CNN � Retired generals: Be afraid of ISIS

Blindsided: Did ISIS catch the U.S. by surprise?

By Michael Flynn, James Livingston and Michael Smith

Updated 10:22 PM ET, Sun April 26, 2015

Story highlights:

• Authors warn President Obama must be clear about radical Islam threat
• Al Qaeda still a looming threat, they say

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn served as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Medal of Honor recipient and retired Maj. Gen. James E. Livingston, USMC, and congressional counterterrorism adviser Michael S. Smith II are co-founders of the strategic advisory firm Kronos Advisory. The views expressed are solely the authors' own. 

Watch 'Blindsided: How ISIS shook the world', on CNN.

(CNN)  Be afraid -- be very afraid. This is the warning the world deserves to hear. Because the leader of the free world refuses to look with clear eyes at the chief security challenges of the 21st century: the fruits of radical Islam.

The results of the Obama White House's innovative efforts to make the world a better place can be accounted for in the ever-growing numbers of victims of radical Islam in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. Not to mention here in the United States, Canada and Europe. Is it not a tragic irony that the Arab Spring-era policies of a Nobel Peace Prize recipient accommodated the transition of Syria into the world's newest jihad theater while leaving Libya a failed state and Yemen a failing state?

The Syrian jihad gave rise to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, which now uses Syria as a rear operating base to support its jihad in Iraq, which could soon spill over into Jordan. Plus, Libya is now being used as a rear operating base by ISIS and other global jihadist elements striving to redraw the map of the Middle East, even as they plan attacks in Europe and North America.

Given the frightfully slow pace America's commander-in-chief is currently allowing our military and intelligence community to take action against both ISIS and its progenitor, al Qaeda, the picture of what's in store is clear: The body count will continue to grow in the places where these groups can generate buy-in for their agendas. And neither the United States nor our Western allies are immune to this cancer.

Academics who must say something new or different to garner interest in their work may describe the agendas of ISIS and al Qaeda as distinctly different. But the fact is they are not -- their agendas, which constitute the foremost threats to the global security environment today, are manifestations of radical Islam.

Of course, it's hardly a surprise President Barack Obama refuses to acknowledge all this in plain terms -- the president and his national security advisers have too often proven na�ve, with a dangerous habit of viewing the world not as it is, but as they hope it could be.

There is no shortage of examples that highlight the absence of sound foresight on the parts of the world's most powerful politician and his national security team.

Just take the National Strategy for Counterterrorism published by the White House in 2011. That document contained the assertion that, "Since the beginning of 2011, the transformative change sweeping North Africa and the Middle East -- along with the death of Osama bin Laden -- has further changed the nature of the terrorist threat, particularly as the relevance of al Qaeda and its ideology has been further diminished."

Yet, fast forward to January 2014 and America's top intelligence official, director of National Intelligence James Clapper, advised Congress that al Qaeda was no less capable of threatening the United States and our allies than a decade earlier.

Soon after Clapper acknowledged al Qaeda was not a band on the run, as President Obama had described the terrorist enterprise, a report by terrorism expert Seth Jones of the RAND Corporation highlighted yet another inconvenient truth for the White House: As restraints on freedom of expression of radical religious views vanished in places like Libya, Tunisia and Egypt during the Arab Spring, those states became fertile recruitment grounds for terrorist groups -- including al Qaeda and groups aligned with it.

According to data compiled by Jones, from 2010 through 2013, the number of Salafi jihadist groups increased by 58%. These groups are fueled by Salafiyya Jihadiyya, an ideology that not only informs the agenda of al Qaeda, but is the source code for the agenda of the al Qaeda offshoot ISIS.

Bin Laden's death 'didn't lift shadow'

Most recently, absent from the National Security Strategy produced by the Obama White House in February 2015 is any real meaningful discussion concerning threats posed by al Qaeda. Yes, Osama bin Laden was killed on President Obama's watch. But contrary to what the White House seemed to think in 2011, bin Laden's death has not lifted the shadow he casts over America's, or our allies' security.

Indeed, within days of our new National Security Strategy's publication date, in the seventh issue of ISIS's English-language magazine Dabiq, the group's leaders described their jihad as a continuation of the jihad charted by bin Laden, while accusing his successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, of steering al Qaeda off the path of its former leader.

Meanwhile, Yemen -- home to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the al Qaeda branch that claimed credit for the January 2015 attack in Paris at the office of Charlie Hebdo -- has also become a failed state. AQAP is helmed by the second-highest-ranking official in al Qaeda writ large, and the Obama administration views it as the most dangerous component of al Qaeda's global network.

