Through Default, ISIS LIVES And Shall Die!! Here is Why?!

We are back to an analysis of ISIS -the vaunted phantom which crystallizes jihadism.  Born through fissures in governance in Iraq, and absence of governance in Syria.  This is the cleanest slate any barbaric movement would hope for.

In Iraq, the fissures were already there under Maliki, the former Prime Minister of an Iraq orphaned by lack of truly national leaders.  Maliki, a Shiite boss who commands allegiance centered on Tehran, saw a mirage of an Iraq dominated only by Shiis.  Not by an amalgam of all Iraqi sects.  Neither the Sunnis of the great North, nor the Kurds of Iraqi Kurdistan saw in Maliki the visage of national unity.  For he was a divider, not a uniter.  His ethos was "divide and misrule."

Pandering to his handlers in Tehran, he refused to sign a security agreement with the U.S. That was before the American military turned tail, and completely departed from the "Land of the Two Rivers."  In the wake of that withdrawal, was a Sunni dormant volcano ready to erupt in the face of the Sectarian-in-Chief Maliki.  Bremer, the genius of a misguided American invasion of Iraq in 2003, had disbanded the huge Iraqi army.  An insane blunder for which America dearly paid.

That formidable Iraqi military machine had been officered for years by highly-trained Sunni general officers.  Now, without jobs in Anbar, Mosul and Faluja, highly trained but unemployed, imbued with Iraqi nationalism, but excommunicated by the Baghdad Shii-powered structure, they readily welcomed ISIS.  An act of Qassass, revenge, against Maliki.

Acting on the basis of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" (sectarian Maliki v. Sunni north), this cadre of battle-tested military were a boon to Al-Baghadi of ISIS.  It was an alliance to which the tribal leadership of the north and west were eager to seek out and pay homage to.  The tribal leadership of Tikrit, and other Saddam geographic centers of power, had been humiliated by both the American invaders, and by their shii-based Iraqi successors.

They saw in ISIS an entity through which they could hit back at their tormentors.  And hit they did.  By the huge American-made arsenal, nearly trillion-dollar worth of the best offensive equipment money can buy.  ISIS knew the Sunni desire for revenge: They have been in bed with them in Iraq, even before ISIS was an ISIS fighting in Syria to topple Assad.

The field was clear.  In both Iraq (north and west), and in Syria (north and east), you could see no border markings.  I was there as a defense attorney.  It was, and continues to be the biggest no man's land in the world.  TERRA NULIUS!!

Having been declared by Al-Qaeda as too brute, and by Al-Nusra as too independent, and by the world as an outlaw, ISIS reality showed its ugly face.  Through a different modus operandi moving massively eastward astride both Syrian and Iraqi territory; cease the no man's land and hold it; inherit the Sunni desire for revenge against the shiis; re-employ Saddam's battle-hardened colonels and generals.

More importantly, declare a caliphate -the Muslim equivalent of an imperial system!!  It evokes memories of a robust governance which could put an end to Islamophobia and the humiliation of Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Palestine of the mandates.  No more Guantanamos; no more Abu Ghraibs; no more Pagrams; no more collaboration of peace between Arab capitals and the West, including Israel.  Payback time through a caliphate, headed by Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi.  Hail to the Caliphate, and come you all disgruntled young from the West and East, and cleanse the Middle East from all vestiges of westernism, including even Christian Arabs!!

In a matter of days, the newly trumpeted caliphate had two capitals: Raqqa in Syria, Mosul in Iraq.  Oil fields, and huge water dams were targeted; the shias had no real army in Iraq, only disjointed militias; the collapse of the Iraqi army of the north proved the falsehood of the modern State; over the necks of western hostages, knives were a tool of terror; over the modern tanks abandoned by leaderless Iraqi recruits, black banners fluttered with the familiar inscriptions of "Allah, and Muhammad, His Messenger."  Neither Allah nor Muhammad have anything to do with that barbarism.

Various jihadi factions declared their fealty to the new phantom caliphate, including the Friends of Jerusalem, a Hamas offshoot, which went as far as declaring Sinai of Egypt an emirate of the new caliphate.  A pie in the sky.

The hit and run acts of the Muslim Brotherhood, now declared a terrorist organization in the largest Arab State demographically (Egypt), were celebrated.  ISIS called it, through social media, the beginning of the collapse of El-Sisi government, and of the restoration of the faschist Islamic rule of 2012-2013 in the heart of Arab lands.

And when the anti-ISIS international coalition of 60 countries was declared and began raining bombs on ISIS command and central centers, ISIS called the campaign against terrorism a campaign against Islam itself.  Through confrontations at holy sites in the West Bank and Jerusalem, between Palestinians and Israelis, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was changing labels: from a territorial conflict into a bloody religious conflict.  A huge assist to the propaganda machine of ISIS.

But can all of this chaos translate into an ISIS durability and longevity?  Absolutely not.  Through all sorts of default, ISIS lives.  And through the same defaults it shall gradually die.  Here is why:

• The international anti-ISIS coalition is fast learning.  Air campaigns shall gradually be supplemented by foot soldiers from the localities affected;
• The Sunni-Shii divide, exasperated by jihadi propaganda and Western Islamophobia, shall eventually shrink.  This is being done by age-old solid institutions, such as Al-Azhar of Egypt.  And by the centralization of sources of fatwas in various Muslim countries;
• Weak institutional responses to ISIS and other jihadi organizations have been the hallmark of inter-State systems, such as the UN, the League of Arab States, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
• These organizations are now being sidelined by more robust non-governmental organizations which are less bureaucratic and more adept in confronting false jihadi propaganda.  They are more suitable to deal with the actions of non-State actors as regards recruitment, funding and mission-statements.
• Anti-jihadi forces are quickly learning from their jihadi adversaries.  Military training is accelerated; modern technology is being employed; nationalism is overwhelming their daydreams of a caliphate; Islamic law (Sharia) is being learnt; protection of minority rights is being rediscovered; parliamentary systems are being refashioned to suit the environments of Egypt, Tunisia, and Bahrain; women empowerment is becoming a national objective in several Muslim countries including Saudi Arabia.
• Assad may stay on, but eventually presiding over a partitioned Syria; the Islamic militancy by which Turkey and Qatar are approaching their neighbors is not gaining traction especially in the New Egypt; and Iran is struggling to find a middle ground between its sovereign right to nuclear energy and western fears of proliferation of nuclear arms.

It is indeed tragic that some Western analysts seem to have become spell-bound by the din of jihadi self-aggrandizing publicity.  A recent example could be here cited by "An Analysis" posted online by, George Friedman of Geopolitical Weekly, dated November 25, 2104.  Its title is "The Islamic State Reshapes the Middle East."  A tantalizing title for an article which dealt mainly with various readjustments in external policies by Middle Eastern Arab States.  The author was off the mark where he described ISIS as "a new territorial power in Syria and Iraq."  Sound analysis?! No!!  Alarmism: Yes!!  Slowly but surely, anti-jihadi forces are rising, organizing and coalescing.

