched ties with Shi’a Iran, a country that most other Arab states totally despise. Iran is not Sunni but Shi’a; they are also not Arab, but Persian. So Arab countries see increasingly powerful Iran as a regional threat.  And Syria has for decades allowed itself to be a conduit for the movement of weapons and money from Shi’a Iran thru Shi’a-led Syria over to Shi’a-inspired Hezbollah…which is a terrorist/political group located in Lebanon that fights against Israel. [Source]

Proof U.S. Government Wanted ISIS To Emerge In Syria (video)

November 20, 2015

Vigilant Citizen - In my article entitled ISIS : A CIA Creation to Justify War Abroad and Repression at Home, I list the numerous reasons why ISIS is actually serving the interests of the world elite. The following video adds another important piece of the puzzle by explaining leaked Department of Defense documents dating from 2012 – before ISIS even existed. They prove that the U.S. actually supported the radical Islamist groups in Syria and Iraq that eventually morphed into the monster that is ISIS.

This series of event lead to the creation of a (larger) quagmire in the Middle East, the migration of millions of Syrians towards the West and the generation of fear and panic around the world – perfect conditions for rushing new oppressive laws.



Here is the full PDF of the document obtained by Judicial Watch in a Freedom of Information action.

The relevant passage relating to the 'salafist principality', i.e. ISIS, is point 8C on page 5.

The explanation of who the 'supporting powers' are, i.e. 'The West' (= US, Israel, France, UK, Australia), Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, is point 2C on page 3.

https://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf

Syria war widens rift between Shia clergy in Iraq, Iran

Although Iraqi Al-Sistani refuses to sanction fighting in Syria war, influential Shia parties and militias are following Iran's direction and sending fighters

July 20, 2013

Reuters - The civil war in Syria is widening a rift between top Shia Muslim clergy in Iraq and Iran who have taken opposing stands on whether or not to send followers into combat on President Bashar Al-Assad's side.

Competition for leadership of the Shia community has intensified since the US-led invasion of 2003 toppled Saddam Hussein, empowering majority Shias through the ballot box and restoring the Iraqi holy city of Najaf to prominence.

In Iran's holy city of Qom, senior Shia clerics, or Marjiiya, have issued fatwas (edicts) enjoining their followers to fight in Syria, where mainly Sunni rebels are fighting to overthrow Assad, whose Alawite sect derives from Shia Islam.

Shia militant leaders fighting in Syria and those in charge of recruitment in Iraq say the number of volunteers has increased significantly since the fatwas were pronounced.

Tehran, Assad's staunchest defender in the region, has drawn on other Shia allies, including Lebanese militia Hezbollah.

Hezbollah's open intervention earlier this year hardened the sectarian tone of a conflict that grew out of a peaceful street uprising against four decades of Assad family rule, and shifted the battlefield tide in the Syrian government's favour.

The Syrian war has polarised Sunnis and Shias across the Middle East – but has also spotlighted divisions within each of Islam's two main denominations, putting Qom and Najaf at odds and complicating intra-Shia relations in Iraq.

In Najaf, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, who commands unswerving loyalty from most Iraqi Shias and many more worldwide, has refused to sanction fighting in a war he views as political rather than religious.

Despite Sistani's stance, some of Iraq's most influential Shia political parties and militia, who swear allegiance to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have answered his call to arms and sent their disciples into battle in Syria.

"Those who went to fight in Syria are disobedient," said a senior Shia cleric who runs the office of one of the top four Marjiya in Najaf.

"Shia crescent"

The split is rooted in a fundamental difference of opinion over the nature and scope of clerical authority.

Najaf Marjiiya see the role of the cleric in public affairs as limited, whereas in Iran, the cleric is the Supreme Leader and holds ultimate spiritual and political authority in the "Velayet e-Faqih" system ("guardianship of the jurist").

"The tension between the two Marjiiya already existed a long time ago, but now it has an impact on the Iraqi position towards the Syria crisis," a senior Shia cleric with links to Marjiiya in Najaf said on condition of anonymity.

"If both Marjiiya had a unified position (toward Syria), we would witness a position of (Iraqi) government support for the Syrian regime".

The Shia-led government in Baghdad says it takes no sides in the civil war, but the flow of Iraqi militiamen across the border into Syria has compromised that official position.

Khamenei and his faithful in Iraq and Iran regard Syria as an important link in a "Shia Crescent" stretching from Tehran to Beirut through Baghdad and Damascus, according to senior clerics and politicians.

