Former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi warned, Thursday, that Israel could not afford to cut its defense budget and should prepare itself for war.

Chief of Staff Ashkenazi

“In comparison to 10 years ago, the possibility of a conflict is not something that we just need to talk about,” Ashkenazi said during a lecture at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

“We never saw it coming. It happened on my watch, so it must be said. But if it’s any consolation, Egypt never saw it coming either,” Ashkenazi said of the so-called Arab Spring protests that have no turned into an Islamic winter in elections throughout the Arab world.

“The Middle East’s plates are shifting. What the Egyptian army didn’t know, I couldn’t have known. (Egypt’s) leaders did not know either,” he said, adding the ultimate strategic picture was still changing.

Ashkenazi told attendees that confronting Iran’s nuclear ambitions required a multi-disciplinary approach that included covert, economic, and potentially military action.

“In my opinion, the strategy vis-à-vis Iran should be to do whatever is possible under the radar coupled with painful and crippling sanctions. However, we should also keep a viable military option on the table,” he said.

While Ashkenazi said sanctions were having an effect on Iran, he warned that time was running out since the Iranian nuclear program was moving forward at a rapid pace.

“Our mission now needs to be to slow down the clock and to speed up the clock of sanctions and hope that it works,” he said.

Ashkenazi cautioned that Iran’s strategic acumen should not be overestimated, saying Tehran had made some strategic blunders and was threatening to make others as pressure mounts.

“I believe Iran would be making a strategic mistake if it blocks the Strait of Hormuz. Another mistake was trying to kill the Saudi ambassador at a restaurant in the US capital. The Iranians are liable to make more mistakes under pressure,” he said.

Ashkenazi served as IDF chief of staff from 2007 until 2011 and certainly played a key role in preparing the military for a possible attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities. A 2007 strike against Syria’s nuclear reactor widely ascribed to Israel also happened on his watch.

Ashkenazi, who oversaw operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009, said the new regime in Cairo made a new Gaza incursion a “complex” undertaking.

“The possibility of conducting another extensive operation in Gaza has become more complex following the events of the past year in Egypt and the change of government in that country,” he said.

“I think that this government will not act like Mubarak. I do not think he was a Zionist, but you cannot ignore the fact that he was an anchor of stability in the region considering the not-so simple tests he passed – the wars in Lebanon or the intifada.”

Source material can be found at this site.

Related posts:

1. Leaders Unaware of Threats Israel Faces
2. Iran’s Tentacles Spread from Syria to Sudan: Israel Intelligence Chief
3. Israel Has Ability to Prevent Iran from Getting a Nuclear Bomb Without Assistance

Senior Iranian religious leader Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said on Friday that Iran is already a nuclear state and that Americans have not realized that.

Iranian flag

“The United States says it will not allow Iran to be nuclear, but it is so blind that it hasn’t noticed that Iran has already become a nuclear state,” Khatami was quoted by Channel 10 News as having said. He added that the U.S. has become isolated in the region, after its four “slaves” were removed from power. He was referring to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, former Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi, former Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Khatami also addressed the EU’s embargo on Iranian oil imports, which was announced this week, and said that the Europeans decided to wait with the implementation of the sanctions until July because their economic situation is no better than Iran’s.

“Why did the Europeans decide to wait half a year before implementing the sanctions? The answer is simple – the Europeans have their own serious trouble – they were hit by the financial crisis,” he said.

Khatami added the embargo will hurt Europe more than it will hurt Iran, because Saudi Arabia will not be able to provide the required amount of oil to Europe, while the sanctions will only hurt 18 percent of Iran’s oil exports.

Source material can be found at this site.

Related posts:

1. Is Mossad Systematically Killing Iranian Nuclear Scientists?
2. Iranian Nuclear Program Hit By Second “Cyber Missile” Virus
3. Iranian Nuclear Plant is Powering Up

by Daniel Pipes and Cynthia Farahat
National Review Online
January 24, 2012

When Egypt’s Lower House convened on Jan. 23, Islamists held 360 out of its 498 seats, or 72 percent. This astounding figure, however, reflects less the country’s public opinion than it does a ploy by the ruling military leadership to remain in power.

In a recent article (“Egypt’s Sham Election,” Dec. 6) we argued that just as Anwar El-Sadat and Hosni Mubarak in the past “tactically empowered Islamists as a foil to gain Western support, arms, and money,” so do Mohamed Tantawi and his Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) “still play this tired old game.”