The dream of Al-Baghdadi of flying his ISIS black flag over the White House in Washington or over Al-Ittihadyia Palace in Cairo, or over Mecca and Medina, shall in the long term prove to be less credible than the flying carpet of Ali Baba and the Forty-Thieves!!

Who Are The Village Idiots In The U.S. Who Support ISIS?: The American Islamophobes and the American Jihadis!!

The American Islamophobe is probably the most dangerous!!  He or she is akin to a sleeper cell and a fifth column combined.  People like Sam Harris and Bill Maher!!  Sam, with his two stupid books calling Islam all kinds of nasty names.  Bill, with his antics, and his tongue on talk shows quoting from the Somali Ayaan her negative tribal experiences in Somalia.  What both of these "village idiots" say in the safety of their mock salons in the U.S. endangers the safety of this great country.

They hurt the homeland, advance the cause of religious apartheid, and assist ISIS in its idiotic claim that all of Islam is under attack by the U.S.  None of these idiots, including their propagates on the extreme right of US politics, such as Michelle Bachman and Sara Palin, know anything credible about Islam or the 1.6 billion Muslims.  They swallow as objective truth what the jihadists say about Islam and do to non-Muslims.  Then proceed to make the most atrocious and negative conclusions about that great faith.

It all seems to stem from the likes of Bernard Lewis of Princeton.  In his books, especially "What Went Wrong With Islam?," he imagines that the Muslim of today (a) wants to establish a Caliphate; (b) his (the Muslim's) faith suffered from no reformation movement; and (c) Islam and modernity are antagonistic.  That celebrated guru of Islam is no guru at all!!  The Caliphate is as dead as King Tut; Islamic jurisprudence (Sharia) is continuously evolving through ijtihad and legislation; the Christian Reformation and Counter-Reformation of the 16th and 17th centuries were rebellions against papalist regimes which glorified symbols over substance.

As to Islam being antagonistic to modernity, this is an Islamophobic trait that has no relationship to Islam itself.  It has to do with the demagoguery of terrorists like Boko Haram which regards Western education as un-islamic.  So Lewis, Harris, Maher, Ayaan, Bachman, Palin and Fox News are in the camp that judges Islam from their dark corner of ignorance.  They are playing on the post 9/11 fears, and on their desire to manifest loyalty to America.

They in fact drink from the well which has been contaminated by jihadi propaganda against the West, and by jihadi abhorrence of any rapprochement between the 1.6 billion Muslims and the rest of humanity.

Here is what they do not comprehend about Sharia (Islamic Law) of which I am professor at Fordham University School of Law, New York City:

• Islam is the submission to the will of the Creator. "In God (Allah in Arabic) We Trust,"
• Unless you are a jihadi butcher, "Allahu Akbar" means: We are all equal before God, regardless of whichever faith we hold.  Equality before the law;
• The principle of Tawheed (There is no God but God) is a principle that ties every faith to all faiths.  For the oneness of God is a commitment to non-discrimination -the acceptance of the other (diversity);
• In that principle there is no middle man between man/woman and their Creator.  There is a hotline between earth and the heavens, with no server or intercessor;
• "Infidel" is not what Somali Ayaan stupidly describes as non-Muslim.  "Infidel," in Islamic jurisprudence, means someone with no values;
• The Prophet Muhammad, a messenger of revelation, was born a natural birth.  And died a natural death.  Christ, in the Quran, is "the word of God." born of "immaculate conception," and "will come again,"
• A tyrant should be removed from power, if the means exist for avoiding a total breakdown of law and order (Fitna - Mayhem);
• Maslahah (public good) trumps the religious text.  In fact there is an entire jurisprudence entitled "The Non-Textual jurisprudence," on which I shall refocus my course for the Fall of 2015;
• Jihad is not the equivalent of combat.  The jihadis criminally mix between the two.  Jihad is both inner (self-improvement), and outer -self-defense (The UN Charter, Article 51);
• The law of war in Islam is fully compatible with the Geneva Conventions of 1949.  In all respects.  Including the protection of civilians in times of war.
• Under Sharia, there is no "Holy War" -as the Islamophobes claim.  Holy War is a western expression from the time of the Crusaders of the 10th, 11th, and 12th centuries.  It has never been an Islamic jurisprudential term.
• Torture is fully repugnant to Islam.  For Islam, like every other faith, values the sovereignty of the individual.  US warlords like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condelesa Rice, Wolfowitz, Feith and John Yoo believe that torture is a state exigency.  That waterboarding is OK.  That Guantanamo is a Maginot Line of defense for America.  That holding Muslims for a dozen years without being either charged or released is OK -the new order (in effect, the new disorder),
• Ijtihad (the application of the mind to the text) is the means by which Islamic law evolves.  Both through unanimity (ijmah); analogy (Qiyas); or public policy for public good (Maslahah),
• Regardless of counter-practices within the variegated spectrum of 1.6 billion Muslims, Islamic Law guarantees gender equality.  Where the text connotes differences, legislation has remedied that disparity.  A woman has the unilateral right to divorce her husband, and her wealth cannot be commingled with that of her spouse by his own wish,
• The judge in Islamic Law is defendant oriented.  And the fatwa (religious pronouncement with no enforceability) is the preserve of licensed Muftis; thus the likes of Bin Laden or the crazed so-called ISIS Caliph, Al-Baghdadi, are rogue muftis.  You might as well take their fatwas to the toilet;
• As to the use of force, there is no self-help in Islamic Law.  The State under that law has the monopoly of the use of force, not the crazy jihadis, and 
• Blasphemy laws in Pakistan are nothing but a heap of crap!! 

This is only a fraction of Islamic Law.  Isn't it ridiculous:

• For several states in this United States to pass laws preventing citing Sharia in state courts as a source of law?
• For the U.S. policy-makers to slap sanctions on Egypt for removing an Islamic tyrannical rule of the Muslims Brotherhood by public recall of Brotherhood? Morsi had threatened the Copts, the Shiis, women, other broad sectors of Egyptian society and secularism!!;
• For the great majority of Americans to regard the Saudis -all Saudis -as potential terrorists, while the U.S. is assiduously seeking cooperation from Riyadh as a member of the anti-ISIS coalition?  Was David Koresh of Waco, Texas, a representative of all Texas, "The Lone Star Republic?"
• For the overwhelming  majority of the members of both houses of the US Congress to regard the Israeli/Palestinian unresolved conflict as having no impact on the growth of jihadism?