Answering a question posted on his website by one of his followers regarding the legitimacy of fighting in Syria, senior Iraq Shia cleric Kadhim Al-Haeari, who is based in Iran, described fighting in Syria as a "duty" to defend Islam.

Militants say that around 50 Iraqi Shias fly to Damascus every week to fight, often alongside Assad's troops, or to protect the Sayyida Zeinab shrine on the outskirts of the capital, an especially sacred place for Shias.

"I am following my Marjiiya. My spiritual leader has said fighting in Syria is a legitimate duty. I do not pay attention to what others say," said Ali, a former Mehdi army militant who was packing his bag to travel from Iraq to Syria.

"No one has the right to stop me. I am defending my religion, my Imam's daughter Sayyida Zeinab's shrine."

A high-ranking Shia cleric who runs the office of one of the four top Marjiiya in Najaf said the protection of Shia shrines in Syria was used as a pretext by Iran to galvanise Shias into action.

"Shia project"

In the 10 years since Saddam's fall, Iran's influence in Iraq has grown and it has sought to gain a foothold in Najaf in particular.

Senior Iranian clerics have opened offices in Najaf, as well as non-governmental organisations, charities and cultural institutions, most of which are funded directly by Marjiiya in Iran, or the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad, local officials said.

The Iranian flag flies over a two-storey building in an upscale neighbourhood of Najaf, which houses the "Imam Khomeini Institution," named after the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The Imam Khomeini Institution is one of many Iranian entities that have engaged in social activities in Iraq, focusing on young men, helping them get married, and paying regular stipends to widows, orphans and students of religion.

Some institutions also support young clerics and fund free trips for university students to visit Shia shrines in Iran, including a formal visit to Khamenei's office in Tehran, Shia politicians with knowledge of the activities say.

"We have a big project in Iraq aimed at spreading the principles of Velayet e-Faqih and the young are our target," a high-ranking Shia leader who works under Khamenei's auspices said on condition of anonymity.

"We are not looking to establish an Islamic State in Iraq, but at least we want to create revolutionary entities that would be ready to fight to save the Shia project".

Comment About the Salafis from Vigilant Citizen

If you studied Quranic Arabic under a qualified scholar you would know its true meaning.

There are several branches and sub-branches in the sciences of Quran Exegesis. Unlike many other languages, an Arabic word is interpreted according to its root meaning and context and NOT necessarily literally. Many verses in the Quran are Mejaz, allegorical and metaphorically interpreted. A word can have several different meanings and connotations.

The verses most commonly misinterpreted are cherry picked ones used by Western non-Muslim detractors to make a moot point. There are quoted completely out of context! What are the verses before "SLAY the UNBELIEVERS wherever you find them!" and after it?

You must know the difference between Ahle-Kitab, Kaffir, Mushrik, Munafiq etc...

"Surely those who believe, and those who are Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabians - whoever believes in God and the Last Day and does good, they shall have their reward from their Lord. And there will be no fear for them, nor shall they grieve" (2:62, 5:69, and many other verses).

Muslims follow the Quran according to the Sunnah (example and practice in sayings and actions) of the Prophet (PBUH), a mercy for mankind. He was the living Quran. Even during wars for defensive measures, a strict code of conduct was made not to harm any innocent non-combatants, including women, children, the old, the infirm and ill, animals and even trees.

ISIS breaks every rule of the Quran and Sunnah. The core group cannot be Muslims.

Yes, of course there are Muslims that interpret the Quran literally and are usually known as Wahaabis and Salafis. These are the creation of the British during the 18th century.

The overwhelming majority of Muslims worldwide are NOT Wahaabis and Salafis.

Every terrorist in the West can be traced back to the intelligences services. FBI admits to setting up Muslim patsies.

How many million Muslims are there in the USA? What percentage of them are involved in terrorist activities? Even if a fraction of the 'practicing' Muslims followed the Quran literally, you would find chaos and mayhem in every major city, life as we know it would be disrupted.

How many names do you know of the many Muslims who also perished in the Twin towers on 911? Did you know Muslim cab drivers in NY ferried the injured to hospitals without charging them, putting considerable risk to themselves? Did you know among the doctors and surgeons who treated the injured were Muslims too?

There is a verse in the Quran that states '...he who saves the life of one human being, is like one who saves entire mankind, and he who takes one innocent life is as if he has taken the life of every human being on this planet." There is no distinction between a non-Muslim and a Muslim.

I practice natural medicine and chose this field to heal ANY individual without compensation because it brings me great joy to help others. I have received much goodness from non-Muslims throughout my life and I am playing my part in returning some of the goodness back to them. Call it Karma if you like.