Mohamed ElBaradei left the presidential race complaining about its fraudulent quality.

We offered three proofs for this assertion: (1) local electoral deceits; (2) the SCAF offer of a “deal” to the Islamists; and (3) the military having subsidized Islamist political parties. Seven weeks later, various signs point to fraud on a far grander scale.

The Free Egyptians Party, Egypt’s leading classic liberal political party, announced on Jan. 10 that it had filed more than 500 complaints about Lower House elections “but no legal action was taken” in response. The party pulled out of forthcoming Upper House elections because “violators are awarded with electoral gains and those abiding by the laws are punished” and called for their cancelation.

Mohamed ElBaradei, former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) withdrew his candidacy for president on Jan. 14 because of his perception of rigged elections: “My conscience,” he announced, “does not permit me to run for the presidency or any other official position unless it is within a real democratic system.”

Logo of the Egyptian National Council. Its slogan: "Bread - Freedom - Social Justice."

Six parliamentary candidates filed official complaints against a range of officials and demanded that the elections be annulled and redone, reports the newspaper El-Badil in its Jan. 10 edition. One of the candidates, a Wafd Party candidate named Ibrahim Kamel, explained how he acquired government documents indicating that fewer than 40 million Egyptians were eligible to vote, while the current elections included 52 million voters, implying 12 million fraudulent ballots. This increase was achieved, he said, by taking the names and identification numbers of legitimate voters and duplicating them between 2 and 32 times in other electoral precincts.

Mamdouh Hamza, head of the Egyptian National Council, an NGO, confirmed this tampering to El-Badil, dubbing it “the biggest crime of fraud in Egyptian history.” He demanded that the Lower House elections be redone from scratch.

In contrast, the victorious Islamists, who despise democracy, made little effort to conceal their electoral success through fraud. Some of them went so far as proudly and unapologetically to assert that it’s their Islamic duty to be dishonest. Tal’at Zahran, a leading Salafi, called the democratic system “infidel,” “criminal,” and “out of the Elders of Zion.” He cynically observed that “it is our duty to forge elections; God will reward us for this.”

Tal'at Zahran, wearing Arabian (not Egyptian) clothing, signaling his Salafi outlook.

Revealingly, Zahran also praised Tantawi: “Just as we gave Mubarak the bay’a [Islamic oath of loyalty], we now support SCAF. If Tantawi decides to stay in power, we will support him until the day he dies.” Reports indicate that Islamists and the military are working smoothly together on such key matters as military autonomy and amending the 1971 constitution. Their cooperation makes sense, for Islamists seek Muslim unity so as to focus full attention on the infidel enemy (especially Jews and Christians).

With so much evidence of fraud at hand, it bewilders us that Western politicians, journalists, and scholars continue to see the shoddy results of the just-concluded Egyptian elections as a valid expression of popular will. Where are the cynical journalists casting doubt on the Salafis coming from nowhere to win 28 percent of the vote? Why do hard-boiled analysts, who see right through rigged elections in Russia and Syria, fall for “the biggest crime of fraud in Egyptian history”? Perhaps because they give Cairo a break on account of it having cooperated with Western powers for nearly 40 years; or perhaps because Tantawi rigs more convincingly.

Given SCAF’s explicit disdain for the election results, we are also surprised that analysts expect these significantly to bear on the country’s future. In fact, SCAF manipulated the recent elections for its own benefit; Islamists are pawns in this drama, not kings. We are witnessing not an ideological revolution but a military officer corps staying dominant to enjoy the sweet fruits of tyranny.

Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org) is president of the Middle East Forum and Taube fellow at the Hoover Institution. Ms Farahat (CynthiaFarahat.com) is an Egyptian activist and co-author of a book about the Tahrir Square protests. © 2012 by Daniel Pipes and Cynthia Farahat. All rights reserved.

Source material can be found at this site.

Related posts:

1. Egypt: 62% Election Turnout ‘Highest Since the Time of Pharaohs’; Islamists About to Take Over
2. Why Egypt Will Not Soon Become Democratic
3. Understanding Post-Mubarak Egypt

Two and a half years after U.S. President Barack Obama delivered his “Cairo address,” Egypt’s parliament chose a top official of the once-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood as its Speaker.