None of the above writing has the central intention of defending Islam as a faith.  No faith needs a defense, because faith is non-negotiable!!

It is an illustration of how attacking any faith can only backfire.  Pogroms and the holocaust have not succeeded in vanquishing judaism; Jihadism shall not vanquish Islam; Western colonialism did try to be a vehicle for Christianization.  It largely failed.  ISIS is only a passing disturbing phenomenon.

The clearest fact is what you can prove to be supported by demonstrable experience.  The fact is that both American Islamophobes and American jihadis cohabit the same tent.  Over that tent, the black flag of ISIS flutters.

To the village idiots, I say: You have no future.  Hate and cruelty paralyze the human brain.  That brain no longer does its work -thinking.  It is in a coma!!  And when that coma is over, the village idiots shall discover that: the suicide bombers commit anti-Islamic acts of destruction; that they have taken an express train, not to heaven but to hell; that there are no 70 virgins awaiting them, as it is only a parable, which may in reality exist only in Playboy, porn literature and in the so-called "jihad by fornication."  In summary, neither Islam nor Sharia has anything to do with the criminality that goes nowaday by the name of ISIS, Jihadism, or the Friends of Jerusalem.

With David Kirkpatrick in Cairo, The New York Times Becomes An Oracle for Fear-Mongering of Cultish ISIS!! How Brain-Dead!!

Of course, reporter David Kirkpatrick is no Franklin Roosevelt.  Kirkpatrick, through slanted reporting on Egypt , is a fear-monger.  President Roosevelt is hailed as calming the nation following the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941.  David's article of November 11, 2014 headlines "Milestone for Islamic State"  as it "widens reach."  Insane!!  Roosevelt calmed the nerves of the U.S. when he uttered: "The Only Fear Is Fear Itself."  Kirkpatrick is providing evidence of his becoming an Egyptophobe.  Roosevelt was providing evidence on the new dawn of "The American Century."

Kirpatrick's analysis, if one glorifies it by calling it "analysis," is a see-through to a bunch of non-factual depictions.  His point of reference was that: "On Monday, Egypt's most dangerous military group, Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, pledged obedience to the organization that calls itself the "Islamic State."  So what: a group of marauders declaring fealty to another group of maniacal marauders.

No!!  To Egyptophobe Kirkpatrick, that recognition by a bunch of criminals of a bigger bunch of criminals is very "significant."  It is a as if the U.N. Security Council recommended to the General Assembly the admission to UN membership of a new State - "The Islamic State."  But, El-Ayouty, you do not get it: That recognition of subservience to ISIS is a historic change of regional power balance.  How, Mr. Kirkpatrick?!

It is the first significant international affiliate in the bet that the link will provide new money, weapons and recruits to battle the government in Cairo!!  Oh my God, Mr. Kirkpatrick: where were you when El-Sisi administration declared in December 2013 the Muslim Brotherhood and all of the branches of that poisonous tree, including Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, to be a monolithic structure?!  Under a rock?!

The declaration by Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, the criminal gangs infiltrating Sinai from Gaza and from sleeper cells in Sinai, of their fealty to ISIS is no new development.  They and other such anarchic outfits seek one another.  With their umbrella, the Muslim Brotherhood, folding, they grope for publicity through Egyptophobe media to project an aura of an imperialist reach.  Your expose of that declaration by the Ansar/ISIS axis, whether out of your agenda or out of your ignorance, acts as a fear weapon.  It is a blunt weapon, as far as the New Egypt, and its Arab and non-Arab allies are concerned.

So please save your breath and your fanciful projections of an Egyptian rout before the cultish hordes.  Did I say "rout"?  Yes I did.  Here are your words, David, in the New York Times -your unholy pulpit dated, November 11, 2014.  They, meaning, Ansar, have "recruited experienced fighters; staged increasingly sophisticated raids from the western desert to the Sinai peninsula; beheaded informants."  

Then you go on with your hopeless efforts at psychological warfare.  You, sir, have no shred of evidence!!  Your Bla Bla Bla is no evidence!!  You describe that declaration of affiliation of Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis with ISIS in words of gloom and doom affecting Egypt's attempts to rise up economically.  Again to your words, Mr. Kirkpatrick: "The pledge alone could undermine the government's efforts to win the trust of western tourists, a vital source of hard currency."  Reaching for a crescendo, you emphatically provide a conclusion which only idiots can subscribe to.  "The endorsement is a major victory for the Islamic State in its rivalry with Al-Qaeda... and could now help recruit fighters and affiliates far beyond Egypt."

As I gradually absorb the contours of your tortured claims, I cannot avoid wondering to myself: "On whose side is David Kirkpatrick and his newspaper on?"  Have the Muslim Brotherhood achieved a brain-washing coup to the point of no return?  I don' think so.  Why?  Because the tradition of "a security State" is so ingrained in Egypt of 5000 years.  This is to the point of safely predicting an eventual defeat of jihadism.

This is the nature of things in old civilizations:  Could be down for a while, but never out.

Just look at the recently-promulgated Egyptian law on deportation.  One day following Kirkpatrick's predictions of an Egyptian collapse in the face of an Ansar declared affiliation with ISIS, which is now reeling from the slow but sure loss of territory, President El-Sisi issued a new law.  It allows him, in the present absence of a House of Representatives, to "deport non-Egyptians convicted of crimes to their home countries."  Weakening States do not do that.

In the meantime, Abu-Bakr Al-Baghadi, the pretending Calipha, is playing house.  His house is a State -the Islamic State, a fictitious cult.  His "State of the Union" recent speech, said it all.  All bluster, all swagger, all threats.  In his 17-minute of November 14, 2014, he belittled not only Obama.  He belittled all foreign leaders, especially those of Arab and Muslim States.

These repairs came from none other David Kirkpatrick from Bagdad.  This is the capital of Iraq where one third of its landmass raised, not the Iraqi flag, but the ISIS black flag.  Al-Baghdadi, the street thug from Al-Anbar, thunders as follows: Calling on "the Mujahedeen among the disciples to erupt volcanoes of jihad everywhere."

If that is not enough, Al-Baghdadi of what is expected to be the shortest lived Caliphate ever, adds other layers of bluster.  He exhorts all Muslims (the 1.6 billions of them) to: "rise up against the agents of the Jews and crusaders, their slaves, tails and dogs."

Would Egyptophobes, like Kirkpatrick or Human Rights Watch, take positive note of the recent Egyptian law releasing representatives of errant organizations like Al-Jazeera from incarceration?  I cannot bet on it.  Because their specialty is poisoning the well of facts in a brain-dead support of the propaganda line of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The well has been sufficiently poisoned by the likes of David Kirkpatrick and his mouth-piece, The New York Times.  The poison here is in the form of myth-information and misinformation.  It has even seeped into the thinking of well-recognized law organizations such as the New York City Bar, the oldest Bar in the U.S.

