By: Mark Bowden

Hardcover, First Edition (2012)

Atlantic Monthly Press

So often ignored in his own country — to its eventual peril — in the euphoric period between the two world wars, Captain Basil Liddell Hart was rightly honored in his later years as one of the outstanding teacher-historians of this or any other age. His private library and voluminous archives of personal correspondence with such giants as Lloyd George and Churchill; his blueprints of military efficiency were rejected in Britain and the West but taken up eagerly by the younger German commanders like Rommel with devastating results; the notes of the detailed interviews which he conducted after the war with captured German generals, as well as with the leading Allied commanders who had so often turned to him for inspiration and advice; the subject files and private papers placed in his hands by many of his great contemporaries, all became famous, and his home at Medmenham in Buckinghamshire became a place of pilgrimage for statesman and students, soldiers and scholars, of all nations.

The present magnificent work is based largely on that priceless collection of private documents and the author’s constant study of the day-to-day events of the war. For all its clarity, Liddell Hart’s History does not always make for comforting reading. It is a military history on the broadest possible scale, ranging from the frustrating events preceding the war, through all the campaigns and battles of the seven turbulent years, to the final conclusion of hostilities. Trenchant, searching, thought-provoking, it is a study in realism and objective analysis, uncluttered by self-deception. Cherished illusions fade under fresh surveillance; long-held beliefs of justification fall under new questioning; reputations are reexamined by one of the most incisive minds of our time; judgements of our past are made lessons for our present and our future.

Among the startling conclusions reached in this book are the following: The European war could have ended in September, 1944, if General Eisenhower had not diverted gasoline from General Patton’s Third Army to Field Marshal Montgomery’s Army Group, thus preventing Patton from plunging headlong into the heartland of Germany. The Russians and the Germans discussed a negotiated peace in 1943. The massive Allied air bombings of German cities were ineffective and caused needless loss of lives. And, of course, most heart-rending of all, the evidence that this most costly of wars was a totally unnecessary war, a war that could have been prevented by a firm resistance on the part of Britain and France long before Hitler invaded Poland.

Because of its massive authenticity, because of its flinching conclusions, this is the most important work of military historiography to have emerged from the late war. It is a work that every student of military and world history, every serious reader, everyone who was engaged in World War II must read.

By: B.H. Liddell Hart

Hardback, First American Edition (1971)

G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York

Instead of reducing corruption, however, changing the method of Senate selection provided entirely new avenues of political exploitation by fundamentally transforming our federal government. Most importantly, the amendment destroyed the federalist structure that the Founding Fathers installed to protect state sovereignty.

Today, members of the Georgia state House of Representatives seek to restore state representation to the federal government by reviving the Founders’ original intent. The goal of House Bill 273 is “to protect the sovereignty of the states from the federal government and to give each individual state government representation in the federal legislative branch of government” by repealing the Seventeenth Amendment.

Of course, this resolution would not necessitate any action or response from the federal government should it pass, but it could spark a national debate on the concept of federalism, unconstitutional government, and the Founders’ original intent.

Why was the Seventeenth Amendment ratified?

As the Founding Fathers drafted the Constitution, they understood that free and independent states, fresh from a long and costly war with England, would not approve of a charter that required them to totally surrender their sovereignty to a new federal government. To balance the legitimate concerns of the states with the need to preserve the union and form a national government for mutual protection and prosperity, the Founders chose a federalist system of divided powers between the states and the proposed federal government.

They also passed a Bill of Rights, ensuring that any power not specifically granted to the federal government rested with the states or the people themselves. The Founders clearly wanted a limited federal government which was balanced by the state governments.

Prior to 1913, state legislatures appointed members to represent their state in the federal government while the people directly elected members of the House of Representatives. The House represented the people and the Senate represented the states. This clever design balanced the will of the people and the sovereignty of the states, and the federal government was largely restrained from growing beyond its constitutional limits.

The federalist system was not understood by the people 100 years ago, and certainly isn’t understood today. The Founders sought to craft a system ruled by law – the Constitution – and not a rule of man. That is why the United States is a constitutional republic and not a pure democracy. They knew that just government must have consent of the people, but that total democracy would inevitably lead to a tyranny of majority, which could strip state and individual liberty as easily as a monarch.

“The Constitution does not protect the sovereignty of the States for the benefit of the States or state governments as abstract political entities,” wrote Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, “To the contrary, the Constitution divides authority between federal and state governments for the protection of individuals. State sovereignty is not just an end to itself.”

The people, states, and federal government all checked each other’s power, and the Constitution ruled – and protected – them all.

That is why the members of the House and Senate were originally selected in different manners. A senator would keep his position as long as he served what the state legislatures felt was in their best interest. The senator wouldn’t be encumbered by campaigning for re-election, as did his House counterparts. As soon as that senator betrayed the wishes of the state, he could be recalled and a new senator selected. When the Seventeenth Amendment permitted the people to elect members of both the House and Senate, states lost their representation in the federal government, setting the federal government on a course which would dismantle state sovereignty, individual liberty, and eventually the Constitution itself.