Muhammad Ali Mosque, Cairo

The new Speaker is Sa’ad el-Katatni, secretary-general of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, which swept into power with 47 percent of the seats in the parliament, receiving 235 seats out of a total 498. The hardline Salafi Al Nour party is expected to receive 121 seats in the legislative body, having garnered 25 percent of the vote.

Muslim Brotherhood leader Muhammad Badi’ announced over the weekend, however, that his movement does not plan to endorse any of the Islamist candidates for president.

Regardless, presidential reform candidate Mohamed ElBaradei has already dropped out of the race, saying he had seen the virtual Islamist writing on the wall.

U.S. officials, meanwhile, met in Cairo two weeks ago with Freedom and Justice party officials to discuss their views and learn what they could about where the country was headed.

In July 2009, when Obama spoke from the podium at Cairo University, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was still in power, and the Muslim Brotherhood was an outlawed organization.

“I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years,” Obama said, “and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other.

“That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people… all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere,” Obama said.

“This much is clear,” he warned, “governments that protect these rights are ultimately more stable, successful and secure. Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them. And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments – provided they govern with respect for all their people.

“Elections alone do not make true democracy,” he pointed out.

Little did anyone realize at the time what a Pandora’s box was being pried open with that speech. Nevertheless, it little more than half of Obama’s term in office in bring about a sea change in the Middle East – and to topple the regimes of no less than four Arab governments, with another close to falling as this article is being written.

When he added towards the end of his speech that “Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance,” he reminded his audience, “That is the spirit we need today…. Among some Muslims there is a disturbing tendency to measure one’s own faith by the rejection of another’s. The richness of religious diversity must be upheld,” he emphasized, “whether it is for Maronites in Lebanon or the Copts in Egypt.”

The question — two and a half years, an “Arab Spring,” an Egyptian Revolution and a fallen Mubarak administration later – is whether the once-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood which now rules Egypt be willing to follow Obama’s advice, and whether it will uphold the peace treaty signed in 1979 between Egypt and Israel.

Source material can be found at this site.

Related posts:

1. Obama Naive on Muslim Brotherhood
2. Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood Now Free; Held First Public Conference After Banishment By Qaddafi
3. US Columnists Warn Against Muslim Brotherhood

Islamist parties won a large majority of the votes in Egypt’s election to parliament, held Saturday.

Muslim Brotherhood

The Head of the Election Committee said that the Freedom and Justice party, which represents the Muslim Brothers in Egypt, received 47% of the total vote, and Al Nour, a hard-line Salafist party, has another 25%.

The Muslim Brotherhood is expected to receive 235 seats out of the 498 seats in Parliament. Al Nour will receive 121 seats.

Muhammad Badi’, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, announced Saturday that his movement would not endorse any of the Islamist candidates for the presidency, “so as not to cause concerns among international elements as happened with Hamas.”

This was a reference to the brutal takeover of Gaza in June 2007, by the Hamas terror organization, which was a diplomacy and public relations disaster for Hamas.  The Hamas terrorists have since used Gaza as a base for constant rocket attacks against Israel, used their own citizens – including children – as live shields and launched rockets from civilian areas, gradually imposed Shariah law in Gaza, and continue to repeat their goal of eradicating Israel.

Source material can be found at this site.

Related posts:

1. Egypt: 62% Election Turnout ‘Highest Since the Time of Pharaohs’; Islamists About to Take Over
2. Hamas Moving HQ from Syria to Egypt, Warns Netanyahu
3. Canada Champions Israel at G8 Summit; Opposes Aid to Egypt, Tunisia

by Daniel Pipes
January 16, 2012
updated Jan 17, 2012

Egypt Independent reports on vandalizing, looting, and fighting at the nuclear power plant being built at El-Dabaa, a town in the desert to the west of Alexandria. The account draws on an unnamed source at the Ministry of Electricity and Energy who

El-Dabaa nuclear power station in its full glory.

accused security authorities and the governor of North Sinai of “causing the disaster.” The official said the initial losses were around LE0.5 billion [= US$83 million]. He also accused a businessman and former member in the defunct National Democratic Party of being “behind the chaos,” but did not name the businessman allegedly involved.

The source said the meteorological station, ground water station and many of the offices had been attacked by “organized looters,” who took objects including computers, monitoring devices for earthquakes, furniture, cables and transformers.