So it is interesting that, in the months before the Yemeni government was overthrown by Iran-backed rebels, President Obama described the U.S.-Yemen counterterrorism partnership as a shining example of success in the fight against al Qaeda -- interesting because the President did not do more to help that "partner" government remain in power. Once again, the president and his advisers appear to have either ignored or failed to recognize the trajectory of events in the Middle East.

What were they thinking? And how do they plan to combat AQAP now?

Despite what the White House wants the world to believe, a sober look at the security environment reveals the following key realities:

ISIS controls a large amount of territory in the Middle East, and the group is rapidly growing its ranks in places such as Libya and Afghanistan, while at the same time inspiring and plotting attacks in the West.

And, although ISIS is trying to "out al Qaeda" al Qaeda, resorting to attention winning stunts to boost its profile on television sets around the world, al Qaeda itself is no less of a threat to the United States and our allies today than it was in January 2014.

At the same time, the routine failures of President Obama and his advisers to understand the security environment, and to appropriately tailor America's national security posture in a manner demanded by it, foretells more disasters lie ahead.

Will Obama make the difficult decisions?

Not only Americans, but also our allies should be very, very afraid. Indeed, President Obama's refusal to simply call a problem like radical Islam by its name strongly suggests he is unwilling to make the difficult decisions that must be made today if we are to stand a chance of defeating radical Islamist groups.

History has shown the dangers that millions can be placed in if our leaders don't face down a looming threat by calling it what it is and putting our full weight behind efforts to vanquish it.

President Obama has the resources at his disposal to do just that. But if he wants to help define a future for the Middle East and North Africa in which fewer threats emanate from those regions, he must spend more time listening to talented professionals in our military and intelligence community versus the idealists and yes-men surrounding him at the White House. There is too much at stake in the near term to continue down the path of experimentation with Pollyannaish theories about how to attain this future that have actually rendered us less safe.

Indeed, President Obama should also pay closer attention to what representatives from Arab states are saying behind closed doors. Most of their bosses would love to be the claimants to the prize of defeating ISIS and al Qaeda.

However, all of them recognize that, unless we all want things to get a whole lot worse before they might get any better, the United States will have to deploy considerably more of our "kinetic" resources to put those victories in sight.

This does not mean a ground forces-intensive response is required from us at this time. But if the President thinks it prudent to wait on our Arab partners to do most of the heavy lifting, he could be guaranteeing this will be the case in the not-too-distant future.

Exposed: Decade-Old Plan to Create Islamic State � and Obama Helped

This is one of the key stories I missed during my sabbatical this past winter. Extremely important and quite an eye-opener. In places it is downright prophetic. A must read, including this concluding quote about the final phase of the plan:

"There is certainly no good reason to think Western leadership will stop the final phase from occurring: a unified, aggressive, expansionist, and eventually possibly even nuclear armed caliphate preparing to terrorize its neighbors on a grand scale � just like its historic predecessor did for centuries."

Exposed: Decade-Old Plan to Create Islamic State � and Obama Helped
by Raymond Ibrahim � November 6, 2014

Although the birth of the Islamic state and the herald of the caliphate are often regarded as some of 2014�s �big shockers,� they were foretold in striking detail and with an accurate timeline by an al-Qaeda insider nearly one decade ago.

On August 12, 2005, Spiegel Online International published an article titled �The Future of Terrorism: What al-Qaeda Really Wants.�  Written by Yassin Musharbash, the article was essentially a review of a book written by Fouad Hussein, a Jordanian journalist with close access to al-Qaeda and its affiliates, including the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who pioneered the videotaping of beheadings �to strike terror into the hearts� of infidels (Koran 3:151).

As Hussein explained in the introduction of his book Al Zarqawi: Al Qaeda�s Second Generation: �I interviewed a whole range of al-Qaeda members with different ideologies to get an idea of how the war between the terrorists and Washington would develop in the future.�

And in fact the book details the master plan of al-Qaeda�in its �second generation� manifestation known as the �Islamic State� which follows much of Zarqawi�s modus operandi�to resurrect a caliphate.  This plan is sufficiently outlandish that Yassin Musharbash, the author of the Spiegel article reviewing Hussein�s book, repeatedly casts doubt on its feasibility.  Thus al-Qaeda�s plan is �proof both of the terrorists� blindness as well as their brutal single-mindedness�; there is �no way� al-Qaeda can follow the plan �step by step�; �the idea that al-Qaeda could set up a caliphate in the entire Islamic world is absurd�; and the following �scenario should be judged skeptically.�

Yet it is all the more remarkable that much of this plan�especially those phases dismissed as infeasible by Musharbash (four and five)�have come to pass.