While federalism was effective at balancing state and federal power, those who desire power will eventually find ways to corrupt any system – regardless of the brilliance of its design.

Political battles at the state level often delayed the selection of the senate delegates. Often, months would go by, during which time the state would have no representation in the Senate. Cases of corruption and special interest influence, together with calls for more “democratic” elections, made an easy case for amending the Constitution.

Instead of limiting corruption and special interest influence in Congress, the Seventeenth Amendment magnified what, prior to 1913, was typically local and relatively small-scale problems into a much larger and sometimes international ordeal.

“Direct elections of Senators,” declared former Senator Zell Miller, a Democrat from Georgia, “allowed Washington’s special interests to call the shots, whether it is filling judicial vacancies, passing laws, or issuing regulations.”

Government has always attracted corruption, but political behavior can be managed by effective political structure. Whether it’s 1789 or 1913, a government with few checks on its power is far more corruptible than one that is constrained, and that is the effect that direct elections of senators had on our government.

With the states out of the way, an uninhibited Congress jumped at this opportunity to expand their power, primarily through the Interstate Commerce Clause. The role of defending federalism fell to the Judicial Branch, which proved ineffective as the Supreme Court ruled case after case in support of increasingly expanding federal powers. Incredibly, even the amount of food a farmer could grow for his own personal consumption (Wickard v. Filburn) was somehow under the purview of Congress.

While any bill that encroached on state’s rights would be dead in its tracks prior to the amendment, Congress today can tie virtually every aspect of our lives to interstate commerce, and thus, empowering them to rule however they see fit.

The Founders never intended to provide the federal government with this much power; if they had, there would have been no need for enumerated powers – or a Constitution – in the first place. Instead, they anticipated that public officials wouldn’t preserve federalism for federalism’s sake; they would instead act in their own self-interest. State sovereignty persisted not out of virtue, but because public officials would only retain their position if they served their states.

Why repeal the Seventeenth Amendment?

By directly electing members of the Senate, we removed the only mechanism that forced senators to represent the states and allowed them an entirely new opportunity to increase their personal power, and individual liberty has suffered as a result.

Media and political elites portray any effort to repeal or even debate the effects of the Seventeenth Amendment as crack-pot conspiracy territory, and Georgia’s HB 273 is no different. But the best single thing America could do to preserve state sovereignty, return the federal government to its constitutional role, and protect individual liberty is to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment.

by Gary H. Johnson, Jr. and Caitlin Barthold

Jafari in the Spotlight

“A number of members of the Qods Force are present in Syria, but this does not constitute a military presence.” -Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari

Iranian military presence in Syria, even in an advisory and ‘intellectual’ role, has major implications for the region.

Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, has announced that IRGC and Quds Force operatives are in Syria and in Lebanon in an advisory capacity.  Jafari has confirmed Iran is willing to take a more direct role in the Levant if Syria is attacked.

The full implications of Iran’s willingness to intervene in the case of Western-backed interference in Syria is at this point uncertain.  Jafari did not promise a military response should foreign action proceed or the likelihood of carrying out the security agreement that the two countries have in such an eventuality.   The “conditions” on the ground in Syria would determine whether Iran acted or not, he said, remaining aloof as to the full extent of the considerations at play.

To clarify the IRGC’s management of the developments thus far, Jafari volunteered that defending Syria is a “point of pride” for Iran.  The Major General delivered the baseline reading of the situation from the perspective of the regime in Tehran:

“In comparison with the scale of support the Arab countries have given to opposition groups in Syria and their military presence, we haven’t taken any action there”.

Iran’s involvement in the Syrian conflict and the tense situation in Lebanon, even in an advisory role is worrisome to Western officials.  The Quds Force division of the IRGC has been responsible for Iran’s foreign operations.  Initially designated a terrorist organization October 25, 2007, the IRGC, the Quds Force and its commander Mohammad Ali Jafari, are all listed on the U.S. Treasury Department’s July 2012 list of IRGC Affiliates.

Western officials have intelligence that Iran has been transferring weapons to Syria via Iraq, in violation of the terms of a UN arms embargo (part of international sanctions).  U.S. policymakers are particularly concerned about this development.  Lawmakers are promising to reconsider the aid sent to Iraq if the country continues to cooperate with the Islamic Establishment of Iran in the transfer of arms and personnel. Over the last five years, the Treasury Department has issued a number of sanctions on the IRGC, its Navy and Airforce and has blacklisted many of the aircraft used in the transit of the weapons in response to Iran’s actions.

Jafari’s announcement of the IRGC’s regional, extraterritorial activities, is particularly important because of the impact that the Iranian forces could have on the dynamics of conflict resolution in Syria.  Sources confirm that transferring knowledge and experience to the Syrian army is not the limit of their advisory role.  Iran has placed a physical presence in Syria to manage its interests, since the halls of Tehran’s political bureaus view Syria as a key in Tehran’s ‘axis of resistance’ against both the Sunnis, aligned in the GCC, Egypt and Turkey and against the Zionist entity housed in Israel.  Iran’s strategic presence in Syria widens the impact of the actions and posture of  Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The IRGC presence in Syria confirms that the conflict has evolved, the opposition resistance has matured into a capable fighting force, and that solutions for stablizing the 18-month conflict are not yet in sight.  Indeed, tensions are bound to rise.