I'll leave you with this, an American soldier who converted to Islam after returning from the first Gulf war where 20,000 servicemen and women converted to Islam, said this to a Muslim cleric, 'we had to invade YOUR country to really learn about Islam." Youtube "American soldier converts to Islam."

Some of staunchest defenders of the Islamic faith are NOT Muslims, they are actually Christians, Jews, Hindus etc...

"....I became more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter sel-effacement of the prophet, the scrupulous regard for his pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These, and NOT the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every trouble." - Mahatama Ghandi - [Young India (periodical), 1928, Volume X

This site (Vigilant Citizen) documents the various symbolism that I have been aware of for over thirty years. The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) stated, "I shall tell you one thing of the Anti-Christ (Dajaal) that no other Prophet before me has mentioned, that he (Dajaal) is one-eyed and your Lord is NOT one-eyed."

From Vigilant Citizen

Through terrifying headlines and shocking videos, ISIS is being used as a tool to justify war in the Middle East and to cause fear and panic worldwide. No, this is not a “crazy conspiracy theory”, it is simply the oldest trick in the book. ISIS was created by the very forces that are fighting it.

Ever since the creation of democratic nations – where public opinion somewhat matters – the political class is faced with a dilemma: War is needed to gain power, riches, and control, but the general public has a tendency to be against it. What to do? The answer was found decades ago and is still used successfully today: Create an enemy so terrifying that the masses will beg their government to go to war.

This is why ISIS exists. This is why the beheading videos are so “well-produced” and publicized worldwide through mainstream media. This is why news sources regularly come up with alarmist headlines about ISIS. They are used to serve the best interests of the world elite.

The current objectives are: Sway public opinion to favor the invasion of countries in the Middle East, provide a pretext for “coalition” intervention across the world, and manufacture a domestic threat that will be used to take away rights and increase surveillance. In short, ISIS is yet another instance of the age-old tactic of creating a terrifying enemy to scare the masses.

Basically, in the span of a few months, a terrorist group literally popped out of nowhere, causing mayhem in the very regions the US and its allies have been looking to attack for years. Its name: Islamic State in Syria, or ISIS.

The idea of the CIA funding an Islamic group to further its political interests isn’t exactly “far-fetched”. In fact, there are several obvious instances in recent history where the US openly supported extremist Islamist groups (dubbed “freedom fighters” in mass media). The most flagrant and well-documented example is the creation of the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan, a group that was created by the CIA to lure the USSR in an “Afghan trap”. The term Mujaheddin describes “Muslims who struggle in the path of Allah” and comes from the root word “jihad”. The “great enemy” of today was the friend of the past. A few decades later, these “freedom fighters” turned into the Taliban terrorists, among them Osama bin-Laden, who turned from a CIA agent to public enemy No. 1. The group was then used to justify war in Afghanistan. It is one of numerous examples where an Islamic group was created, funded and used to advance U.S. interests. The U.S. also backed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Sarekat Islam in Indonesia, Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan, and the Islamic regime of Saudi-Arabia to counter Russia.

As the ISIS threat spreads to neighboring countries, it will allow unprovoked military strikes against various nations. It is only a matter of time before airstrikes will be deemed ineffective and ground troops become necessary. In the end, these operations will complete a long-term plan of re-organizing the Middle East, eliminating any threats to Israel and significantly increasing pressure on Iran, the region’s remaining Islamic force.

Disgusted by the beheading videos, most Westerners now favor the violent annihilation of ISIS.  Of course, they do not realize that this same fervor will lead them to become victims of their own governments. ISIS has been issuing various threats to specific countries, causing panic in every one of them, prompting governments to “take action”. Unfortunately, “taking action” means reducing free speech and increasing illegal searches and surveillance.

The most important question one can ask is this: Who benefits from the existence of ISIS and the terror it generates? What does ISIS gain by creating videos taunting the most powerful armies in the world? Air strikes? On the other hand, what does the ruling class in the Western world have to gain? Continuing to make money through war and weapons, taking control of the Middle East while supporting Israel, increasing oppression and surveillance on domestic populations and, finally, keeping the masses constantly terrified and under control. In short, stoking panic around the world by provoking a state of chaos in the Middle East has been deemed necessary to implement a new world order.

The Rise of Persian Salafism

Mehdi Khalaji, senior fellow at The Washington Institute
October 3, 2013

More Iranians are turning to Salafism out of disenchantment with the Islamic Republic's Shiite creeds, creating a clear threat to the regime's rule.

