 Rise of Totalitarian Islam, lecture four. Good morning. Happy Fourth of July. Everybody, sorry. We have to talk about this on the Fourth of July. So last time we talked about the Iranian Revolution, the rise of Islamic Totalitarianism within a political entity. So for the first time, success. The creation of an Islamic state with Sharia law being enforced. It's a Shiite state, so the Sunnis are gonna look at it with some suspicion. But overall, the Iranian Revolution serves as an incredible inspiration for the Islamic Totalitarian movement. The first inspiration that we talked about or the first act inspired by the Iranian Revolution that we talked about is the assassination of Anwar Sadat, the president of Egypt in 1981. I wanna kind of wrap up our discussion of Egypt and then we'll go to some other instances where the Iranian Revolution served as inspiration in other parts of the Middle East. So we talked about Rahman yesterday, this blind Muslim cleric who was jailed in Egypt, escaped to Sudan afterwards via a trip to Afghanistan at some point during the mid-80s and landed up in New Jersey, partially responsible for the bombing of the, or to a large extent responsible for the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. And still, out of his jail cell even today, clearly active in the Islamic Totalitarian, the violent streak within that movement's organization across the world. Many others, many other Egyptians returned from Afghanistan. Indeed, many of the Muslim brothers landed up in Afghanistan, a third of all the non-Afghan casualties during the war in Afghanistan were Egyptians. A third of all the non-, I mean people talk about the Saudis because of the Bin Laden connection. The Egyptians significantly outnumbered the Saudis in Afghanistan during the 1980s, struggle the war against the Soviet forces and later help establish the Taliban. Again, the number two al-Qaeda guy, Zwahiri, is a Muslim brother from Egypt. Many of those, many of those Egyptians came back to Egypt in the early 90s. Again, eager to turn Egypt into another Iran, to turn Egypt into another Islamic state. And violence within Egypt accelerated dramatically from 1992 until about 1997. Attacks on the cops, the Egyptian Christians, on tourists and on government agencies and government officials increased dramatically. The idea was that if they could kill tourists, if they could harass tourists, they would destroy the Egyptian economy, which to a large extent is dependent on tourism. Tourism is enormous source of revenue for the Egyptian economy. Many commentators considered this period as civil war within Egypt. The security forces came down hard on the families, the supporters of these movements. Of course, these terrorists were strongly supported by the whole Muslim Brotherhood Network within Egypt. Much of that network was arrested. And this struggle went on until the late 1990s. Now, I will say that at some point, it seems that the Egyptian population, most of the common Egyptians, turned against the terrorists, particularly given the real damage that their activity were causing the Egyptian economy. And in 1997, the last major attack happened in Luxor, major tourist attraction, where over 70 people were gunned down, many of them tourists, were gunned down by a terrorist group, ultimately linked to El-Zohiri. And at that point, the Egyptian regimes just completely clamped down, arrested thousands, harassed the families of anybody associated with these groups. And the public, it seems at least, was substantially alienated from the more radical forms, the more violent forms of radical Islam. What is less known is the fact that what Mubarak, who is the president of Egypt at the time, still is, on the side, cut a deal. And he cut a deal with what we saw, the more moderate, right? We saw yesterday how moderate they are. The more moderate branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. And he cut a deal basically saying, look, if you have, if you stop the violence, if you use your influence with these other groups to stop the violence, we will increase your political participation in the process, and we will basically hand over the educational establishment in Egypt to you. We will hand over the schools, we will hand over much of the universities to you. And this is the kind of deal that the Muslim Brothers could not turn down. We've seen since the early 1990s, a real religious resurgence in Egypt and increase in the religiosity of most of that population, and increase in the popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood has also increased its emphasis on social work, as we said on education, partially with the help of Mubarak, on becoming an integral part of Egyptian society. They have gone into politics on a local level, as well as on a national level. And one of the things that people say about the Muslim Brothers when they come into politics, and this is something they say about