With Iran’s involvement at the advisory level, Western officials cannot help but wonder if this overt move by the leadership in Tehran signifies that Iran, uncowed by U.S. and E.U. sanctions, is willing to extend its foreign presence through military means to defend its interests and increase the influence of its hand on the outcome of what can only be described as a Civil War in Syria.

Apparently the presence of Quds Force advisors in Lebanon was news to President Sleiman, who requested a formal explanation of what Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps members were doing inside Lebanon. The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, immediately denied the presence of the IRGC in Syria and Lebanon, claiming that Maj. General Jafari’s comments on the matter were twisted by Western and Arabic intelligentsia.

Cairo: Iran FM Salehi with Egypt President Morsi

A scheduled meeting between Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, went forward on Monday, September 17 without Saudi representation.  Egypt’s young President Morsi proposed the formation of a contact group of Islamic regional leaders for solving the Syrian problem. The initial stakeholder meeting of the concern provided the platform for Iran to announce a nine point plan to reconcile the opposition rebels with Bashar al Assad’s regime, indicating Iran’s belief that the solution for Syria “lies only with Syria and within the Syrian family, in partnership with international and regional organizations.” 

FM Salehi Clarifies Iranian Intentions

After strenuously denying Iranian involvement in military aid to Syria, the Iranian Foreign Minister Salehi held talks with his Syrian FM counterpart, Walid Muallem on September 19.  This ministerial level meeting laid the groundwork for Salehi’s meeting with Bashar al Assad.

Bashar Al Assad laid out the primary reason the Baathist regime should be saved to Salehi with “The ongoing battle is targeting the whole of the resistance axis, not just Syria.”

Hezbollah Sec. Gen. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah

It is only in this light – through the lens of the axis of power against Israel made up of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah – that the willingness of Assad to provide chemical weapons to Hezbollah becomes a serious concern.

The former head of Syria’s chemical arsenal, Major General Adnan Sillu, defected in June.  In talks with The Times in Britain, Sillu asserted his reason for leaving the regime on moral grounds. “We were in a serious discussion about the use of chemical weapons, including how we would use them and in what areas. We discussed this as a last resort — such as if the regime lost control of an important area such as Aleppo.”  

Adnan confirmed that the transfer of chemical weapons to Hezbollah was on the table, “They wanted to place warheads with the chemical weapons on missiles — to transfer them this way to Hezbollah. It was for use against Israel, of course.”

Gary H. Johnson, Jr. is the Senior Advisor for International Security Affairs at the Victory Institute and a Level II Researcher at Wikistrat.

Caitlin Barthold is a Researcher at Wikistrat.

Hat tip: Jennifer Jackson, Wikistrat Researcher

After nearly two years of protests and uprisings, the “Arab Spring” label is beginning to fade. The chants of “Death to the Dictator” in Cairo and Tripoli were welcomed by Western academics as a spontaneous awakening of the oppressed secular liberals trapped behind an Iron Curtain of Islamic Supremacy.

Though the “flower of democracy” has supposedly bloomed in places like Egypt and Iraq, that didn’t stop the chants of “Death to America” and – sometimes violent – protests on U.S Embassies throughout the Muslim World, starting three days ago on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11.

The unfolding wave of anti-American sentiment has Western presses bracing for the unpredictable outbreaks of violence that may follow today’s Friday sermons by enraged Muslim clerics eager to join the new phenomenon.

To this point, the protests have been relatively small.

The scenes in North Africa are troubling.

In Morocco, over 300 protestors surrounded the U.S. Consulate in Casablanca. Police arrived with riot gear and placed themselves behind barricades to secure the Consulate’s barriers.

In Tunisia, over 200 protestors attempted to storm the gates of the U.S. Embassy. Security forces dispersed the crowd with tear gas and rubber bullets.

In Sudan, over 300 protestors joined in a demonstration outside the US Embassy in Khartoum.

In Libya, thousands of protestors stormed the US Consulate in Benghazi and a well-planned commando-style squad of attackers overtook the building in an assault that injured over 30 and took the lives of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, along with three members of his security detail. The U.S. Consulate burned to the ground. It is uncertain whether elements linked to Al-Qaeda may have taken part in the attack. Troubling reports have indicated that Libyan security may have given away the position of the Ambassador to the militants prior to the strike.

In Egypt, in what some say was a coordinated, well-planned rush, thousands of Egyptian protestors demonstrated against a video released in America which, according to the crowd, insulted the Prophet Muhammad. The crowd scaled the walls of the Embassy, while chanting “Death to America”. The American flag, flying on the embassy grounds was ripped to shreds, while placards bearing the picture of Osama bin Laden were raised along with the chant “Obama! Obama! We are all Osama!” Mohammed al-Zawahiri , the younger brother of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, was reportedly sited among the Islamists.

The protests in the Middle East and Asia show that the trend is not Sunni-centric.