Iran consistently accuses the United States and its allies in the Middle East of provoking tension between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. Among these accusations is the notion that the West funds Persian-language satellite television networks whose sole goal is to ignite sectarian conflict. Tehran's paranoid claims aside, many Persian broadcasters inside and outside the Islamic Republic are in fact engaged in a satellite war, and their various propaganda salvos point to a new phenomenon in Iran: the rise of Persian Salafism. The fact that a unique, puritanical interpretation of Sunni Islam is taking root in Shiite-ruled Iran has raised worries among the regime's elite and the traditional Shiite establishment. 

IRANIANS DISCOVER SALAFISM

Since the early twentieth century, Salafism has been spreading throughout Muslim communities from Europe to Indonesia. Yet few expected it to gain much traction in Iran given the innate antagonism between Sunni and Shia Islam. Traces of it entered the country before the 1979 revolution, but the sect did not gain popularity until fairly recently, after more than three decades of Shiite governance and regime propaganda. Today, it commands numerous active followers in Sunni areas such as Kurdistan and Baluchistan and in large, predominantly Shiite cities such as Tehran and Isfahan.

The Iranian regime views religious pluralism in general as a security threat, but the rise of Salafism -- a sect that regards the state's official religion as heresy -- presents more serious problems. For example, the Bahai faith is also viewed as a threat to Iranian Shiism, but its structure makes it more containable than Salafism. Bahai adherents in Iran are well organized, highly centralized, and apolitical, making them easier to track and less of a direct threat. Yet Salafis are scattered throughout the country and represented by multiple organizations with theological and ideological variations. More important, they are becoming politically active in some Sunni areas, at least in terms of publicly criticizing the government, questioning its religious legitimacy, and accusing it of discrimination against Sunnis. 

PREREVOLUTIONARY ROOTS

Since the 1950s, Salafi thought -- in its general sense, which includes Muslim Brotherhood ideology -- has entered Iran from the east and west. Following World War II, Sayyid Gholam Reza Saeedi (1895-1990), an Iranian religious author and translator, traveled to India and acquired extensive knowledge about the international Muslim community and elite. When he returned home, he began to translate works by Abul Ala Maududi -- the main ideologue of Pakistani group Jamaat al-Islamiyah and a prominent Salafi -- as well as other Muslim thinkers (e.g., Muhammad Iqbal). A prolific author, Saeedi played a significant role in introducing Persian readers to Indian Muslim concerns and the challenges of founding a new country, Pakistan. His works opened a new window to Iran's religious world, influencing younger readers who were seeking new ideas on Islam in order to ease their frustration with the religious establishment and confront ideological threats (especially the communist wave that was taking over Iran's intellectual environment at the time).

Meanwhile, other prerevolutionary Iranian thinkers introduced the country to the Salafist ideas of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. In the late 1940s, cleric Navab Safavi formed Fadayan-e Islam, the first Iranian Islamist group to establish relations with the Brotherhood and produce Persian translations of its writings, including the works of theoretician Sayyed Qutb. Another prominent cleric, Sayyid Hadi Khosrow Shahi (b. 1938), translated writings from Algerian, Tunisian, and Palestinian Islamists in addition to Brotherhood works. These and other translators were essentially political activists who sought to raise their countrymen's awareness of Muslim issues outside Iran. For example, the Islamist works they reproduced eventually created a new political question in Iran: the Palestine question.

While these translations were mostly received as ideological efforts to mobilize Iranians against Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi's regime and Western imperialism, Salafi thought also spurred some religious thinkers to fight "superstitions" in Shiism. Haidar Ali Qalamdaran (1913-1989) was heavily influenced by such writings and sought to purify Shiism of various prayers, rituals (e.g., pilgrimages to the shrines of the Shiite Imams of old and their descendants), and beliefs (e.g., the notion that the Shiite Imams had supernatural power and knowledge). He escaped an assassination attempt ostensibly motivated by traditional clerics in Qom and spent his whole life in isolation and poverty. Although he was not a political activist, his views had political implications in later years, such as refuting the legitimacy of the type of religious governance instituted by the Islamic Republic. He and others who criticized Shiite "superstitions" -- such as Muhammad Hassan Shariat Sanglaji (1855-1943) and Sayyid Abul Fazl Borqei (1909-1992) -- were also influenced by the Salafi conception of Islamic dogmas, especially the sect's interpretation of the unity of God. 