Hamas in the Palestinian territory, is that these people are honest. They follow through, they have integrity, they're not corrupt like the regular, in the Palestinians, the PLO in Egypt, the regular bureaucrats, and they actually get things done. So when they say they'll build a road, they build a road. When they say they'll build a mosque, they build a mosque. And that just increases their popularity. What is really interesting, and again, as a counterweight to this notion that it is poverty that really, that the Muslim Brothers thrive on the common people, and on the poverty of the people, if you look at more of the Muslim Brothers the most successful in Egypt, it is, as we've seen before, the middle class, the educated middle class. In 1992, the Muslim Brothers won a majority in the Egyptian Bar Association. Between 1992 and 1997, they dominate every professional association in Egypt through elections. They gain a majority among the doctors association, the engineers association, the pharmacists association, the dentists, and the lawyers. So this is primarily a movement, while that it inspires the masses, primarily a movement of urban middle class men. In the latest elections that were held last year, earlier this year, last few months, the Muslim Brotherhood was doing so well that Mubarak actually sent out the troops to block voting in certain districts so that they wouldn't do even better. And it is suspected if truly free elections were held in Egypt today, the Muslim Brotherhood could gain anywhere between 40% to 60% of the vote. They could be, just like Hamas won the Palestinian election, they could win an outright majority in Egypt and take over the country. And indeed that is of course the path that the Bush administration is encouraging in Egypt, is to move towards truly free open election in which the Muslim Brothers would dominate. Now what are the Muslim Brotherhood, what do these political politicians think about what al-Qaeda does? For example, what do they think of bin Laden? Well in Egyptian MP, member parliament, and Muslim Brother who was recently quoted in an Egyptian weekly states, quote, terrorism is not a curse when given its true meaning, when interpreted accurately. It means opposing occupation as it exists in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq. From my point of view, bin Laden, al-Wahiri and al-Zarkawi are not terrorists in the sense accepted by some. I support all their activities since they are thrown in the side of the Americans and the Zionists. So in other words, the disagreement if there is one between the Muslim Brothers and al-Qaeda is not over the final outcome, they all share the final outcome. It's over the practicality of the use of violence in a particular context. The Muslim Brothers believe that they can take Egypt over without using violence. Indeed that they think, their experience from the 90s suggest that they're more likely to get support from the Egyptian population if they don't start slaughtering tourists in the streets. But they support violence, you know, in New York, there was obviously, there was strong support for September 11th among many of the Muslim Brothers right after September 11th. There was even strong support in official, you know, kind of massed a little bit in official Egyptian newspapers for al-Qaeda right after September 11th. They were moderated because after all, Egypt gets slightly over $3 billion of our taxpayer money every year. Significant sum that helps their economy keep going and we are all supporting these members of parliament. So it is, you know, they have to be careful in their official statements, but the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is not opposed to anything al-Qaeda is doing, to anything that the moral radical violent elements within the Islamic totalitarian movement are doing, it's just a question of tactics and tactics for a particular region. In Palestine, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, maybe even in New York, violence is what is required. Terrorism is what is required. In Egypt right now, that's not what we need to do. Those are the only differences. Okay, let us leave Egypt. Look at Saudi Arabia post 1979. Remember, Khomeini comes back to Iran in February 1979. The hostages in the U.S. Embassy are taken on November 4th, 1979. In November of 79, again, inspired to a large extent by the Iranian Revolution, radicals, Islamic radicals, take over the holy places in Mecca. Upward of a thousand radicals, armed, well-equipped, take over the mosques, the areas where the black rock that somehow is associated with Islam. Take that over and this is huge. This is where every Muslim is supposed to go to once in his lifetime. This is one of the pillars of Islam and is now is held by these radicals outside of the control of the Saudi government. The Saudi security forces try to combat them. They try to break in. They try to get these thugs out with