On Friday, about 500 residents had rallied demanding the dismantling of the nuclear power plant, saying their land had been confiscated for the project. They say the government did not compensate them for the land it took.

However, other reports suggest that the construction site was attacked by residents of the area angry at the way in which the land for the power plant had been acquired by the government. Residents of Dabaa staged a sit-in on Saturday after clashes with Egyptian military police on Friday. The clashes left 41 people injured, including 29 soldiers, according to state-run newspaper Al-Ahram.

Comments: (1) L’Institut d’Égypte, a nuclear power plant site … the situation has degenerated in Egypt to the point that nothing is safe.

(2) The Islamists lack real power but they appear to be in charge; so as Egypt heads into economic decay and social anarchy, they will receive the blame. Could this be what the crafty military tyrants want, so they can swoop in and “save” the country? (January 16, 2012)

Jan. 20, 2012 update: The news gets worse, with the possibility that radioactive material was stolen:

The UN atomic energy agency issued a statement Thursday saying “the items that have gone missing are low-level radioactive sources. The sources were stolen not from an operating NPP (nuclear power plant), but from a laboratory at a construction site for an NPP that is not yet operational,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said. The Vienna-based agency said it is “in touch with the Egyptian authorities.”

Al-Ahram newspaper reported Thursday that a safe containing radioactive material was stolen from a site in Al-Dabaa, on the Mediterranean coast. Another safe was broken and some of its contents were taken, Al-Ahram said. … It said the team of experts entered the site but “did not find the missing safe. It did, however, find two sources of radioactivity in another safe that had been broken into.”

Source material can be found at this site.

Related posts:

1. Another malfunction shuts down the No. 3 reactor at the Kola Nuclear Power Plant for the third time in three months
2. Egypt Announces Site of Its First Nuclear Plant: El Dabaa
3. Iranian Nuclear Plant is Powering Up

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine warned Monday that PLO meetings with Israeli envoys in Amman, Jordan were “poison” for reconciliation talks between Fatah and Hamas.

PFLP Terrorists

The statement came as PLO negotiators prepared to meet Israeli envoys in the Jordanian capital Monday for a second round of “exploratory talks” called for by the Quartet for Middle East peace.

The PFLP, long opposed to the two-state solution in favor of Israel’s destruction, called the meetings a “grave political mistake,” and called for PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas to withdraw from talks saying they were poisoning reconciliation efforts between Fatah and Hamas.

“Such meetings poison the atmosphere for reconciliation efforts,” senior PFLP leader Kayid Al-Ghoul said in a press release.

“PLO officials should halt negotiations with Israel and speed up the reconciliation process,” he said in a statement on Monday.

“While serious talks are ongoing in Cairo to end enmity between Fatah and Hamas, the meetings in Amman can only be meant to thwart reconciliation and undermine any political consensus,” PFLP warned.

“Claiming that these meetings are attempts to explore Israel’s attitudes is a witless and misleading justification,” Al-Ghoul said.

“Israel’s attitudes are clearly announced and well-known and such meetings just give the Israeli government more time to avoid international pressure on Israel because of the obstacles it is creating on the ground.”

The PFLP leader said negotiations were fruitless and the policy to pursue them should be reconsidered in favor of national unity efforts.

Al-Ghoul’s statements come amid a growing row between Hamas and Fatah that started last Friday when four senior Fatah officials were refused entry to Gaza by Hamas.

Both sides have accused each other of using the incident – and the tentative talks with Israel in Jordan – as a pretext for derailing the unity agreement signed in Cairo last May.

Source material can be found at this site.

Related posts:

1. The Palestinian Authority’s 4 Unreasonable Preconditions for Talks with Israel Include Support at UN
2. Haniyeh in Sudan: Hamas will Never Recognize Israel
3. Hamas, Fatah Plan Mass Terrorist (All Prisoner) Release On Each Side; All Terror Factions Are Uniting

Israel’s National Security Council thinks that President Barack Obama is naïve in his attitude towards the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which stated Sunday it can’t fathom the idea of recognizing Israel.

Muslim Brotherhood symbol and Obama

Dr. Rashad Bayumi, the Brotherhood’s number two leader, said on Sunday, “No Muslim Brotherhood members will engage in any contact or normalization with Israel.”