In what follows, I reproduce the seven phases of al-Qaeda�s master plan as presented in Musharbash�s nearly ten-year-old article (in bullet points and italics, bold for emphasis), with my commentary interspersed for context.  Phases four and five are of particular importance as they describe the goals for recent times, much of which have come to fruition according to plan.

An Islamic Caliphate in Seven Easy Steps

• The First Phase Known as �the awakening��this has already been carried out and was supposed to have lasted from 2000 to 2003, or more precisely from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington to the fall of Baghdad in 2003. The aim of the attacks of 9/11 was to provoke the US into declaring war on the Islamic world and thereby �awakening� Muslims. �The first phase was judged by the strategists and masterminds behind al-Qaeda as very successful,� writes Hussein. �The battle field was opened up and the Americans and their allies became a closer and easier target.� The terrorist network is also reported as being satisfied that its message can now be heard �everywhere.�

Much of this is accurate and makes sense.  Sadly, if any eyes were opened after the 9/11 attacks on American soil, they weren�t Western eyes�certainly not the eyes of Western leadership, mainstream media, and academia.

But to many Muslims, the strikes of 9/11 were inspiring and motivating, giving credence to Osama bin Laden�s characterization of America as a �paper tiger.� 

A few years after the Islamic strikes of 9/11, Americans responded by electing a man with a Muslim name and heritage for president, even as he continuously empowers in a myriad of ways�including banning knowledge of Islam � the same ideology behind the strikes of 9/11. 

Meanwhile, the average Muslim relearned the truths of their religion, namely that the �infidel� is an existential enemy and jihad against him is a duty, as al-Qaeda and others had successfully shown.

• The Second Phase �Opening Eyes� is, according to Hussein�s definition, the period we are now in [writing in 2005] and should last until 2006. Hussein says the terrorists hope to make the western conspiracy aware of the �Islamic community.� Hussein believes this is a phase in which al-Qaeda wants an organization to develop into a movement. The network is banking on recruiting young men during this period. Iraq should become the center for all global operations, with an �army� set up there and bases established in other Arabic states.

This too is accurate.   Among other things, the �Islamic community,� the umma, began to be more visible and vocal during this time frame, including through a rash of attacks and riots following any perceived �insult� to Islam, growing demands for appeasement, and accusations of �Islamophobia� against all and sundry.  

If there weren�t any spectacular terror attacks on the level of 9/11, young Muslim men were quietly enlisting and training in the jihad�or in western parlance, �radicalizing.�  Al-Qaeda went from being an �organization� to a �movement��international �radicalization.�  Most importantly, Iraq, as the world now knows, certainly did become the �center for all global operations� with an �army� of jihadis set up there.

• The Third Phase This is described as �Arising and Standing Up� and should last from 2007 to 2010. �There will be a focus on Syria,� prophesies Hussein, based on what his sources told him. The fighting cadres are supposedly already prepared and some are in Iraq. Attacks on Turkey and�even more explosive� in Israel are predicted. Al-Qaeda�s masterminds hope that attacks on Israel will help the terrorist group become a recognized organization. The author also believes that countries neighboring Iraq, such as Jordan, are also in danger.

Much of this third phase as described and transpired seems to have been an extension of phase two. In retrospect, there certainly appears to have been a focus on Syria, even if the jihad started there one year behind schedule (2011).  And many of the jihadis were �already prepared� and �some are in Iraq.�   None of this was a surprise, of course, as U.S. intelligence always indicated that if American forces withdrew from Iraq, the jihadis would take over.

• The Fourth Phase Between 2010 and 2013, Hussein writes that al-Qaeda will aim to bring about the collapse of the hated Arabic governments. The estimate is that �the creeping loss of the regimes� power will lead to a steady growth in strength within al-Qaeda.� At the same time attacks will be carried out against oil suppliers and the US economy will be targeted using cyber terrorism.

This is immensely prophetic.  Recall that the timeline given (2010-2013) coincides remarkably well with the so-called �Arab Spring,� which culminated with Islamic terrorists and their allies taking over the leadership of several Arab countries formerly ruled by secularized autocrats: Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood (which plays Dr. Jekyll to al-Qaeda�s Mr. Hyde); Libya, al-Qaeda/Islamic jihadis; ongoing Syria, al-Qaeda/Islamic jihadis (or their latest manifestation, the Islamic State, al-Qaeda�s �second generation�), etc.  

It should be remembered that in each of these nations�Egypt, Libya, Syria�the Obama administration played a major role in empowering the jihadis, though in the name of �democracy.�

• The Fifth Phase This will be the point at which an Islamic state, or caliphate, can be declared. The plan is that by this time, between 2013 and 2016, Western influence in the Islamic world will be so reduced and Israel weakened so much, that resistance will not be feared. Al-Qaeda hopes that by then the Islamic state will be able to bring about a new world order.