A recent event was held on November 13 by the Middle East and North Africa Committee.  It featured the Consul-General of Egypt, Ambassador Ahmed Farouk.  He addressed that forum at a standing-room only affair.  That was in the presence of a galaxy of senior diplomats including the Consul-General of Saudi Arabia, Khalid Al-Sharif, the UN Under-Secretary-General for African affairs, Ambassador Maged Abdel-Aziz, and the permanent observer of the League of Arab States, Ambassador Fathallah.  His speech was luminous, especially with regard to a controversy maliciously generated by elements of the Muslim Brotherhood.  Namely: Is the present government of El-Sisi the outcome of a "revolution" or a "coup."

In his speech, Ambassador Farouk did his best to lay this controversy to rest: A Revolution.  Yet during the Question and Answer period, one of the attendees, an attorney, screamed his head off about "total absence of respect for human rights in Egypt."  The questioner was obviously unpersuaded by the plain logic set forth by the speaker.  And being a veteran diplomat, Ambassador Farouk, referred the questioner to the speech.

Being not beholden to the restrains of diplomacy, I jumped to my feet.  Among other points, I asked that opponent: What do you read when you say, with undeserved haughtiness, that the demonstrators at Rabaa and Al-Nahda were peaceful?  Moreover why do you hold the Egyptian process leading to democratization at a a standard which you do not apply to the U.S. -such as in regard to Guantanamo torture, the declaration that the Geneva Conventions were obsolete, and the rendition policies of the Bush Jr. administration?

He looked ashen, and ready to jump ship.  Good!!  But the point is that the likes of Mr. Kirkpatrick are having their way with the facts of the situation on the ground in Egypt.  Ambassador Farouk said it best: "Call it what you want: A Coup!!  A Revolution!!  It is up to you.  I provided the facts.  You provide your own conclusion.

Here is my own conclusion: The Muslim Brotherhood is active and is heard in America.  They have the funds, the penetration, the voice, and the professionalism of lying to their audiences.  In this, they are well practiced.  For over 86 years!!

America, in sum, is taken for a ride by the mother of all jihadism -the Brotherhood!!  The government of the New Egypt should bear in mind that fighting terrorism in its deserts should not be by armed might alone.  It should also be by articulated voices which know how to respond to an American environment which is being manipulated by the scum cells of the Brotherhood in the hope of bringing back to Cairo the nightmare of the Islamic one-year rule!!

In Favoring Morsi Over Sisi, America Looks Like a Sleep-Walking Uncoordinated Hulk!!

The American media are on a mission.  A crazy mission.  Day in, day out, the shrill voices rise in unison.  A prolonged lamentation of the removal of Morsi from power in Egypt.  And a prolonged unreasoned condemnation of the seating of El-Sisi as Egypt's president.

Like a sleep-walking uncoordinated hulk, pundits, politicians, op ed pages, panels and interviews with a pre-selected corps of commentators, the bottom line is one and the same.  "ISIS is a menace!!"  OK.  Correct.  Good.  Bravo.  Simultaneously, the talking machine laments: "El-Sisi has come to power through a military coup."  How ridiculous!!

When America started on this dangerous obfuscation, people like me, with one foot by the shores of the East River in New York, and the other foot by the banks of the Nile, said: "A misunderstanding ."  Now with the passing of time, and the singularity of this hopeless American myth, I say: "Even ignorance has a shelf life.  ENOUGH!!"  

What does America want?  Mind you that Egypt and the U.S. need one another.  For a historic purpose: Defeat terrorism which is masquerading as Islamic!!  Yet from Fareed Zakaria, to Thomas Friedman; from David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times in Cairo to the Carter Center; from the so-called think-tanks in Washington, D.C., to some faculty voices at the American University in Cairo: the bad wind of trying to delegitimate El-Sisi, together with the secular Constitution of 2014, keeps on blowing.

Well, let it blow; let it blow.  It shall not lift the sphinx from its desert moorings one single inch.  For Egypt is not just an Egypt of El-Sisi, who won his post of President in an openly-contested elections in June 2014.  Of course the crows of Egyptophobia, attempting to impugn that process, tried to find loopholes.  So they found a tiny one: the turnout was low.  Really?!  At 45% turnout in a population with 40% illiteracy, in the midst of trying to rescue Sinai from the Hamas/Friends of Jerusalem terrorist barbarians, that percentage is higher than that of the U.S. in these midterm elections.

Nonetheless, the shrill voices of doom, emanating from the U.S., which still demands from its first black President to produce his birth certificate, never stop.  Here are samples of their "Road Runner" imbecility attacks:

Imbecility/Mental Weakness #1

• Morsi is the first freely-elected President in Egyptian history!!

• Well: What did Morsi do with his win?  Broke his social contract with secular Egypt:  Attacks on the Copts; torture of the Shiis; veiling the monuments as pagan relics; changing the curricula to cleanse secularism from children's books;
• Furthermore, humiliating the forces of law and order of the Ministry of Interior; calling for prayer in the midst of a Parliamentary session; downgrading the independence of Al-Azhar as the highest locus for Fatwas, and the loftiest oracle of moderate Islam; and inveighing against the Judiciary to the point that the head of the Judiciary Club, Judge Al-Zind, threatened to sue at the International Criminal Court (though he has no standing at the ICC); 
• Morsi's elections and assumption of the presidency for one year (June 2012 - July 2013) cannot be regarded as a free ride to power.  Legally speaking, that victory and its consequences are akin to somebody purchasing a token to ride the subway.  That purchase of subway fare is no excuse for harassing the passengers.  Felonious assault is a negation of the right to ride mass transit.
• Morsi's most despicable assault was his November 2012 declaration (so-called Constitutional declaration) to the effect that he was above the law.  
• Have the American supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood noted that?  No!!  Had Ayatollah Morsi not been forced to recant his ridiculous claim to totalitarian power, Egypt of 93 millions would have been engulfed in a bloody civil war.

Imbecility/Mental Weakness #2

• The American nay-sayers claim, that the Egyptian Revolution of June 30, 2013 constituted, together with the removal of the Morsi/Brotherhood regime from power, a "brutal military coup."

• We learnt in civics course 101 that sovereignty resides in the people; that that sovereign has the right, indeed the obligation, to remove a tyrant from power, if they can; 35 million Egyptians raised that historic call for the removal of Morsi; the national army of Egypt protected that revolution, as they had duly protected the incoming wave of the Muslim Brotherhood as of January 28, 2011, 3 days after the start of the January 25 revolt of the masses;
• After the ouster of Morsi by means of recall by the masses, in the absence of a presidential removal clause in the defunct Islamic Constitution of 2012, the interim President of Egypt, the venerable Judge Adel Mansour (of the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court) paved, as a Care-Taker, the road for new presidential elections.  That exercise of sovereignity brought General El-Sisi from the military barracks of the Defense Ministry to the Ittihadyiah Presidential Palace.