no success. So think about it, the Saudis, radical in and of themselves. But these thousands, even more radicals, the Saudis land up having to bring in Pakistani troops and ultimately do what in many is one of the most sinful things you can do in Islam. And that is the Pakistanis, or at least Muslims. But they land up having to use French special forces to get the radicals out. They won't use Americans for obvious reasons. They use French, but it's still these infidels. In Mecca, you're not supposed to have any infidels in Mecca, shooting at radicals who are protecting the holy places. So what do you think they do immediately after this happens? Well, they've just done something horrific from the perspective of Islam. So the first step right afterwards is to appease the radicals. The first step is to re-establish their religious credentials. In other words, they capitulate to the Wahhabis and the radicals' demands. They increase enforcement of Islamic law in Saudi Arabia. They hold a few public stonings, chopping of hands, things like that, that increase in the mid-90s. The application of Sharia law dramatically increases. This, I'm sorry, during the 1980s, we're still in 79, during the 1980s. This again changes when Saddam Hussein invades Iraq. Because again, the Saudis are in a position where they can defend themselves. Here is an enemy on their border. Saddam Hussein clearly has in his sights the oil fields of Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are now constrained, they're worried, what are they gonna do? And they find themselves depending again on the infidel, on the Americans. Osama bin Laden rushes back to Saudi Arabia from Afghanistan. Here's at this point an unknown, really, from obviously a son of a very wealthy Saudi family. He walks into the Ministry of War in Saudi Arabia to the war family and he lays out maps and he says, I can defend Saudi Arabia. I will bring in my Mujahideen from Afghanistan. We've now wiped out the Soviets, what's Saddam Hussein, he's nothing. We can defend Saudi Arabia, he has plans, he has maps, he has numbers. Let's call for jihad, let's call the Muslim brothers from everywhere around the world to come and defend the holy land from the infidel, Saddam Hussein. The Saudi war finally kind of laughs him out of the room, throws him out and brings in American troops. And this is the real split, the first big split between the Saudi war family and Osama bin Laden. The fact that American troops, again, if you listen to his statements throughout the 1990s and even after September 11th, this notion of infidel troops in the holy land is a huge offense to Islam. And indeed, that is one demand that we have capitulated on. The last American troops, the last significant presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia was left, those last troops left, they closed the air force base about two years ago. Rumsfeld went over there, they made a big deal out of what a wonderful thing, we don't need to keep troops anymore in Saudi Arabia, but it was a complete capitulation by the Saudi regime to bin Laden's demands to get American troops out of the country, and we helped them. That is, we completely capitulated. Now, we're still in the Arabian Peninsula, but we're not in Saudi Arabia anymore, not with a significant military presence. And the air force bases in Saudi Arabia were not used in the invasion of Iraq. So, again, you see the same kind of phenomena. 91, they needed America for protection. They cracked down on the radicals, because the radicals were really upset by this, by the presence of Americans, but of course, over time, as the regime feels weaker right now, for example, with these terrorist attacks against them, with attempts to blow up refineries, with terrorist attacks against the foreigners who are helping in the oil industry and elsewhere that have occurred over the last three to four years, the Saudis are, again, being more radical, in terms of allowing the Wahhabis more control, more power, so on the one hand, they're clamping down on the real violent elements, on the other hand, they're allowing for the more radical clerics and the more radical professors at universities to be more active. But that, 79, take over the holy places. The whole radicalization, the radical movement within Saudi Arabia was, to a large extent, motivated, inspired by the Khomeini Revolution. 