In Yemen over 500 protestors crowded outside the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, shouted Anti-American slogans and burned American flags. It took security personnel 45 minutes to clear the grounds using tear gas and at times brute force.

In Iraq, after a shockingly bloody spate of bombings left over 100 dead on September 9, the Iranian-backed Shi’a militia leader, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, already known to have participated in attacks on U.S. military personnel, incited violence toward America as hundreds protested in Sadr City.

In Iran, a crowd of militant Shi’a, numbering around 500, gathered around the Swiss Embassy in Tehran to express hatred of American policies.

Hundreds of anti-American protestors took to the streets in Gaza City.

In India, a swarm of Kashmiri Muslims gathered in Srinagar, shouting anti-American slurs.

Islamists in Indonesia took to Jakarta streets as part of a group called “Sharia for Indonesia”. They held up signs expressing approval for the original 9/11 attacks at the World Trade Center.

Pakistani protestors rallied in Karachi, claiming outrage against the “Innocence of Muslims” YouTube sensation.
According to our liberal pundits, this video that depicts the prophet Muhammad in a negative light is to blame for all the uprisings in the Muslim world over the past few days. Really? For those of us who don’t live under a rock, the somber anniversary of the horrific attacks of 9/11 also just happened to mark the date of this new round of uprisings that have taken innocent American lives. Coincidence? Is it coincidental that Ayman al-Zawahiri recently called for the killing of Americans in retribution for the death of Al-Qaeda’s Yahia al-Libi?

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the film “disgusting and reprehensible.” While not an apology, by acknowledging the film as unsavory and painful to Muslim sensibilities, the State Department essentially legitimized the wave of protests across the Muslim world, empowering and enabling the Salafists to continue their attempts to co-opt the Arab Spring and undermine America to advance their agenda.

It was not by chance that our Founding Fathers chose the freedom of speech as the First Amendment to the Constitution. We must overwhelmingly stand up for and never be apologetic for our most important fundamental freedom as American citizens.

The United States of America has overthrown ruthless dictators, liberated Muslim-majority countries from tyranny, and has decimated the ranks of the most dangerous extremists of our time. In the fallout of these fresh failures of the Obama Administration’s foreign policy initiative of U.S.-Muslim Outreach, we are left with many questions about how best to tackle the violence veiled just beneath the surface of Islamist politics.

Is Islam compatible with democracy and the individual rights to freedom of expression and speech that underpin pluralist institutions of government among men? Has American weakness led to this round of intimidation by Sunni and Shi’a alike? Are we witnessing an Arab Spring, or are we in the West awakening to an Arab Nightmare?

Related topics:
Jordan Schachtel is a Researcher at World Likud and an Intern at Wikistrat, pursuing his Masters in International Relations at LIU Brooklyn.

Begin 9/12/12 –

In a matter of days, Americans would learn that Hasan’s adherence to the jihadist ideology clearly motivated his attack. But even though Hasan’s business card read “soldier of Allah” and he left a trail of openly jihadist evidence throughout his Army career, to this day the Obama administration refuses to identify radical Islam as a possible motivation.

Hasan’s massacre is classified as “workplace violence.”

Fast-forward to September 11, 2012, when a group of heavily-armed Islamists stormed the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, killing four: U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, State Dept. Foreign Service officer Sean Smith, and two U.S. Marines, whose names were withheld pending notification of family.

After the attack, media and Washington were quick to point out – perhaps before knowing “all the answers” and having “all the facts” – that the group was motivated by an upcoming film depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad as a womanizer and barbarian.

Americans were murdered on American soil and Washington’s initial reaction was to sympathize with the murderers. Just imagine what the world will look like after four more years of Obama.

How can we know for sure that it was the movie that motivated the attacks? It’s worth noting that when the Muslims are portrayed (at least in part) as the victims, the media just go with it, and this time there is no “hold your horses” message from the president.

The terrorist group Ansar al-Sharia has reportedly taken credit, but terrorist groups routinely credit themselves for things they did not do.

Other considerations

The terrorist group Ansar al-Sharia has reportedly taken credit, but terrorist groups routinely credit themselves for things they did not do.

A Libyan government source told the Telegraph (UK) that groups loyal to the late ruler Muammar Gaddhafi were behind the attack.

It could be retaliation from the recent announcement that al Qaeda’s second-in-command, Abu Yahya al-Libi (a Libyan citizen), had been killed by a U.S. drone strike.

And regardless of who did it, let’s not lose sight of the psychological factor that another deadly terrorist attack against the United States on the anniversary of 9/11. Perhaps the date was far more of a factor than an upcoming movie. But if that were the case, then we would be the victims – and that just wouldn’t fit the narrative.

It seems that instead of following the evidence, we are to jump to or from conclusions based on how it will portray the “religion of peace.” But if this religion is so peaceful, why would a yet-to-be-released, little-known independent movie inspire them to murder Americans (who are there to help)?

Thanks to our evaporating human intelligence capabilities, the State Department apparently did not know the attack was coming. And although this consulate was bombed in June, and the British were just run out of their Benghazi office, security levels were still insufficient.