Imbecility/Mental Weakness #3

• The pundits and others of the U.S. non-coordinated hulk viciously claim that the fact that President El-Sisi was a military man, thus Egypt is now ruled by a military regime!!

• Really?!  Does that mean that the great administration of say, President Eisenhower (formerly General Eisenhower) who scored electoral victory in 1952, with Nixon as his running mate, was a military regime? 
• Have the American supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood absent-mindedly forgotten that it took the Egyptian Government of Adly Mansour (interim President) and Dr. Mehleb (Prime Minister) 3 full days (from June 30 to July 3, 2013) to dialogue with the Islamist opposition to no avail?  Even the Muslim Brotherhood, a monolithic organization which is not given to admission of self-inflicted wounds is now saying "We were wrong!!"  
• The ultimatum by the military of 72-hours for compliance by Morsi, who was not even the first choice for presidential candidacy by his own Brothers (El-Shater was) was a warning signal.  It was also a rescue call.  It saved Egypt from impending disaster in which Qatar and foreign funds and agents were active as "agents provocateurs."  A popular voice for the removal of a dictator, needs, for its enforcement, the backing of a national army.  That national army timely acted.  And the Egyptian public which sings even through its critical moments chanted: "May God Bless the Hands of Our Army!!"  (Teslam El-Ayadi. Ayadi Qaish Bilady).  The Copts sang even lounder!!

 Imbecility/Mental Weakness #4

• The security forces committed a war crime by killing "more than a thousand peaceful demonstrators at Rabaa and El-Nahdha squares in Cairo!!"

• Well; isn't that fanciful?!  For six weeks from July 3 to August 14, the government called on the hordes to end their emirates which they declared in the heart of Cairo of 10 million inhabitants.  The governments pleaded to "please, go home and avoid bloodshed!!"  
• Response: more defiance; more smuggling of arms; killing by throwing someone from the roof of a building at Rabaa; calls by the armed demonstrators for outside intervention; non-sensical support from the new Ottoman Caliph, Mr. Ordogan from his multi-million dollars palace in Ankara; felonious attacks against the besieging security forces which kept exits open for those wanting to end that open rebellion.
• Finally, the Rabaa and Al-Mahdha sieges had to be broken by force.  Yes, people died: demonstrators and security forces.  A tragedy; self-inflicted wounds by the murderous gangs of the Brotherhood.

 The sad list of imbecilities goes on and on and on:

• Suppression of free expression!  Response: Shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, causing a stampede and death is not a "freedom of expression."  In national emergencies, communal rights temporarily trump individual rights. 
• Abortion of democracy!!  Response: What is your definition of "democracy?"  In the global dictionary, there is no consensual definition of three terms: democracy, terrorism, and aggression.  If Egypt needs time to put its house in order, who are these alien voices to judge an incomplete process?!
• Terrorism in Sinai is the result of suppressing the Islamists!  How laughable is the claim that action on security is the cause of terrorism!!  Show me on the world map a major region which is free today from some acts of terrorism!!  This includes the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, France, Russia, China, Australia, India.  Muslims ignorant of their own faith commit these horrendous acts.  Motivations: imagined injustice and a cultish belief in rewarding their crimes by palaces in paradise.
• The Egyptian Law on Public Demonstrators is brutal!!  Well!!  I have examined the U.S. laws on the same issue, and found that by comparison, the Egyptian law is less stringent.

Now:  Let us hear the voice of El-Sisi at the U.N. General Assembly on September 24, 2014 put the ravings of the Uncoordinated Hulk to rest.  In response to the global demand to stand united in the face of terror through religion, this President who came to power only in June 2014 declared:

Terrorism is a plague that does not differentiate between developing and developed societies as it spreads.  Terrorists come from different societies.  They are not bound together by any true religious faith.  That is why it is imperative that we all intensify our cooperation and coordination efforts, pursuant to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and in fulfilment of its objectives, to end the support provided to those terrorist organizations that enables them to continue perpetrating crimes.

America's siding with the Brotherhood shall not bring Islamic rule back.  U.S. pundits, media and NGOs, through their interference in the internal affairs of Egypt, are summarily rejected.  America's "exceptionalism" should stay at home; it is not for export, especially to the New Egypt.  The New Egypt shall move, at its own pace towards democratization and freedom from terror and want without uninvited helping hands.

Descending Into the Arab Cellar For Bottles Labelled "Hate the West"

It is invoked at every corner.  It is the substance of nearly every conversation.  It is a negative wish that binds positively.  But why?  Let us go to the roots, both factual and perceptional.

In 1916, the Arabs joined Britain and France in their campaign against the Ottomans.  The prize was to be a State, independent from the Turks.  Liberty was a priority trumping the ailing Caliphate.  Lawrence of Arabia was an embedded witness, spy and advisor.  Sherif Hussein and his sons, Faisal and Abdullah, could taste the sweetness of an Arab power stretching from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, and from South Anatolia in the north to nearly the Arabian Sea to the South.  A great expanse, strategic, where Arabic was spoken.

But London and Paris had up their sleeves a different expanse.  France, in secret and deceitful agreement with Britain, would chop up that Arab territorial dream.  France would take Syria and Lebanon.  The rest, with the exception of arid and pre-oil Arabian peninsula, minus the Gulf, would be the share of the British lion.  In North Africa, Egypt was, as of the defeat of the Turks at Suez in 1917/1918, to become a British protectorate; the Sudan would have two flags, the Union Jack and the Egyptian flag that fluttered but was not sovereign.  The great Arab/Berber west from the Egyptian borders to the Atlantic would be ruled from Rome, and Paris.

Gone with the western winds all dreams of Arab independence.  Western treachery?  To a reasonable person, "yes;" To western capitals, "well, reasons of state;" to future Arab generations, only the daily prayer "Death to the West."

In Egypt, rebellion against British occupation, was a nationalist reaction.  In 1919, the great Saad Zaghloul, raised the banner of the Wafd (The Delegation -inspired by the Indian and Irish struggles against London).  It was a banner of modernity, secularism, articulation, mass support behind an enduring national symbol bearing both the crescent and the cross.  Seeking to make a plea before the Paris Peace Conference, the Egyptian Delegation was quickly shown the exit.  Colonialism became the order of the day, and "the white man's burden" became an accepted norm.