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Requires eligible plan, minimum $55 per month, data speed usage and other restrictions, supply coverage and out available everywhere, see store for details. Skipped to another part of the Middle East, a little bit north of Saudi Arabia. Syria. As I think I mentioned earlier, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was established in the 1940s. It's about the same time as the Palestinian and Jordanian Muslim Brotherhoods were established. Syria during the 1950s and 60s became a nationalist, secular nationalist state. The Barth Party takes over Syria in the early 1960s. The Barth Party is modeled after fascist Mussolini, after kind of a Nazi model, social nationalism. This is of course offensive to the Muslim Brotherhood who are very well organized. In 1964, they try a revolt against the Barth Party, which they lose. They flee from the country. Many of them find their way to Germany. To this day, and I'm probably mispronouncing it, Aachen, Aachen, I can do the Aachen in West Germany becomes a center for Syrian Muslim Brothers. And to this day, it is a center for Syrian Muslim Brothers and another one of those centers in Europe that is spreading these ideas throughout the Islamic communities of Europe. 1973, there's more unrest within Syria. Again, the regime clamps down on the Muslim Brotherhood. But they continue in spite of kind of their organization being officially illegal. They continue their grassroots efforts. They continue their activities against Assad. They grow stronger. During the 1970s and 1979, they feel strong enough and they make an attempt on Assad, who is the president, the dictator of Syria. They make an attempt on Assad's life. And indeed, from 1979 to 1981, they wage a substantial terrorist campaign against the regime. Now, Assad is an al-Lawyi. Now, the al-Lawyi's are a small sect of Shiites ruling over a vast majority of Sunnis in Syria, the Muslim Brothers of Sunnis. And one of the things that the Muslim Brotherhoods target in the terrorist campaign are al-Lawyi's because they are associated with this fascist regime. Much of the military in Syria, at least the military command, are al-Lawyi's. And those are the targets of the Muslim Brotherhood. They at some point break into one of these military schools into the big mess hall during, I think, it's dinner. One of, they've got an inside man. He locks all the doors from the inside, except one. The Muslim Brothers enter through that door and just start spraying bullets, killing over 80 of the cadets, I think, in the school, most of them being al-Lawyi's. And this is intensifying. Of course, Assad is retaliating brutally at the same time. All this peaks and ends in 1982 when Assad has his artillery pointed at Hama. Hama is the central city for Muslim Brotherhood activity. And basically, it flattens big parts of the city, killing, you know, by some estimates, tens of thousands of people. Now, this is tricky, because if somebody in the room is actually been there, he's actually seen Hama. And that pretty much puts a stop to this cycle of terrorist activity in Syria. The Muslim Brotherhood never go away. They reorganize, they're still there. Again, by some estimate, if elections were held in Syria tomorrow, I don't know if the Muslim Brotherhood would win, but they would be called substantial political force in Syria, some people think they would actually gain a majority, which is, of course, the direction in which the Bush administration is pushing the Syrian regime is to open up, allow elections, which I think would at least substantially increase the role of these Islamic totalitarians in Syria, even if they don't dominate the country. Move a little south, move to Sudan. Sudan is a country south of Egypt, again a place where many Muslim Brotherhoods escape to. The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan, a man named Turobi, T-U-R-A-B-I, becomes very influential within Sudanese politics. And by the mid-1980s, manages to convince a basic secular dictator to start moving towards a more Islamic agenda. It's said that this secular dictator actually starts praying five times a day and in his own personal life finds God, and by, I think it's 1987, declares Sharia law to be the law of the land, only the second country after Iran to do so. And each Sudan in the mid-1990s becomes a refuge for Osama bin Laden. When the Saudis don't want him anymore, Sudan becomes his main base and it is only massive American pressure and threats that force bin Laden in 1996 to leave Sudan and to go back to Afghanistan. The Declaration of War in the United States is actually that Al-Qaeda puts out in 1991, in 1994, is written in Sudan. The first conferences, they used to have terrorist conferences while these groups used to get together to discuss some plans were held in Sudan. It was very convenient for many of the Egyptian terrorist organizations to come down, the ones that were shooting terrorists. Sudan was very close. Haltoum is not that long of a trip down from Egypt. As you all know, if you follow the news, violence in Sudan is ongoing. For many, many years, there was a civil war with the Christian South, where the Muslims were just slaughtering the Christians, the Christians were fighting back. Now there's this struggle between black Muslims and Arab Muslims in the Darfur. This is a violent, radical part of the world. And again, the intellectual leader of this country to this day, although today he claims to be really, really