Photos of a mob carrying the dead ambassador through the streets – reminiscent of the “Blackhawk Down” incident in Somalia, 1993 – are now circulating on the Internet. But we are also told that the crowd was carrying the dead ambassador to the hospital.

If you come across the photos of the dead ambassador (I choose not to post them), see for yourself whether that looks to be the case.

It seems as if this administration, perpetually apologizing for America and placing Muslim engagement at the forefront of foreign policy, along with politically-correct allies in the media, are a bit too eager to sign on to this narrative.

The theory of Islamic terrorist groups offended by a movie may prove true. But to take the word of Washington and the media without critical thought requires, to borrow from Hillary Clinton, “a willing suspension of disbelief.”

One of the main goals of statecraft and diplomacy is to affect behavior changes in state and non-state actors via the application of leverage. The timing of the decision to designate the Haqqani Network as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) at the State Department represents a case study in Secretary Clinton’s effective use of diplomacy to modify the behavior of Pakistan’s civilian government.

Presented in the media these past weeks as a symbolic, internal maneuver, the designation of the Haqqani Network was actually a step toward labeling the state of Pakistan, and its Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI), as a state sponsor of terror.

The seeming hesitancy of the Obama Administration to move beyond the designation of a few key leaders of the Haqqani by the U.S. Treasury to a full form sanction of the group as a whole is only intelligible in terms of U.S.-Pakistan relations.

The American people, for years, have been following the bloody exploits of the Haqqani Network. Hundreds of terror operations and IED attacks that have killed NATO Coalition soldiers, Afghan security forces, and civilians have convinced both houses of the U.S. Congress that the Haqqani Network is not just a faction of the Taliban, but should be recognized and dealt with as a stand alone terror organization. The question at bar, this last month, has been whether or not the ISI is complicit in or influential in the Haqqani Network’s activities.

Salala Incident Frays US-Pak Relations

U.S.-Pakistani ties, long strained by the Bush and Obama usage of intelligence driven drone strike assassinations in Pakistan’s tribal belt, lay nearly severed after the unannounced kill or capture mission on a compound in Abottabad, Pakistan netted the mastermind of the 9/11 atrocity, Osama bin Laden, last May. The relationship, termed an essential “partnership” by a young Obama Administration, turned icy in November after NATO helicopters and fighter aircraft mistakenly attacked two check posts in the Salala region of Pakistan across the Afghan border, killing 24 and wounding 13 Pak security forces.

The immediate impact of the Salala incident was felt in the closure of the NATO supply lines by the Pakistani government. Five months later, on April 12, Pakistan’s Parliament passed a 14-point resolution demanding an apology and assurances from the United States.

By May 2012, the prospect of competition with Iran thawed the U.S.-Pakistan divide, when it became common knowledge that India, Pakistan’s avowed mortal enemy, was financing the second phase of the Iranian port’s development.

Sensing that the time was right to patch up relations, the Obama Administration moved to influence the posture of Pakistan’s three distinct nodes of power: the Pak Military, the ISI, and the civilian government.

Strangely, the diplomatic process began with a continuation of the criticism of Pakistan. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, on June 7, claimed that the United States was “reaching the limit” of its patience with Pakistan’s inability to knock out cells of terrorists launching cross border strikes into Afghanistan.

On June 14, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar responded to Leon Panetta’s claim that the United States was losing patience with Pakistan for not doing more to disrupt terror cells, saying “Pakistan still wants an unconditional apology and reassurances that the Salala type of incident does not happen again.”

Notably, Khar’s call for an apology fell on the heels of a defense panel for the Senate Appropriations Committee on June 13, in which Senator Dianne Feinstein asked Leon Panetta if a U.S. apology which acknowledged mistakes made on both sides would be in order if the national security of the United States and the proper maintenance of NATO supply lines would indeed be best served by a “positive relationship” with Pakistan.

Within weeks an apology was decided upon. On July 2, Hillary Clinton dialed up Foreign Minister Khar and apologized for Pakistani losses suffered in the Salala incident and assured her that the United States was committed to working closely with both Pakistan and Afghanistan to make sure the mistakes were not repeated. The Obama Administration announced that it would release $1.2 billion to the Coalition Support Funds in conjunction with Secretary Clinton’s gesture. FM Khar, accepting the apology, waved the demand for fees along the supply line. NATO’s supply lines through Karachi were restored.

The Case Against the Haqqani Network

Secretary Clinton’s close working relationships with the late Special Envoy to the AfPak, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and with former Obama Advisor for the Central Region, Dennis Ross, in his stint at the State Department instilled her with a sharp awareness of the importance of wielding leverage to shape diplomatic negotiations. To successfully re-forge the strategic U.S.-Pakistani partnership, Hillary would have to sidestep the Pakistan Military leadership and the ISI to work directly with the civilian government.

What no one saw coming in the effort to mend U.S.-Pakistan relations, though, was the capacity of American scholars and researchers to provide Secretary Clinton the leverage she had been missing for years – proof of the Haqqani Network’s links to the ISI and overwhelming evidence of its symbiotic relationship with the culture of jihadi terror and criminal enterprise.