At the League of Nations, the enfeebled organization sanctified Lord Balfour's 1917 declaration of a homeland in Palestine for the Jews.  He was Britain's Foreign Secretary bequeathing non-British lands.  Palestine would accommodate a homeland for the Jews, with the rights of other communities unaffected, the word "Arab" slipped from the typewriter at the British Foreign Office -sorry, an intentional typo.

Oh, but don't worry, look all of you Arabs what we have for you -a lollipop -the British Mandate over Palestine west of the Jordan.  You see, Arabs, the Mandate is intended to help people like you to learn how to govern.  When you, Arabs, graduate, we shall certify that you may now govern yourselves -a governance which we, Brits, shall mentor.

In Palestine, both Jews and Arabs rose against each other and against the Union Jack.  The Jewish population proceeded to build a State; the Palestinian Arabs, accustomed to feuding tribally internally, looked to other Arabs to adopt their cause.  Relying on several "intifadas," and on their being the majority in the land, state building was perceived by the Palestinians as an enterprise which might automatically happen.  When the UN was born, its Charter provided for some hope: the mandates would become trusteeships.

But Southwest Africa (new Namibia) under South Africa's mandate, and Palestine, under British mandate, were the exceptions.  No trusteeship; continuation of the mandate!!  In 1947, the US, under President Truman was for a UN trusteeship over Palestine.  Then, it switched its affections, voting for partition.  Ben Gurion, accepting partition, declared "the State of Israel" on May 15, 1948, the date of the mandate's death.  The Arabs, leaderless, refused partition, and no State of Palestine was declared.  The Arabs wrongly felt that you don't declare the establishment of what you already have -Palestine.  Subsequently, their armies, untested in battle like the Haganah of Israel, failed on the battlefield.  Another Arab deep wound.  And it is still throbbing.

Defeat, on top of defeat, on top of yet another defeat.  But these setbacks were, to the Arabs, bad wind, seemingly blowing only from the bad west.  Thus they immersed themselves on three non-winnable fronts: building up armies without building industrial societies; sanctioning dictatorship as a way of creating a unifying national consensus; and interpreting Islam in a way which made western ways nearly an apostasy.  Three losses wrapped in one: loss of material advancement; loss of individual liberty; and loss of the Islamic tradition which is governed by the Quran whose first word is IQRA (Read-meaning: acquire knowledge).

Within that hopeless mix on the part of the Arabs, a new Western bad wind began to blow: Orientalists rewriting Arab history and Islam in the image of its authors. These advocates painted the Arabs as a pitiful bunch.  A prime example was Bernard Lewis's two books: The Crisis of Islam and  What Went Wrong: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity.  A total mis-reading of the faith of 1.6 billion Muslims.  Yet Professor Lewis of Princeton was considered in the U.S. the guru of Islam.  His misleading books were freely given to the US armies heading for the subjugation of Iraq in order to help the troops deal with the Iraqis!!  A double calamity: invading an Arab country, while misrepresenting its faith -both reminders of earlier acts of western aggression..  While the American War chieftains, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld, cheered, the Arabs seethed.  And a wave of sectarianism became a permanent weather-changer!!

Yet the Arabs, in defending Islam, their last ideological refuge for their bruised dignity, went about it in the most ill-advised way.  Not fully understanding it, they interpreted Islamic law as if it was incapable of evolution since the time of the Prophet Muhamaad, 1436 years ago.  The primary casualty was their minorities, especially the Christian and the Shiis.  That slippery slope led to the engineering of an alien concept of jihad.  Jihadism is basically un-Islamic, and was totally contrary to the concept of ijtihad which is luminously Islamic.  To them, jihad was death to "the other," yet ijtihad (application of reason to the revealed text) was acceptance of the other.  Even the great institution of Al-Azhar, established in Cairo by Shiis since 975 AD as a beacon of an Islam which is moderate, inclusive, minority-oriented, and progressive.  Yet Al-Azhar could not effectively overcome the tsunami of that colossal ignorance.

The west watched, and became convinced that its outlook on the Arabs was well-founded.  It perceived Islam was warlike, and that democracy and the Arabs are mutually opposed to one another.  Western media propagated that mythology; Arab media, unable to respond in ways understandable to the western mind, underpinned "Death to the West."

As the Arab Street, oppressed by its domestic dictators and buffeted by the hated West, was burning Western flags, especially the American flag.  Suddenly the Arab street had a new adversary.  It had previously thought the Soviet Union was a friend.  But in the late 1960s, the Soviets struck with thousands of red troops pouring into Afghanistan.  That was the first Soviet grab of Muslim lands since Russian absorption of the great Islamic "Stans" to the north of Shii Iran.

Equally suddenly, the west saw in jihad a weapon of manipulation -a ready-made tool for Soviet containment.  The West, especially the U.S., discovered Osama Bin Laden spearheading guerrilla warfare against the U.S.S.R.  An opportunity to be exploited in the context of the Cold War.  Al-Qaeda benefited from military training by the US and Pakistan, and stinger missiles became readily available.  Fired at Soviet aircraft from the shoulders of the Mujahedeen, these missiles became the weapon of choice.

The Soviet fled the onslaught; America and the rest of the West cheered prematurely; but the jihadists now saw their window of opportunity to even the old score with the hated West.  The Mujahedeen marriage of convenience with the West was over.  A new pan-Arab/pan Islamic Foreign Legion began to look for recruits and targets.

With fury, Al-Qaeda struck on 9/11.  A total tragedy for the families of 3000 innocent civilian victims, including hundreds of Muslims, and for Islam itself.  Now Islam was broadly perceived by the West as a faith of death through terrorism.  Consequently, every beard became suspect; every hijab became a threat; every traveller to the West under the name of "Muhammad" or "Ahmed." was subjected to enhanced scrutiny.
On my return from co-defending in Iraq an Iraqi wrongly detained by the marines, my U.S. passport was subjected to that over-scrutiny by Customs at JFK.  The police inspector asked: "Don't you know that an Egyptian-born person like yourself travelling frequently to Iraq, raises a warning flag?"  As an attorney whose profession exalts forked-tongue answers, I responded: "The only flag I am raising now is the U.S. flag!!"  Smilingly, he shook my hand, while returning to me my passport.  On the next arrival at JFK, the same Customs officer greeted me warmly: "How is Baghdad this time, counsellor?"  I responded, describing Baghdad of 2007 with an unprintable epithet as it was mired in sectarian strife.

Now with the Arab Spring, calamities began falling on Arab heads like Autumn leaves: the Gaza recent massacres; the Syrian civil war; the Sudan's fragmentation; the Libyan rule by militias; the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS); the Yemeni territorial conquests by Al-Qaeda; the conversion of the great city of Mosul to be the new presumptive capital of a lunatic by the name of Caliph Al-Baghadi; the renewed sectarian battles spilling over from Syria into Lebanon.  With no end in sight, who can blame the West for fearing the Arabs, and who can blame the Arabs from daily intoning "Death to the West!!" 