SALAFISM AS A POLITICAL REACTION

Under the Islamic Republic -- a regime that legitimizes the exclusive rule of the ayatollahs, makes Islamic law the main basis for legislation, and imposes it on all aspects of daily life -- many youths and other Iranians have turned away from Shiite convictions and embraced atheism, skepticism, Sufism, Sunni Islam, the Bahai faith, evangelical Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and New Age and Latin American mystical trends. Various regime organizations, including the Bureau of Religions and Sects in the Ministry of Intelligence, monitor these religious minorities and work against their proselytization efforts. Even Sufi circles -- which are officially Shiite -- face frequent repression.

In this environment, Salafism has rapidly spread all over the country through the internet, social media, and satellite television. In addition, various underground organizations offer training courses for young volunteers and run exchange programs to introduce Iranian Salafis to Arab Salafis in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. This is one of the reasons why the regime does not allow Sunnis to build mosques in Tehran or other large cities -- it is deeply concerned about Salafis using them to recruit young Shiites who are frustrated with the Islamic Republic's ideology. 

SATELLITE WAR

There are two major Shiite trends in Iran: the official regime creed, and an extremist version that defines itself largely in opposition to Sunni Islam. While the regime usually dismisses Sunni-Shiite tensions and advocates pan-Islamic approaches to foreign policy and other matters, the extremist Shiites (called gholat or velais) refuse to hide their animosity toward the first three Sunni caliphs (i.e., the Prophet Muhammad's successors, whom Shiites believe usurped Imam Ali's right to rule). These extremists are backed by clerical authorities, and their explicit anti-Sunni propaganda has caused trouble for the regime both inside the country and throughout the wider Muslim world.

In recent years, the gholat have relied in large part on satellite television to disseminate their propaganda, sparking an escalating virtual war between Salafis and Shiites. Today, Salafis use Persian-language satellite outlets such as the Global Kalemeh Network (based in Medina and Dubai and probably funded by Saudis) and Wesal Farsi (based in London and the Persian Gulf) to fight the "Safavid government," as they call the Islamic Republic and its Shiite ideology. They broadcast religious programs, take calls from Iran, and engage in debates with Shiite satellite networks such as al-Kawthar TV, the Global Ahl-e Bait Network (whose programs are hosted by an Afghan cleric), Imam Hussein TV, and Salaam TV (based in Virginia and supported by the Shirazis, a clerical family with significant influence among Gulf Shiites).

Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood also use various websites to fight the propaganda battle, some affiliated with organizations such as Jamaat-e Dawat va Islah-e Iran (the Society of Mission and Reform in Iran). On the other side, extremist Shiites run dozens of their own websites to confront the Salafis. Both sides are very active in social media as well. 

CONCLUSION

Many Iranian youths are disappointed in the Shiism professed by the regime and traditional clergy but wish to maintain their Islamic faith, leading them to convert to Salafism. The Muslim Brotherhood and other Salafi trends tend to focus on the unity of god and the desacralization of all human beings and worldly things -- a unique way of secularizing and rationalizing Islam in order to attract young students, especially those who study science. Unlike traditional Sunnis in Iran and Salafis elsewhere in the world, Iranian Salafis tend to question the Islamic Republic's religious legitimacy and purposefully exacerbate Sunni-Shiite tensions. To be sure, they do not share the global Salafist aspiration of taking over political power, knowing that any Islamic government in predominantly Shiite Iran would be a Shiite government. Yet Iranian Salafis are organizationally connected to potent groups in Saudi Arabia and other countries, and most of their ideology and funding comes from outside the Islamic Republic. Given these factors and the increasing resentment among Iran's Arab, Kurdish, and Baluch population, the growth of Salafism is a clear security threat to the regime.

Syria's Bashar al-Assad Facts and Information

Official Stats

• Official Title: President
• Government: One-Party State...with authoritarian tendencies
• Years Left in Office: Indefinite; no term limits
• Political Classification: Right
• Education: Dr. of Opthamology
• Age: 50 (born November 11, 1965)

Important Points

• Bashar al-Assad is the President of Syria, having taken over from his father's 3 decade rule
• Bashar al-Assad is a younger, more moderate, more progressive Arab voice
• Bashar al-Assad has strong ties to Iran and Hezbollah, which pisses off the US, Israel, and some Arab states
• Bashar al-Assad is strengthening ties with France, the EU, Russia, and China
• Bashar al-Assad may soon recognize Israel, which would radically change Middle Eastern politics and policies