President Obama has asked the Muslim Brotherhood’s leading jurist, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, to mediate secret talks between the United States and the Taliban, according to The Hindu newspaper. The jurist previously has called for killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq and has vowed that Islam “will conquer Europe [and] will conquer America,” whether by force or by the spread of radical Islam.

In early 2010, when American foreign policy experts could not imagine that the radical Muslim Brotherhood would emerge as the most powerful political force in Egypt, President Obama dismissed the party as a “faction,” adding that “they don’t have majority support in Egypt. But they’re well organized. There are strains of their ideology that are anti-U.S.”

Less than a year afterwards, the Brotherhood has emerged as the winner of the first three rounds of legislative elections in the post-Mubarak period. Its closest contender represents the even more radical Salafist Muslim sect.

Last summer, the official Obama administration policy changed from shunning the Muslim Brotherhood to “engaging” it. Last month, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Senator John Kerry met in Cairo with top members of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.

Israel’s National Security Council, headed by Maj.-Gen. Yaakov Amidror, recently discussed “The Challenge of the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and its Offshoots” and concluded that the US president is naïve, according to the Hebrew daily Yisrael HaYom.

The National Security Council expressed the hope that the Obama administration will use economic leverage to keep the Muslim Brotherhood from spreading its ideology to other Muslim Arab countries.

The party was outlawed under the Mubarak regime, and its deep roots and ideology of terrorism resulted in its creation of the Hamas terrorist organization, which now rules Gaza and is working its way back into the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas, who leads the rival Fatah party.

Source material can be found at this site.

Related posts:

1. Muslim Brotherhood Recognized by Obama Administration
2. SWC Criticizes White House for Deciding to Formally Open Talks with Muslim Brotherhood
3. Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood Now Free; Held First Public Conference After Banishment By Qaddafi

President Shimon Peres says the Quartet’s plan and deadline that expire this month is doomed and that the Palestinian Authority and Israel will return to direct talks.

President Shimon Peres

The Quartet told the PA and Israel three months ago to put forth suggestions for two issues: boundaries for a new Palestinian Authority country and security for Israel, a request that is contrary to the concept of direct talks between the two sides. PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas quickly responded to the Quarter initiative, but the Netanyahu government said its proposals should be presented in direct talks.

With less than a month remaining until the Quartet’s deadline expires, Jordan is scheduled to host Israeli and PA negotiators on Tuesday.

In an interview with the Arabic language daily Asharq Al-Awsat, President Peres suggested that the Quartet initiative scuttled the possibility of the return to direct talks, which he said eventually will happen.

“The International Quartet submitted its new proposals, and Tony Blair and U.S. officials arrived and offered to conduct direct meetings focusing on the issues of borders and security. They asked each party to put forward its proposals within three months…this is what halted our progress” for direct talks, the President said.

He said that all of his contacts with the Palestinian Authority have been conducted with the approval of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Asked if the “Quartet’s proposal is doomed to failure, and the negotiations will return to their previous track.” President Peres responded, “Yes, this is what I believe.”

He also said that the rapidly changing situation in the Middle East makes it difficult to put forward proposals for Israel’s security. “Since the Americans put forward their initiative regarding the security issue, new developments have occurred in the region,.” he explained. “There is a lack of security in the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip, the situation in Syria and Lebanon is unclear. Even in Egypt, the situation is obscure, but we must not fall victim to despair.

“I believe in direct negotiations. The International Quartet is not an alternative to that. Every party in the International Quartet has its own interests and causes. Take Russia, for example…it is standing with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who is slaughtering his own people, although the situation in Syria is a source of concern for both Jordan and Lebanon. President al-Assad, who began his political life as an eye-doctor, is now demonstrating that he is a butcher, whilst our Lebanese ‘friend’ Hassan Nasrallah is serving Iran’s interests.”

On other issues, he predicted, “The Muslim Brotherhood’s attempts to hijack the revolution will not succeed” because Egyptians realize that “switching MPs” will not solve Egypt’s problems.

President Peres also revealed that former Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat once explained that he broke promises to Israel in order to prevent a civil war among Arabs.

“He would go back on things we had agreed on,” said the President. “He believed in the use of violence to exert pressure. He would make promises and then go back on his word. When I asked him about this, he answered that he did not want to cause a Palestinian civil war.”