Rassler and Brown Reveal Haqqani-ISI Ties

In 2005, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point launched the Harmony Program to release translated documents of the Al-Qaeda Network captured on the fields of Iraq and Afghanistan for scholarly research. The documents were gathered on the battlefield, so they often lack contextual markers. Little emphasis was placed on captured Urdu and Pashto documents, initially. However, by 2011, the Harmony Program had delved into thousands of letters by Haqqani leaders in the ’80s and ’90s, and over a thousand pages of propaganda magazines released by the group from 1989 to 1993.

After analyzing these captured documents from the Defense Department’s Harmony Database and mounting an investigative project complete with interviews of Pakistanis and Afghans that had conducted business with the Haqqani Network, Don Rassler and Vahid Brown released a startling report on July 14, 2011.

The Haqqani Nexus and the Evolution of al-Qaida drew the picture of an organization that operated for four decades on local, regional and global levels, “…the most under appreciated dimension of which is the global character of the Haqqani network and the central role it has played in the evolution of al-Qa’ida and the global jihadi movement.”

Rassler and Brown relate that Jalaluddin Haqqani called for jihad on the central government in Kabul a full six years before the Russian intervention in 1979 and collected funds from Gulf donors and facilitated fighters in Loya Paktiya long before Abdullah Azzam began recruiting Arabs for the internationalized jihad.

The focus on the Arab phenomenon led by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan masked our understanding of the crucial space provided by the Haqqani for Taliban and Al-Qaeda jihadi activity. Indeed, Jalaluddin’s training camp at Zhawara would be retrofitted and fortified by bin Laden in the late ’80s and by the late ’90s it was the central training center for new al Qaeda recruits. As the war wound down in Afghanistan and Russian troops withdrew, Jalaluddin increased his jihadist rhetoric, pointing to America as the next enemy Islam would face. To drive the message home, Jalaluddin began releasing a propaganda magazine in Pashto entitled Manba’ al-Jihad, which translates to The Fountainhead of Jihad.

The Harmony Program report crystallized the connections between the ISI and the Haqqani into historical fact. During the mujahidin war against Russia, a third of the supplies directed to the Afghan front from the ISI went through the Haqqani base at Zhawara. Jalaluddin was one of the ISI’s favorite field commanders. The capture of Khost in 1991 was a joint ISI-Haqqani operation. Communications logs between Haqqani commanders and the ISI in this period, available in the Harmony Database, show a heavily involved intelligence agency, shaping the activities of the inter-linked Afghan mujahidin.

Jalaluddin Haqqani joined the Taliban in 1995. It is clear that the Haqqani Network’s leadership grew closer with Al-Qaeda following 9/11, due to its nexus capacity to provide training space, ideological recruits drawn from a pool of roughly 10,000 to 15,000 fighters, and protection for those devising terrorist attacks in Afghanistan against Coalition forces and beyond. The relationship has proved multi-generational with the hand-over of operational command by Jalaluddin to his son Sirajuddin in 2005.

The CTC Harmony Program Haqqani Nexus report shows the ISI’s three decades long connections to and strategic manipulation of the Haqqani Network. This relationship is at the heart of U.S-Pakistan tensions, today. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mullen, from 2008 through 2011 issued this double-gaming complaint to his Pakistani military counterparts on numerous occasions.

The July report hit home. By November 2011, a sixth Haqqani leader had been designated as a terrorist by the United States. And on December 7, 2011 Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) along with 15 co-sponsors introduced the legislation marked up as S.1959: The Haqqani Network Terrorist Designation Act of 2012 to blacklist the entire organization.

Dressler Maps the Haqqani Strategic Threat

By March of 2012, Jeffrey Dressler of the Institute for the Study of War released an in-depth analysis of the strategic threat that the Haqqani Network represents to Afghan and U.S. interests. According to Dressler, all indications as of March 2012 were that the relations between the ISI and the Haqqani network would likely “deepen and expand” as the Haqqani proved their resilience and capacity to take up where the Afghan Taliban force, fighting Coalition forces in the south, diminished in presence and effectiveness.

As of September 1, 2012, the United States had launched 313 drone strikes in Pakistan, 95% of which were in North and South Waziristan. One of the major targets is Miramshah. According to the Dressler report, “The Haqqanis run a shadow government administration in Miramshah and its neighboring villages, which includes courts, recruiting centers, tax offices, and training centers for recruits and suicide bombers…[and] continue to use North Waziristan as their command and supply hub for the fight across the border in Afghanistan, despite U.S. attacks targeting senior al-Qaeda and affiliated terrorists under the protection of the Haqqanis…”

Complete with infiltration routes, base and safe house locations, network leadership and “spectacular attack” maps, the ISW report, The Haqqani Network: A Strategic Threat, identifies nine northern Afghan power brokers assassinated by the Haqqani in 2010 and 2011, which includes one provincial Governor, a member of Afghanistan’s Parliament and two District Governors.

Notably, Dressler’s assessment of the growing Haqqani threat and its capacity to destabilize Kabul leads him to conclude that it will take at least two full fighting seasons to quell the Haqqani advance. In this, he calls for a halt to any further troop withdrawals after the September 2012 draw down to 68,000 and notes that only an aggressive offensive in Loya Paktia could degrade the insurgent threat.