The Rundown

Okay let’s get serious about the Syrians…the leader of Syria to be succinct: President Bashar al-Assad. And this is a dude to know, as his youth combined with his unique outlook may possibly make him a serious mover, shaker, and peace-maker in the mangled mess we call the Middle East. And he has a wickedly wondrous wife to boot! She is one hot piece of Assad! Combined with Bashar’s 6’2 frame, dreamy steel-blue eyes and extended cranium, they may be the sexiest first family on the planet….but I digress as usual, let’s get back to the main man of Syria and why he is important to know…

Thrust into the presidency of Syria, the genial, unassuming, and gangly Bashar al-Asad has held his own in the rough-and-tumble arena of Middle Eastern politics. He is the second oldest son of regional heavyweight and former Syrian strongman President Hafiz al-Assad, a dude that held the leadership position for 30 years and stabilized the state while consolidating power to his person.  Originally, Bashar wanted nothing to do with any of that political poppycock! He was schooled in Syria and the UK to be an eye doctor and surgeon, and was doing quite well and living the good life as an ophthalmologist in London.  His older brother, Basil, had been groomed for the presidency but following Basil’s death in a single-car accident in 1994, Bashar (arguably a better driver) was yanked from his post abroad and prepared for his inevitable coming to power.

During his six-year political apprenticeship, Bashar learned the government ropes, met important Arab leaders, and got to know the movers and shakers in Syrian politics. He also completed some “hurry-up offense” military training, in order to secure the nominal backing of the important Syrian military ranks. When Daddy al-Assad died in 2000, Bashar easily secured his succession in a 2001 referendum, which isn’t really too hard to pull off in Syria—it’s not what we would call a real example of democracy in action, since the cards are all stacked in the Assad family’s favor. Example: A referendum in 2007 overwhelmingly endorsed him as president for a second seven-year term….oh, and he was the only candidate on the ballot. Nonetheless, Bashar was seen as the last great hope amongst domestic reformers due to his young age and technocratic savvy.

Okay let’s get serious about the Syrians…the leader of Syria to be succinct: President Bashar al-Assad. And this is a dude to know, as his youth combined with his unique outlook may possibly make him a serious mover, shaker, and peace-maker in the mangled mess we call the Middle East. And he has a wickedly wondrous wife to boot! She is one hot piece of Assad! Combined with Bashar’s 6’2 frame, dreamy steel-blue eyes and extended cranium, they may be the sexiest first family on the planet….but I digress as usual, let’s get back to the main man of Syria and why he is important to know…

Thrust into the presidency of Syria, the genial, unassuming, and gangly Bashar al-Asad has held his own in the rough-and-tumble arena of Middle Eastern politics. He is the second oldest son of regional heavyweight and former Syrian strongman President Hafiz al-Assad, a dude that held the leadership position for 30 years and stabilized the state while consolidating power to his person.  Originally, Bashar wanted nothing to do with any of that political poppycock! He was schooled in Syria and the UK to be an eye doctor and surgeon, and was doing quite well and living the good life as an ophthalmologist in London.  His older brother, Basil, had been groomed for the presidency but following Basil’s death in a single-car accident in 1994, Bashar (arguably a better driver) was yanked from his post abroad and prepared for his inevitable coming to power.

During his six-year political apprenticeship, Bashar learned the government ropes, met important Arab leaders, and got to know the movers and shakers in Syrian politics. He also completed some “hurry-up offense” military training, in order to secure the nominal backing of the important Syrian military ranks. When Daddy al-Assad died in 2000, Bashar easily secured his succession in a 2001 referendum, which isn’t really too hard to pull off in Syria—it’s not what we would call a real example of democracy in action, since the cards are all stacked in the Assad family’s favor. Example: A referendum in 2007 overwhelmingly endorsed him as president for a second seven-year term….oh, and he was the only candidate on the ballot. Nonetheless, Bashar was seen as the last great hope amongst domestic reformers due to his young age and technocratic savvy.

Before his “election”, Bashar’s sole claim to Syrian fame was as one of the founders and heads of the Syrian Computer Society, an organization which he spearheaded to bring the Internet to Syria. Lame as this may sound, this laid the foundation for Bashar’s cultivation of a new crop of government leaders culled from the technocrats he associated with during this time, a younger bunch of political figures savvy in international finance and technology. A true “21st century man”, Bashar is also apparently quite the video game nut, X-Box in particular. During the Israeli raid on a purported nuclear plant in northern Syria in 2007, Bashar was enraged to have a 6-hour run on “Grand Theft Auto” interrupted by the bombing. Don’t mess with the man when he’s in his zone!