Source material can be found at this site.

Related posts:

1. Quartet to Push New Negotiations
2. The Palestinian Authority’s 4 Unreasonable Preconditions for Talks with Israel Include Support at UN
3. How Israel Should Deal with the Palestinian Authority’s Intention to Declare a State

About the only people having a Happy New Year in the Muslim world aren’t the Christians who are huddling and waiting out the storm, but the Islamists who use a different calendar but are having the best time of their lives since the last Caliphate.

The news that the Obama Administration has brought in genocidal Muslim Brotherhood honcho Yusuf Al-Qaradawi to discuss terms of surrender for the transfer of Afghanistan to the Taliban caps a year in which the Brotherhood and the Salafists are looking up carve up Egypt, the Islamists won Tunisia’s elections, Turkey’s Islamist AKP Party purged the last bastions of the secular opposition and Libya’s future as an Islamist state was secured by American, British and French jets and special forces.

Time Magazine declared that 2011 was the Year of the Protester, they might have more honestly called it the Year of the Islamist. In 2010 the Taliban were still hiding in caves. In 2012 they are set to be in power from Tunisia to Afghanistan and from Egypt to Yemen. They won’t go by that name of course. Most of them will have elaborate names with the words “Justice” or “Community” in them, but they will for the most part be minor variations on the Muslim Brotherhood theme.

2011 will indeed be remembered, but not because of any Arab Spring or OWS nonsense. It will be a pivotal year in the rise of the next Caliphate. A rise disguised by angry protesters waving cell phones and flags. And clueless media coverage that treated Tahrir Square as the new fall of the Berlin Wall.

This was the year that Obama helped topple several regimes that served as the obstacles to Islamist takeovers. The biggest fish that Ibn Hussein speared out of the sea for Al-Qaradawi was Egypt, a prize that the Islamists had wanted for the longest time, but had never managed to catch. That is until the Caliph-in-Chief got it for them. Egyptian Democracy splits the take between the Brotherhood and the Salafists, whom the media is already quick to describe as moderates. First up against the wall are the Christians. Second up against the wall are the Jews. Third up is all that military equipment we provided to the Egyptian military which will shortly be finding its way to various “moderate militants” who want to discuss our foreign policy with us.

But there’s no reason to sell the fall of Tunisia short or the transition in Yemen. And when mob protests didn’t work, NATO sent in the jets to pound Libya until Al-Qaeda got its way there. Turkey’s fate had been written some time ago, but 2011 was the year that the AKP completed its death grip on the country with a final crackdown on the military, which has now ceased to be a force for stability.

Left out of the picture is Somalia. Liberals fulminated when Bush helped drive out Al-Shaab and its jolly Muslim lads with a habit of beheading people who didn’t grow beards or watched too much soccer. Any number of editorials complained that we had destabilized the country and that the Islamic Courts Union were really a bunch of moderates in disguise.

Sadly Obama has not been able to salvage the position of Al-Shabab which is low on money and has turned to forcing 12 year old girls into prostitution and torturing and murdering those who refuse. They’re also forcing the elderly to join its militias. But there is good news. Like every terrorist group, Al-Shabab has gotten itself a Twitter account and when O finds 5 minutes in between vacations and golf tournaments, the White House will order neighboring African countries to withdraw their armies and send in Al-Qaradawi to negotiate.

But even if the Islamists don’t get Somalia, they’ve got a nice chunk of North Africa to chew over, not to mention a few more slices of the Middle-Eastern pie, and Afghanistan will be back in their hands as soon as they manage to outmaneuver Karzai, which given his paranoia and cunning may admittedly take a while. But the Taliban are not big on maneuvers, they have the manpower, which means it’s only a matter of time until they do what the Mujaheddin did to the puppet Soviet regime. A history that everyone in the region is quite familiar with.

The ugliest part of this story isn’t what Obama did. It’s when he did it. If he really had no interest in winning Afghanistan, and if as he had said, the Taliban are not our enemy, then why did we stay for so long and lose so many lives fighting a war that the White House had no intention of winning? The ugly conclusion that must be drawn from the timing of the Iraq and Afghanistan withdrawals is that the wars were being played out to draw down around the time of the next election.