moderate, he claims to be against the foe, against the civil war, he changes his, this to rub, he changes his stripes. Depending on whether he's in opposition or in government. Is the Muslim brother, was the leader of the Muslim brotherhood in Sudan. Of course, maybe the center of activity during the 1970s for totalitarian Islam after the revolution or in the 1980s, after the revolution in Iran, was Afghanistan. In 1979, the Soviet Union invades Afghanistan, tries to establish its communist puppet government in the country. Many of the warlords rebel against this. And in Saudi Arabia, a man named Azam declares this a jihad, declares it a moral duty of every Muslim to volunteer and go to Afghanistan and fight in the war. As I think I told you, many of those released by Mubarak after the assassination of Sadat, get on planes from Cairo to Riyadh. They tell the Egyptian authorities that they're going on the pilgrimage to Mecca. And Riyadh, maybe they go visit Mecca for a day or two, they immediately get on planes heading towards Pakistan where they are trained and shipped off into Afghanistan to do battle. Thousands of Muslims from all over the Middle East rally to the call, including Osama bin Laden, who was one of Azam's students at the university, rally to the call and organize primarily Pakistan, helped by the Pakistani government, helped by the Pakistani Secret Service, organized against the Soviet Union and Afghanistan. And as we all know, actually successful. And bogging down the Soviet Union, of course there's a lot of debate on what role these Arabs really played, whether it was primarily an Afghanistan warlord victory or whether these Arabs inspired by the Jihad really played such a substantial role. But it doesn't matter. They thought they played a substantial role. They thought God was on their side and it wasn't just God, it was also the CIA that was on their side. CIA trained them, the CIA armed them, equipped them. One of the most powerful weapons they had was ground to air missiles that really created havoc for the Soviet military. Helicopters, warplanes were being shot down. The Soviet air superiority was eliminated and on the ground these fighters turned out to be more motivated, knew the terrain better than the Soviet military could. And of course by the late 1980s, the Soviets were out of Afghanistan and basically Usambiland took credit for the victory. And to this day he says, you know, we defeated the most powerful of the superpowers. The ones who had real moral courage, the ones who will really stand up for themselves, the communists, and the Americans are weak. The Americans are pathetic. If we could do this to Soviet Union, America's gonna be easy. And that was his perception. At least that's how he communicated it. His mentor, Usamb from Saudi Arabia who was assassinated at a car bomb. Many think the bin Laden did it to establish his authority over the entire jihadist movement in Afghanistan. But this was a training ground for thousands and thousands. And if you add Afghanistan with Iran, coming out of the 1980s, this is a movement that has a lot of confidence. They've taken over a major Middle Eastern country, you know, a country that has been at the heart of Islam for, you know, since the seventh and eighth centuries. They have kicked out. They have, you know, really demolished the Soviet army. And by the way, they take credit for the fall of the Soviet Union. You know, they don't, and you could laugh, but you know, Reagan's increase in the military budget, Afghanistan, you know, what had more play in terms of demoralizing the Soviet military in particular within the Soviet Union. It's not clear that they didn't play a substantial role in a sense of bringing down the Soviet Union. The defeat in Afghanistan within Russia was viewed as a complete utter disaster. It was a complete military failure. The military blamed the politicians, and the politicians blamed the military, and he created huge disagreements within the Soviet regime. So when the Berlin Wall fell, they viewed it as they, the Islamists, beating communism. You remember, they had the Jews, the Crusades, communism, and secularism. Well, they beat secularism in Iran. They beat communism in Afghanistan. Who's left? Well, the Crusades, which is America, and the Jews, which is Israel. They've killed two of the four. And indeed, they're making progress, it seems like, at the time. They're making progress in Egypt. They still look like they're making progress in Egypt against secularism. So really, the focus now is on the Crusaders and on the Jews, and the Jews are last and probably the hardest to see you attack the U.S. next. Those are the Crusaders. After communism, they're the next target. Oh, so much here for a newborn. We need to start planning his baptism and his holiday outfit, and oh, his birthday party. Sure, but how long are you planning to stay? If you're one of those who goes to meet your