Again, right on time: the �Islamic State� declared itself the �caliphate� in 2014, with many Muslim organizations and persons around the world pledging their allegiance, if not imitating their slaughter, with inspired �lone wolves� already beheading �infidels� in Western nations.   

And if the administration helped empower jihadis during the �Arab Spring� and in the name of �democracy� in Egypt, Libya, and Syria, it helped the creation of the Islamic State by withdrawing U.S. military forces that were keeping al-Qaeda at bay in Iraq.  

Recall that in 2007 George W. Bush said that,

�To begin withdrawing [military forces] before our commanders tell us we are ready would be dangerous for Iraq, for the region and for the United States.  It would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to Al Qaeda.  It would mean that we�d be risking mass killings on a horrific scale.  It would mean we allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan.  It would mean we�d be increasing the probability that American troops would have to return at some later date to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous.� 

All of these predictions have proven remarkably prescient�not because Bush was a prophet but because U.S intelligence clearly understood the situation in Iraq, and briefed Obama on it just as it did Bush. Yet, in 2011, Obama declared the Iraq war a success and pulled out American troops, leaving the way wide open for the jihadi master plan of resurrecting the caliphate to unfold.

• The Sixth Phase Hussein believes that from 2016 onwards there will a period of �total confrontation.� As soon as the caliphate has been declared the �Islamic army� it will instigate the �fight between the believers and the non-believers� which has so often been predicted by Osama bin Laden.

This needs clarification.  While many assume that the �fight between the believers and the non-believers� is between Muslims and non-Muslims, this is not always the case.  

Soon after the announcement of the caliphate, the Islamic State made clear that it was in the phase of waging jihad on �apostates� and �hypocrites,� meaning all the �apostate� or �infidel� Arab leaders like Bashar al-Assad, as well as Muslim populations that are insufficiently �Islamic.�  

It is for this reason that the new caliph took on the name of �Abu Bakr��the name of the first historic caliph (632-634) whose caliphate was characterized by fighting and bringing back into the fold of Islam all those Arabs who broke away after Muhammad died.   Afterwards, when all the Arab tribes were unified under the banner of Islam, the great historic conquests, or jihads against neighboring �infidels,� took place.

• The Seventh Phase This final stage is described as �definitive victory.� Hussein writes that in the terrorists� eyes, because the rest of the world will be so beaten down by the �one-and-a-half billion Muslims,� the caliphate will undoubtedly succeed. This phase should be completed by 2020, although the war shouldn�t last longer than two years.

Phase seven remains to be seen, as it is has another five years to go.  

As for the world being �so beaten down by the one-and-a-half billion Muslims,� actor Ben Affleck reflected this sentiment recently when he kept apologizing for Islam by saying Muslims �are a billion and a half.�   

At any rate, considering that the preceding phases have all largely come to pass�with a passive West doing nothing to prevent them, that is, when not actively aiding them�there is certainly no good reason to think Western leadership will stop the final phase from occurring: a unified, aggressive, expansionist, and eventually possibly even nuclear armed caliphate preparing to terrorize its neighbors on a grand scale�just like its historic predecessor did for centuries.

FIGHTERS LEAVING AL QAEDA AFFILIATES TO JOIN ISLAMIC STATE

by Awr Hopkins, Breitbart News � August 12, 2014

Fighters in Yemen and Africa are leaving Al Qaeda affiliates to join Islamic State.

The news has U.S counterterrorism analysts concerned that Islamic State's ability to conquer lands, oil fields, and infrastructure in Syria and Iraq has served to make the group more appealing to fighters who want to be on the winning side.

According to The Washington Post, "the influx" of new fighters is also bad for another reason--it makes Islamic State that much stronger.

The ability of Islamic State to draw fighters away from Al Qaeda is confounding when you consider that the group wasn't even in existence until Mosul was conquered on June 10.

U.S. officials believe Islamic State has quickly emerged as a viable fighting force for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that the core of the group "honed their [fighting] skills against the armies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad."  And since turning their attention to Iraq, their attacks and "pursuit of territory" have been relentless and "impulsive" in a way that differentiates them "from the often time-consuming terror plots of Al Qaeda."

On top of all this, Islamic State has money.

During the August 10 airing of Breitbart News Sunday, Breitbart's own Dr. Sebastian Gorka pointed out "Islamic State has $800 million in assets." And when you compare that to the relatively small $500,000 it cost to carry out the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, it's not hard to see how potent Islamic State could be in carrying out attacks far beyond Syria and Iraq.