Peters Isolates the Haqqani Finance Network

Counter terror finance expert, Gretchen Peters, who awakened the world to the realities of the Afghan poppy culture in the 2009 release Seeds of Terror: How Heroin is Bankrolling the Taliban and Al Qaeda, joined forces with the Harmony Program at West Point’s Counter Terrorism Center in October of 2010. The result was the July 2012 report Haqqani Network Financing: The Evolution of an Industry that argues the case that “…over three decades of war, the Haqqanis have evolved into an efficient, transnational jihadi industry…” For the first time, extensive proof drawn from the Harmony Database combined with subcontractor interviews with local sources close to the group presents the Haqqani Network as a Mafia-styled group in both structure and operations, whose financial activities are centered around extortion, kidnapping for ransom, smuggling, taxing other smuggling rings and money laundering. The Haqqanis are involved in real estate, have shadow ownership stakes in construction outfits as well as logistics companies and import-export firms. The network is naturally at the head of a madrassa network, and draws on donations from patrons and partners in the Gulf, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Haqqani Network’s primary vulnerabilities appear to be its family-centric command structure and occasional cash flow and resupply interruptions. The Peters report is instructive on how to tackle the group: “Although the group is now under considerable military pressure, the Haqqanis have never had to deal with a sustained and systematic campaign against their financial infrastructure. In partnership with the ongoing tactical campaign, a stepped-up effort to identify and disrupt Haqqani business activities could degrade the network’s capacity to project power and conduct violence.”

What becomes apparent through the evolution of the Haqqani Network’s financial history is that in 2005, with the hand over of operational power from Jalaluddin to his son, Sirajuddin, the group embarked on a diversification campaign that ensured complete autonomy from Pakistani governmental control: “Some analysts credit Sirajuddin with the vision to muscle into illicit enterprises such as timber and chromite smuggling, and say the network has become flush with money under his direction and has achieved greater independence from the ISI.”

Perhaps the most lucrative niche in the endeavor to consolidate power in Waziristan and Loya Paktia is the collection of protection money from contractors working with the NATO Coalition, USAID and other NGOs during road and project construction, since “…the Haqqanis extort between 10 and 25 percent of the value of each construction project in their control zones…” Thus, the United States, in its effort to fund development efforts, may be paying for the guns and explosives that will eventually kill those that would benefit by the public works, not to mention American soldiers.

The limits of uncovering the licit and illicit trails of Haqqani Network finance are, at present, limited to the upper rungs of the organization. Information on mid to low-level Haqqani fund handlers is scarce. Some in Loya Paktiya claim that “…the network uses trusted Hawaladars and traders in the bazaars to help save money, and U.S. military intelligence is aware that trusted cash couriers help to transport money to and from network commanders inside Afghanistan.” Apparently, trusted hawaladars often hale from the Zadran tribe.

In the concluding solutions offered in her book Seeds of Terror, Gretchen Peters speaks to the problem of illegal money transfers: “Donor nations should support, even subsidize, efforts to help Afghanistan and Pakistan establish cost-free reporting mechanisms for the hawala network and use the vast data bank of information the hawaladars have to help fight crime, rather than move criminal money.”

Had officials in Washington moved on this suggestion and pushed Kabul to regulate the hawala culture in Afghanistan three years ago, would the Haqqani Network be as robust, today? It is hard to tell. In fact, perhaps one of the most disturbing elements of the Peters report was the fact that investigators following threads of Haqqani corruptions often followed the source to Kabul. One former investigator of the Afghan Threat Finance Cell, remarked “Every time we pulled back the cover on an illegal business connected to the Haqqanis, it led back to someone senior in the Karzai government.”

Pakistan’s Modified Behavior

The power of American scholarship and the Harmony Program’s effectiveness in modifying state and non-state actors should not be dismissed. That modification capacity was apparent, first, here in America.

Following the release of Rassler and Brown’s July 2011 report The Haqqani Nexus and the Evolution of al-Qaida, elements of the U.S. Senate mobilized to blacklist the Haqqani Network.

Recognizing the new dynamic of anti-Haqqani sentiment in U.S. political circles, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the new leader of Al-Qaeda, perhaps too impulsively, sought to consolidate the Haqqani Network into the Afghan war effort and moved to capitalize on the closure of the NATO supply routes after the Salala incident.

Bill Roggio of the Long War Journal, on January 3, 2012 announced that Al-Qaeda had brokered a deal over the course of three meetings in late 2011 to unify the major elements of the Taliban into an anti-US alliance called Shura-e-Murakeba. The alliance included the Tehreek-e-Taliban of Pakistan (TTP), the Haqqani Network, the Afghan Taliban, and two groups of fighters loyal to Hafiz Gul Bahadar and Mullah Nazir. By declaring a ceasefire against Pakistan targets and redirecting all energies against NATO Coalition forces, the alliance sought to remove any immediate cause for reciprocal legislative actions by Pakistan’s civilian government by removing the TTP thorn from the side of the Pak Military leadership.