Keep in mind that historic frustrations have been seeding the fertile field of "Loving to Hate!!"  A type of psychosis bequeathed by accumulated injustices which cannot be easily overcome.  It is also hereditary!!

SATANIC ISIS Led to a World-Wide Discovery: It and Islam Have Never Met

Don't call it IS (Islamic State).  Call it SI (Satanic ISIS)

This is a veritable case of misrepresentation.  Whatever ISIS is, Islam is not.  Unfortunately for the 1.6 billion Muslims, the term "Islam" cannot be patented.

Sometimes, crooked businesses, in furtherance of their under-handed schemes, steal trademarks.  On an assignment in the year 2000 from the World Bank in Yemen, I was informed by the Aden judges of an amusing case.  NABISCO is a well-known name brand for biscuit production.  A Yemeni company jumped in with a biscuit product which it called YAMISCO.  Their ruse was short-lived.  NABISCO sued YAMISCO in Aden.  The court verdict was for NABISCO.  Its trademark which is internationally recognized, could not be stolen.

Such protection is unavailable for Islam as a term.  So ISIS and other murderous organizations which call themselves Islamic could use that great term/name for their sinister reasons.  From recruitment to funding; from legitimation to globalization; from salesmanship on behalf of dark causes to intimidation of millions who mistake "the Islamic State" for a real State.

But gradually, ISIS, unintentionally has led the world to a discovery -Islam and ISIS have never met.  For the following reasons, the claimed encounter is revealed as "the lie of century":

• "Holy War," as a term, does not exist in Islam.  Jihad, meaning struggle, does not mean "holy war."  Thus raising a black flag with an inscription of "God and Muhammad" for the purpose of war is very alien to Islam.  It is anti-Islamic.  Even the term "just war," does not exist in Islamic jurisprudence.  But "self-defense," as a basic human right, does exist, as in every legal system and culture, including Islam.
• Islam defines killing as a crime against humanity, unless done by a sovereign empowerment; meaning by State action for self-defense.  There is no recognition in Islamic law of free-lance killing.
• For this, the Quran, the overriding source of Sharia, gives a specific definition.  It says: "We ordained for the children of Israel that any one who slew a person -unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land -it would be as if he slew the whole people; and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people." (Chapter V, verse 32)
• Over the past six weeks, four westerners were butchered by ISIS.  These martyrs were American journalists James Foley and Steve Sotloff, and British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning.  This depravity attests to a central fact: Creating martyrs through a butcher's knife shall be the global force which is destined to annihilate Satanic ISIS.

Humanity can clearly see its face in these two journalists, reporting on the evolution of the Arab Spring into a tragedy in Syria and Iraq.  That human face can also be discerned in Haines and Henning providing aid and comfort through Christian hands to Muslim and non-Muslim victims of these tragic upheavals.  

The words of the executioner addressed to the U.S. President reflect ISIS total detachment form the human race.  He claims that Obama has started aerial bombardment of Syria, and adds with the callousness of a coward: "So it is only right that we continue to strike the neck of your people."  These victims were not only Obama's people.  They were the people of every decent human being every where.

Obviously, the desert murderers who call themselves "Islamic" have no values to share, no principles to uphold, no cause and effect to demonstrate, no faith to defend.  Nor do they have feelings for the appeals by the families of their victims or the exhortations by the world-wide Muslim leadership, and even by Al-Qaeda, to sheath that knife and let these brave men go.

How can ISIS be not anti-Islamic when it fights for a non-existing cause, except that of power enveloped in darkness?  It has never met the Quranic injunction against crimes against humanity.  For the Quran states: "Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress limits, for God loveth not transgressors." (Chapter 2, Verse 190).

Satanic ISIS may, for a while, control 25% of Iraq and large Syrian territory.  But eventually, there shall be just reckoning whose day shall dawn over that desert where the sands is soaked with the blood of the innocent.

Calling ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra, or The Friends of Jerusalem jihadi organizations reflects ignorance of what jihad in Islam means.  Those entities wrap themselves in these terms seeking legitimation, recruits and funding.  To them the term "jihad" is the other side of their false coin of "Islamic."  

Since "jihad" does not mean "combat," but means "struggle," let us seek the meaning of "struggle" from the words of the Prophet Muhammad himself.  Praising non-violence, he said: "The best struggle (jihad) is to speak the truth before a tyrannical ruler."  Speaking truth to power!!  He also admonished: "The best struggle is to struggle against your soul and your passions in the way of God Most High."

These are the immutable values of Islam.  ISIS depravity has no limits.  And in the name of what?  Islam?  Satanic ISIS and Islam have never met.

Oh!! One more thing, Satanic ISIS: Don't look upward to heaven!!  The skies above have nothing for you except -except rain of bombs.  You started that war, against humanity.  Now humanity shall know when to end the conflagration which your jihad for Satan has triggered!!

Defeating ISIS Through This Coalition? Are You Serious?!

That would be a miracle!!  This coalition which is being cobbled together by the U.S. for that worthy cause is "a collection" of States.  As is customary during church services, a basket is passed around to collect from the faithful financial donations for the poor.  Some of the congregants drop money in the basket; others pass it down the pew while kneeling at worship.

Let us see what the Obama administration has garnered in its basket for the purpose of "degrading and defeating" ISIS -which British Prime Minister Cameron has aptly called "pure evil."  From Saudi Arabia, we got funding and training of carefully selected Syrian opposition elements.  Please underline the words "carefully selected," because nobody knows for certain the good guys from the bad guys.  ISIS itself, though born in Iraq (2003-2010) matured in the Syrian civil war as of 2011.

OK!!  Back to the Obama/Kerry/Hagel/basket of collected donations to defeat ISIS.  Oh yes, here is the Jordanian donation: intelligence!!  Good!!  No troops?  No!!  Now here is the United Arab Emirates -ready for bombing ISIS from the air!!  Hmm!!  But who will coordinate these aerial missions?  And don't we already have the U.S. doing this in Iraq, and now extending these assaults to Syria?

How about the Turkish donation?  None!!  Turkey has a long porous border with Syria, and has just been worried sick by ISIS holding captive around 50 Turkish consular officials trapped in Mosul.  Remember that Mosul was an integral part of the Ottan Empire until its defeat in World War I.  This resulted in Mosul's detachment from the Turks, making it a part of a new Iraq.  The Emperial British plan for the re-conquered Middle East included ruling the newly minted Iraq, not from Baghdad, but from New Delhi, India.