In Syria, Bashar’s record has been mixed since taking office. He originally ushered in a brief period of openness and cautious reform, wanting to perhaps push for economic and political liberalization in this ‘Damascus Spring.’ Some political prisoners were released, restrictions on the media were eased, and political debate was tolerated…all of which was a stark contrast to his father’s oppressive policies.  However, the pace of change alarmed the entrenched bureaucratic establishment and powerful military elite who collectively pushed to slow this change if not stymie it altogether. Like the “Mace of Blizzards” that he wields so adroitly in “World of Warcraft”, Bashar had to put a chill-pill on political dissent, arguing that the process needed to be gradual and free of external pressures. On the other hand, he did force out some old farts from the Ba’ath Party (the only political party with power, which Bashar also heads) and government ranks, lowering the mandatory retirement age and replacing these fogies with some of his cooler, Corona-sipping, computer-geek buddies from the old days.

Economically, the situation is shaky also. The Syrian economy would be described as weak at best, and with the fastest growing birth rate in the world, things are looking dire for the next couple of decades for the country. To open up the economy, Bashar has been pushing for Syrian membership in a Euro-Mediterranean partnership group: a ‘Mediterranean Union’, so coined by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, which would be modeled after the EU (European Union). In fact, Bashar’s blossoming love affair with Sarkozy, has been moving this idea along quickly, much to the chagrin of the United States. What? Why would the US care about European/Syrian economic ties? Oh yeah! Because the US hates Syria!

A-ha! Now we get to the real important stuff you need to know to understand this guy’s particular importance in world affairs. See, Israel has classically hated Syria, which translates to the US hating Syria, but even many other Arab states hate Syria too…and Bashar got to deal with all of this hate. So why the hate?

For starters, Syria is overwhelmingly Arab ethnicity and is part of the real ‘core’ of Arab thought and political power.  In this regard, Syria has participated in most of the declared wars upon the state of Israel, and has still not officially ‘recognized’ the existence of the state at all. Syria lost a part of its own territory, an area named the Golan Heights, to Israel the Six-Days War of 1967….an issue of much contention right on up to this day.  So Israel and Syria have issues.

But it gets even more complicated: Syria is also overwhelmingly Sunni Islam. That in and of itself is no big deal, as 85% of all the Muslims in the world are of the Sunni persuasion. The other 15% of Muslims in the world are of the Shi’a/Shi’ite variety.  So Syria is mostly Sunni. BUT Bashar al-Assad, like his entire family and the ruling/military elite of Syria, is an Alawite. Alawites are a prominent minority religious group who describe themselves as a sect of Shi’a Islam. Some conservative Sunnis do not even recognize Alawis as Muslims at all, especially in places like ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia. Of course, the ultra-conservative Sunni Saudis also don’t much like the straight-up Shi’as either…speaking of which…

Do you know any other places that are Shi’a Islam? Oh hell yes! If you said Iran, then give yourself a hit off the hookah! And now you know why some other Arab states also hate Syria: the Syrian leadership has deep and entrenched ties with Shi’a Iran, a country that most other Arab states totally despise. Iran is not Sunni but Shi’a; they are also not Arab, but Persian. So Arab countries see increasingly powerful Iran as a regional threat.  And Syria has for decades allowed itself to be a conduit for the movement of weapons and money from Shi’a Iran thru Shi’a-led Syria over to Shi’a-inspired Hezbollah…which is a terrorist/political group located in Lebanon that fights against Israel. Got all this mess so far?

So Israel hates them because Syria has fought wars against them and also helps arm Hezbollah. The US hates Syria for much the same reasons, especially since the US labels Hezbollah a terrorist group, and, well, the US is fighting terrorism. The Bush administration really hated Syria, and perpetually pressured them to stop their Shi’a support….and came close to putting them into the infamous ‘Axis of Evil’ many times. The US and Israel also hate Syria since they are buddies with problem-child Iran. And that’s also why many Arab states don’t dig Syria, as they see them as sell-outs who are helping spread Iranian influence throughout the region. But back to Bashar….

Here’s why it’s good to know this dude: things may be a-changing in this regional stew of strained ties and strategic shenanigans because Bashar is mixing things up! In the region, Bashar has managed to tiptoe through a minefield of issues. His ascension to the presidency was initially seen by the Israelis as being a positive step after the constipated years of his father’s reign. And how! Despite the public and media-driven howling about Syrian-Israeli tensions, peace between the two would be most easily achieved. Secret negotiations between businessmen and low-level diplomats from both sides has been occurring since Bashar took power.  Even hard-line, hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during his first tenure as PM, tasked an American citizen with opening secret negotiations with the Syrians!