Reconciliation with Haqqani not a Factor in Designation

Many reports in recent weeks characterized the Obama Administration’s hesitancy to blacklist the Haqqani Network as a blow to negotiations and an obstacle to peace talks with the Taliban.

Jeffrey Dressler’s September 5, 2012 background report, The Haqqani Network: A Foreign Terrorist Organization, acknowledges that preliminary efforts in August of 2011 to reach out to the Haqqani Network for talks were pursued by the State Department, but notes the engagement effort did not amount to a negotiation: “Instead, the Haqqanis responded with two massive attacks on the tenth anniversary of 9/11…. Furthermore, in March 2012, the Taliban abruptly ended all outreach efforts and have since been adamant that they are no longer interested in talks.”

Concerns that the designation of the Haqqani Network as a Foreign Terrorist Organization at the State Department could upend peace negotiations with the Haqqani Network or the Taliban are unfounded. As to the Haqqani, all evidence points to an intractable, irreconcilable, profiteering and extraordinarily lethal jihadist entity aiming to destabilize Kabul and kill Coalition soldiers.

The ISI Chief Travels to DC

The case against the Haqqani Network built by Rassler and Brown, Dressler, and Peters over the course of the last year amounted to the proof and evidence Hillary Clinton required to link the ISI to Haqqani activities. It was no longer the agitation of a frustrated Joint Chiefs Chairman.

On July 27, 2012, both the House and the Senate of the U.S. Congress, voted unanimously to blacklist the Haqqani Network. Less than a week later, the ISI chief, Lieutenant General Zaheer ul-Islam arrived in Washington for a scheduled sit down with his counterpart, CIA Director General David Petraeus and the AfPak Special Envoy Marc Grossman at Langley and a policy meeting at the State Department with Lt. General Douglas E. Lute, President Obama’s Afghanistan and Pakistan coordinator.

The night before the official meetings, Lt. General Zaheer ul-Islam would have dinner with the Pakistani Ambassador Sherry Rehman on his visit. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator John Kerry, Chair of the Senate Foreign Relation Committee, and Congressman Mike Rogers, the Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee and the CIA Deputy Director Mike Morrell dined with the ISI chief.

Details of the meeting have not yet leaked to the press, but what is certain is that the ISI Chief left Washington fully cognizant of the capacity of the scholar and expert community in the United States to track any future ISI involvement in the supply of weapons and munitions to the Haqqani network.

Pakistan’s Parliament Moves on Anti-Terror Proposal

On August 10, President Obama signed into law the bill passed by the U.S. Congress to push Secretary Clinton to designate the Haqqani Network as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) at the State Department or to provide her reasons for not designating the group in a written report to Congress within 30 days.

It was hard to determine, why Clinton would not immediately add the Haqqani Network to the list. On a trip to Asia at the end of August, Clinton shook off attempts by journalists to get a yes or no on the question of designation, saying “I’d like to underscore that we are putting steady pressure on the Haqqanis.”

A week later, on Wednesday, September 6, the Pakistani Parliament approved the proposal for a new bill known as The Fair Trial Act of 2012. The bill revamped Pakistan’s internal efforts at fighting terrorism by providing law enforcement with the capacity to utilize modern techniques to collect evidence and increased the civilian regulatory control over the powers of the intelligence and law enforcement agencies. More importantly, the Cabinet approved the Anti-Terrorism Amendment to the 1997 Act, which strengthens Pakistan’s capacity to freeze and seize assets and force the forfeiture of assets and properties of those responsible for financing terrorism. The amendment, which was initially drafted two years ago, was now in play.

The following day, on September 7, after news of this Pakistani Anti-Terror Amendment was approved, Secretary Clinton announced her decision to designate the Haqqani Network as an FTO at the State Department in a press briefing in Vladivostok, Russia. Notably, the blacklisting of the group criminalizes “providing material support or resources to, or engaging in other transactions with the Haqqani Network” and freezes all interests in property under U.S. jurisdiction.

Conclusion: Hillary Clinton’s Haqqani Diplomacy

Pakistan’s Washington Embassy spokesman responded to the news of the Haqqani Designation, saying “This is an internal matter for the United States.”  Hauntingly, the spokesman added “The Haqqanis are not Pakistani nationals.”

Armed with the ability to sanction individuals in the Gulf and Afghanistan that sponsor the Haqqani Network, the State Department now holds the fresh prospect of the Pakistani civilian government sanctioning those financing the Haqqani terrorists in Pakistan.

The possibility of designating Pakistan as a state sponsor of terror was averted through Hillary Clinton’s nimble usage of leverage to modify the behavior of the ISI and civilian government. Thanks to this diligent statecraft of the Secretary, aided by the American academic community’s case against the Haqqani Network, the U.S.-Pakistan strategic partnership was mended.

U.S. officials responding to the designation assured the concerned journalists in attendance, “We are making absolutely no effort to begin a process to designate Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism.”

Gary H. Johnson, Jr. is the Senior Advisor for International Security Affairs at the Victory Institute and a Level I Researcher at Wikistrat