Turkey is now jubilant, as it should be, for its success in getting its citizens released from the murderous ISIS grip.  How?  They negotiated, and ISIS released.  From ISIS perspective, these were Muslims whose country refused to join the coalition, except for a promise (seemingly illusory) to tighten border controls over ISIS sympathizers crossing from Turkey into Syria, and thence, into Iraq.  But wait a minute!!  Negotiating with terrorists?  Yep!!

The rules for freeing hostages are non-written; and this was the largest consular detainee contingent since 1979 when the Iranians held 59 U.S. consular officials for 444 days.  The U.S., under Carter, tried force but failed (remember the special forces helicopters rescue operation which was obliterated by a desert storm).  Reagan came along, bargained through Colonel North an Iran-Contra arms deal, and the U.S. hostages were flown home.

Where the U.N. Convention on "Protected Persons" (meaning those covered by diplomatic or consular immunities) of the 1960's failed, dealing through quid pro quo with the devil succeeded.  There is a need for new international rules to regulate the unregulated: the age of the non-State actor!!  Don't you wish that poor Jim Foley, Sotloff (of the U.S.) or Haines (of the U.K.) had been given, through some flexibility, the chance to survive the butcher's knife?!  As they met that horrible end of life, they took also with them what they might have been useful as intelligence about ISIS.

Back to the collection basket!!  How about Egypt's contribution to the coalition?  Notice that all the nonsense about Egypt under El-Sisi becoming a military dictatorship -a fabrication by U.S. decision-makers, pundits, and neo-conservatives -has suddenly vanished.  Of course Cairo is still smarting from such interventionary attacks, including the withholding of $250 million in aid mandated by the Egypt/Israel Peace Treaty of 1979.  There are now some friendly U.S. noises about releasing those blocked funds as well as sanctioned military hardware.

Yet even with these palliative inducements, Egypt is emerging as a non-beast of burden, Mubarak era styles, for automatic support of continuously fluctuating American policies.  Some of the U.S. friendly approaches to the now banned Muslim Brotherhood have left a bad taste in Egypt's mouth.  Through the rise of ISIS, they have also been proven to be foolish.  You don't force on historically-secular Egypt a stupid Brotherhoodization agenda for the sake of conforming to American expectations of an Egyptian opposition at all costs.

Aside from these considerations about Egypt and the anti-ISIS coalition, Cairo has its own absorbing campaign inside Sinai.  It is a relentless struggle against other terror franchises, like "The Friends of Jerusalem" (Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis).  Thus Egypt is a front in the anti-ISIS campaign, a front covering the sands at Sinai, not the sands of Anbar, Iraq.

However, Egypt has in its arsenal against terrorism what others cannot match.  It is a veritable arsenal that goes by the name of "Al-Azhar," the citadel of proper Islamic learning, both Sunni and Shii, since 975 AD.

Al-Azhar is a unique combination of mosque, university, market-place of ideas, pan-Islamic, and the first "Tahrir Square" in Egypt, rallying national forces against Napoleon in Egypt (1798-1803), and the British (1882-1954).  Al-Azhar even survived the amateurish attempts during the Islamic reign of the Muslim Brotherhood (2012-2013) to co-opt it.

But under the secular Constitution of 2014, the remarkable achievement of the Revolution of June 30, 2013, Al-Azhar's independence was restored; the election of its Rector (the Grand Imam) reverted, not the State, but to its Council of Scholars; its amity with the Coptic church was assured.

Above all, Al-Azhar's Document of August 2011 put truly Islamic fingers in the eyes of jihadi Islam as it declared that "no recognition could be accorded to any State which is solely based on religion."  The Muslims are a community (UMMAH), not a State (Dawlah).  Sharia is supplemented by legislation.  With this type of booming and authentic voice from Egypt, makes the country akin to a Coalition's Department for Public Information."  The delegitimation of ISIS is the only credible contribution against that crazy caliphah Al-Baghdadi -a mere street thug from Al-Anbar, Iraq.

Other contributors to the coalition (the number stands now at 40 States) have their roles: Bombing by France; training by the British and Australians; Qatar by arms and funding anti-Assad forces ... etc.

International organizations, like the U.N., have become more factories of statements of denunciation or support -soap bubbles in the wind!!

In that mix, everyone is wondering about the real weapon that has a chance of an immediate effect on containing ISIS:  the foot soldier.  None from the U.S., except for non-combat advisers whose task is "tactical."  President Obama, reflecting national aversion to wars, has ruled it out.  In fact, American history has ruled this out too.  Since World War II, the mighty U.S. was involved in 5 wars: Korea; Vietnam; Iraq I (1991); Afghanistan; and Iraq II under Bush Junior.

With the exception of Korea, all the other wars were lost.  Why?  This is the age of asymmetric war, where the individual with an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) is an awesome combatant with neither a uniform, nor a copy of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 on the protection of civilians at times of war.

The coalition strategy calls for the training and equipping of Iraqi shii troops, Iraqi sunni tribes, kurdish troops, and trustworthy anti-Assad forces inside Syria.  The U.S. Congress has, at long last, approved US arming and training "safe" anti-Assad fighters.  Even Iran, an Assad supporter, is now tolerated by the U.S. to jump in the fray through Iraq, to combat ISIS.  Indeed, wars makes for strange bedfellows!!  The enemy of my enemy is a kind of friend.

The one billion riyal question is: Can This Coalition Win This Just War Against ISIS?  We should all wonder.  General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff described this phase as "extraordinarily complex."  And when it comes to clearing out Iraqi and Syrian cities in the Iraqi north and west, and in the Syrian east, Pentagon officials say: "There is no one in this building who does not know that clearing out the cities will be much harder."

On the eve of the Normandy invasion against Hitler in June 1944, Churchill is quoted as having wondered: "But will the troops fight?"  The same question should be asked of the Iraqi amalgam of foot soldiers, but in a different way: "Will the Shii troops turn their guns against the Sunni contingents, and vice-verse, after their U.S. training?" And: "Will the fractious Free Syrian Army, with its various ideological shades, go into combat against BOTH Assad and ISIS with the same goal in sight?"  And "Where will Russia and Iran and Hezbollah be if the noose is tightened against Assad, their Damascus Killer-in-Chief, causing another regime change in the Arab world?"

U.S. media have pointed out that "the more the President and his aides have talked, the more confusion they have sown."  The Pentagon has not yet given this U.S. mission a formal name.

Said a commentator whom I respect in his column in the New York Times, a few days ago: "For now, we seem to be settling out on an uncertain mission with unclear objectives on an unknown timetable using ambiguous methods with unreliable allies."  

The icing was on the cake as Assad expressed his desire to join the anti-ISIS coalition.  An Arab adage sums it all up: "Everyone is singing his own love song for his beloved Lailah!!