The Common Core of Islamic Terrorism is Islam, not al-Qa`ida

"The four Islamic Al-Qaida groups, and the other 34 Islamic non-AQ ones,  have not radically re-interpreted Islam�they have simply returned to Islam�s historical and standard expansionist jihad mode."

by Timothy R. Furnish, Mahdi Watch � May 20, 2014

Timothy R. Furnish holds a PhD in Islamic, African and World history and works as an author, analyst and consultant to the US military. His website is www.mahdiwatch.org and he is on Twitter as @occidentaljihad

Earlier tonight (May 20, 2014), a debate ensued on �Fox News Channel� between faux-moderate Juan Williams and Dr. George Will (as well as Dr. Charles Krauthammer) about the Obama Adminstration�s incessant attempts to differentiate between �core� and �non-core al-Qa`ida� [AQ], which have been going on for almost two years now.  (Nothing quite beats listening to a journalist lecture those more educated than him.) Then just a bit ago I ran across a news item on the Egyptian Muslim terrorist group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, �Supporters of the Holy House� [Jerusalem], describing how ABAM is threatening to move its jihad out of the Sinai and into Egypt's cities and towns to fry the Western evil of KFC (that�s Kentucky Fried Chicken to old Kentuckians like yours truly).   Here is ABAM�s logo:

The top slogan, to the right of the AK-47 barrel (nice banana clip, by the way), says �there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messnger��the standard-issue flag of Islam going back to the 8th century AD Abbasids (as I blogged on just last week).  The circle, which contains a map of Eurasia and Africa and a Qur�an below them, is emblazoned with Arabic which reads �kill them until fitnah no longer exists, and only the religion of  those of Allah exists"--which is almost verbatim from [the Quran] Sura al-Baqarah [II]:193. ( The very bottom Arabic script is the group�s name.)  

ABAM is neither �core� nor �non-core� AQ�in fact, it�s not AQ at all.  But it is no less dangerous for that.  The same is true of the 34 other non-AQ Islamic terrorist groups on the current State Department list.  Taking orders or even cues from AQ leadership, or being an AQ �franchise,� is really irrelevant�because it is not AQ which creates the bitter mindset leading to Islamic terrorism; it is Islam itself, when a literal reading is applied to the Qur�an�s many jihad passages, the supporting Hadiths, and the historical example of Muhammad himself.  The four Islamic AQ groups, and the other 34 Islamic non-AQ ones,  have not radically re-interpreted Islam�they have simply returned to Islam�s historical and standard expansionist jihad mode, after some decades of such being suppressed by Western-inspired ideologies between about the end of World War II and 1979 (the year that marked the rise of the mujahidin to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, the Iranian theocratic revolution, and the abortive Mahdist coup in Saudi Arabia). 

A better differentiation of terrorist groups would be Fawaz Gerges� one beween those aiming to attack the �near enemy� and those targetting the �far� one(s): Hamas, Hizbullah, Lashkar-e Taiba and Boko Haram at one point fell under the former category (going after local or regional �non-Islamic� rulers); while AQ was the quintessential latter one (skipping over Mubarak�s and Saddam�s dyed heads to go after the Great Satan itself�us).   But that distinction matters much less nowadays, as the Islamic ummah has increasingly come to see itself as a global one united against not just the encroachments, but the predatory attacks, of both Western secularism and Christianity, �Zionism,� Chinese Communism�and now, with Modi�s election in India, Hinduism; and, concomitantly, that Islamic terrorist groups are actually, for the most part, soldiers of Allah defending Islamdom.    

Again, note ABAM�s slogan: �kill them until fitnah no longer exists, and only the religion of those of Allah exists.�  Fitnah is plural for �civil/religious wars,�  as well as for the more nebulous "mischief." So the ones to be killed can be either �apostate� Muslims who engage in the former, or those who stir up problems for the ummah in the latter vein, behind the scences (likely Christians and Jews)�and probably both categories.   So while the name of the group bespeaks the urgency of conquering Jersualem for Islam, the clearly-expressed aim is Allah-sanctioned killing of all enemies.  That idea comes from Muhammad, not Bin Ladin or al-Zawahiri.   And almost the same ideology is expressed by most of the Islamic groups on State�s list.   The issue, then, is not whether an organization is �core� AQ�rather,  the degree to which it's core Islamic, and the degree to which the seeds of Allah and Muhammad have germinated.

[Addendum, as of May 21, 2014: I owe the idea for the title change, as well as the importance of the "mischief" aspect of fitna, to a certain good Canadian mathematician friend.]