What that means is Obama sacrificed the thousands of Americans killed and wounded in the conflict as an election strategy. The idea that American soldiers were fighting and dying for no reason until the time when maximum political advantage could be gained from pulling them out is horrifying, it’s a crime beyond redemption, an act worse than treason– and yet there is no other rational conclusion to be drawn from the timetable.

If the Taliban were not our enemy, then the war should have ended shortly after the election. Instead Obama threw more soldiers into the mix while tying their hands with Rules of Engagement that prevented them from defending themselves or aggressively going after the Taliban. Casualties among US soldiers and Afghan civilians increased. Now the Taliban are no longer our enemy and we are negotiating a withdrawal.

There are only two possible explanations. Either we lost the war or Obama never intended to win it and was allowing the Taliban to murder American soldiers until the next election. If so we’re not just looking at a bad man at the teleprompter, we are looking into the face of an evil so amoral that it defies description.

But whatever motives we may attribute to the Obama Administration the outcome of its policies in backing the Arab Spring with influence, training and even weapons is indisputable. What Carter did to Persia, Obama has done to Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan and that’s not the whole of the list.

Iraq will likely fall to Iran in a bloody civil war, whether it will be parts of the country or the whole country depend on how much support we provide to the Kurds. Under the Obama Administration the level of support is likely to be none.

Once the Islamists firmly take power across North Africa they will begin squeezing the last states that have still not fallen. Last month the leader of the murderous Enhada Islamists who have taken power in Tunisia stopped by Algeria. Morocco has not yet come down, but at this rate it’s only a matter of time.

Syria remains an open question. The Muslim Brotherhood is in a successor position there and would welcome our intervention against the Assad regime. The Assads are no prize and they’re Iranian puppets, but shoving them out would give the Brotherhood yet another country and its sizable collection of weaponry.

All that is bound to make 2012 an ugly year in its own right, especially if the Obama Administration continues allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to control its foreign policy. For all that Time and other mainstream media outlets continue splashing the same protest pornography photos on every page, the region has become an indisputably worse place this year with the majority of moderate governments overthrown and replaced, or in the process of being replaced by Islamist thugs.

Carter can breathe a sigh of relief. In one year the Obama Administration has done far more damage than the bucktoothed buffoon did in his entire term. After 2011 we can look back with nostalgia on the days when all that an incompetent leftist in the White House did was lose one country, one canal and a bunch of hostages. Things have gotten so bad that we can safely say that Obama on a good day is worse than Jimmy Carter on a bad day.

Forget the usual end of the year roundups which focus on pop stars, dead celebrities and who wore what and when. None of that really matters. It didn’t matter four years ago. It certainly doesn’t matter now.

2011 was not the year that Steve Jobs died, it was the year that any hope that we were not headed for a violent collision of civilizations died as Western governments helped topple the few moderates and let the worst have their harvest of power.

Will that be considered a bad thing in the long run? It’s hard to say. What Obama did was speed up the date of an inescapable conflict. A day when it will no longer be state-supported terrorists setting off bombs, but when much of the Muslim world will look like Iran and will openly declare that they are at war with us. That was almost certainly bound to happen anyway, but bringing the day forward by ten or twenty years means that we will be less weaker than we might have been when it happens.

Evil has a way of destroying itself, and in his own backward way, Barry Hussein may have helped save civilization. It will be a long time before we know for sure, but giving the Brotherhood what it wanted before they were ready for it, and before we are so completely crippled by the left’s political correctness that we are left helpless, may be our best hope.

2011 was the year we lost Afghanistan, Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia and many others, but it should not be the year that we lose hope. For all that the bad guys have been gaining and domestic prospects don’t look good, the bad guys have a way of destroying themselves. Give evil its head and it will kill millions, but it will also self-destruct in a spectacular way. Even when it seems as if we have run out of productive things to do, it is instructive to remember that there is a Higher Power in the destinies of men and that the aspirations of evil men to play at being gods eventually leads them to complete and utter ruin through their own arrogance.

But 2011 is also a reminder that the world cannot afford another year of Obama. That it cannot afford the appeasement, the destructive policies or the post-American politics that have made his regime the worst administration in this country’s history. 2011 may be the year that we lost the Middle East, but let’s work to make 2012 the year that this country loses one Barack Hussein Obama.

By:Daniel Greenfield is a blogger, columnist and freelance photographer born in Israel, who maintains his own blog, Sultan Knish.

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