All Bashar wants back is the Golan Heights, which would make him wildly popular and effectively secure his presidency-for-life. And he may get it! In return, he will have to give recognition of the right for Israel to exist, and perhaps to stop funneling weapons to Hezbollah. But if Bashar does this (which seems increasingly likely), it will open a whole new chapter on Middle Eastern affairs. He already has made huge strides on softening the Syrian image in the world by pulling his troops out of Lebanon in 2005…after decades of Syrian domination of the Lebanese political scene, which pissed off the Lebanese, the Israelis, the US, and others. (Look up ‘Cedar Revolution’ if you want more details.) Syria has now essentially conceded Lebanese independence, embassies are to be opened, and diplomatic credentials are to be exchanged.

Bashar is playing the great game of Middle East shenanigans adroitly. Not only is he resisting US pressure on his relationships with Iran and Hezbollah, he is, at the same time wisely leaving the Israeli-reconciliation option open. On top of that, Bashar has been working hard in strengthening economic and political ties with the EU, Russia and even China…perhaps at the expense of his Arab neighborhood, particularly Saudi Arabia. No love lost between those two. In other words, Bashar is trying to become more of an internationalist, relying less on ties to standard Arab alliances, and increasingly less concerned with opinions of the US as well.

As one of the self-styled, “next generation” of Middle East leaders, like King Abdullah of Jordan, Bashar, with his technological X-Box savvy and love of Phil Collins, has managed to weather the domestic and regional storms thus far.  One of the youngest Middle Eastern leaders in power, he is likely to be around for a long time, and he along with his smokin’ hot wife is certainly going to be changing the landscape of the region.

January 2012 Update: Bashar al-Ass-wad?

How fares Syria in the Arab Spring? Weeeeell, Bashie’s reform minded agenda, though hesitant and wishy-washy has gone the way of the majestic Syrian Oryx. The regional upheavals may have well presented Bashie with an opportunity to make good on his promises of reform, side-stepping the potential backlash from hardliners in his regime by citing the wave of change in the surrounding states as an “excuse” to reform. But, well, if the ever-growing pile of corpses in Syria’s urban centers are any indication, this option has gone bye-bye.

First, a look back at 2011 in Syria. Domestic tensions have always been around: Kurdish dissatisfaction with the state of their civil rights and what-not in Syria; muted Sunni disaffection for the Shia-rule-by-minority in Syria (the Assads follow a sub-sect of Shia Islam, thus their Iranian ties); and general youth apprehension about the lack of change during Bashie’s decade in power and the continuing oppressive policies of censorship and detention. This coupled with a horribly high unemployment rate (25%!), a fall in living standards, and the Arab Spring events toppling dictators all around led to a testy situation.

By January 2011, people were setting themselves on fire a la Tunisian reflexive-arsonist Mohammed Bouazzizi. Protests started breaking out in the Kurdish northwest of the country, were brutally put down, sparked protests elsewhere, these were brutally put down, etc. You get the picture. Spreading to the southern border with Jordan, protests broke out in Dera’ also and soon spread to other cities, though Damascus, until recently, was pretty quiet. As the summer wore on, the regime reaction became more and more violent, with tanks and troops being sent into urban centers. Shit got even more complicated once army defectors started coalescing into the Free Syrian Army which began moving against regime troops. The non-existent domestic opposition forces also began taking steps to form a Syrian National Council and began begging for international assistance. The international community stepped in eventually, with the Arab League itself, bastion of inaction and lameness, sanctioning Syria and threatening to suspend its membership for its killing of civilians and crushing of protests. By December, some 5000 people have been killed in Syria.

What happened? Is Bashie pulling the strings? In the first months, his government did make some tentative steps towards reform allowing greater political participation (via allowing new political parties), better status for Kurds in the country, and dismantling that pesky emergency law. However, this didn’t do much to stop the government forces from killing thousands of people. Is Bashie the puppet master? In an ABC interview, Bashie denied responsibility for the bloody reaction against the opposition protests. Is he just trying to cover his ass? It’s hard to tell at this point. Given his earlier reform attempts which were slapped down by vested hard-line interests in his government, his hands may very well be tied. Who exactly controls the armed forces or the police in Syria is murky.

This may very well not matter at all. The vehemence and violence of his regime’s reaction has led to across-the-board international criticism of al-Asad. The issue of what he knew and when he knew it is moot. Heaps of sanctions, Arab League criticism, and increasing calls for some sort of Libya-like military intervention do not bode well for Bashie. At this point there seems to be little that he could do to retain any sort of legitimacy in the eyes of the Syrian people. His resignation or removal from power involuntarily is the most likely outcome.