newborn nephew and stays until his first birthday party, switch to cricket wireless. Use your phone as many days as you want in Mexico without extra cost. Smile, you're on cricket. Requires eligible plan, minimum $55 per month. Data speed usage and other restrictions applied. Coverage not available everywhere. See store for details. I'm in Glendale and found love in the South Bay. Yes, I find myself in an LA long distance thing. Guess who helped make it work? AT&T, I bought one phone, got another one on them and romance is alive on the 101. Come into an AT&T store, buy a smartphone and get one on us. More for your thing, that's our thing. Limited time in areas, select devices. Each requires up to $900 on installment agreement. Requires one new line of minimum $75 per month service. Three after credits over 30 months starting within three bills. If cancel service, device balance is due. $30 activation, additional fees, taxes and restrictions apply. See your local AT&T store for details. So the energy, the excitement, the motivation coming out of the 1980s is enormous within this movement. They are convinced they can take over the world. They are convinced they can bring Sharia to the entire Middle East. They have an enormous amount of confidence. And that confidence is expressed next in a country just to the west of Egypt, Algeria. Well, not just to the west, quite a bit west, but North and Africa. Algeria, like most of the Arab countries, is ruled during the 1980s. It really sends victory over the French by a secular dictator who has tried to secularize the country, bring in, you know, western values, bring in a western economy and so on. But who is continuously appeasing Islam, like all of them do, because that's the base. That's where he wants to appease his people. In 1991, and by the way, like in all these examples, when Algeria wants universities and they want professors, where do they go to? This is a relatively backward country. Where do they go to? They go to the most civilized of all Arab countries. They go to Egypt. And who do they get but the Egypt brotherhood coming in and teaching and educating and setting up mosques. And who finances the mosques? Well, Algeria has some oil money, but the Saudis are always eager to send some dollars, to build some mosques, to send some people to help out. So that combination of the Muslim brotherhood, people and ideas with the Saudi money manifest themselves in Algeria. In 1991, after a lot of pressure, Algerians agree to hold elections. The Algerian regime agrees to hold elections. And it's a two round kind of thing. And in the first round they hold elections. And they are shocked to discover that the majority party after the elections is the Islamist party. It's the party that is committed to establishing Sharia law in Algeria. And the dictator, the guy who's running things kind of goes into hiding, he's depressed, he doesn't know what to do, he's uncertain, the whole idea of elections, he thought would gain him popular support, he would be strengthened. And the military steps in, kicks him out, and declares the elections null and void. Now they don't want the country to become Islamist. And maybe one of those bloody civil wars in history at that point start. The Islamists slaughter people, left and right, I mean there are stories that are just blood curling in terms of the kind of stuff that is done in Algeria during a decade of a civil war where the Islamists will drag young women out of their homes. Young women who might have gone to school, that might have been their sin, or might have gone with their head uncovered. They will rape them. And the purpose of raping them is to make sure they do not go into heaven and then they will slit their throats. But the purpose of the rape is clearly not so that they won't go to heaven. Well over 100,000 people are killed during the civil war. Many places, whole villages, disappear. Of course the army uses not that different tactics in fighting the terrorists. And it's one of the most brutal, horrific episodes. Anyway now, this is all kind of reconciled during the late 1990s and there's some compromises and a lot of the militants are in jail. Algeria just went through a reconciliation period just in the last couple of years where everybody got around, sat in a room and a table and said okay, everything's forgiven. What we'll do is if the victims forget about it, the governor will pay them a certain amount of money. If your family members were killed and so on. And if the militants will drop their weapons, give up their weapons, the Algerian government has agreed to release everybody from jail. And indeed they have already. There was a story in the Wall Street Journal just last week about the fact that so many Algerians are not happy with this, they want justice, they want these people in jail or killed or they want a trial. What the very least, they want what went on in South Africa where at least they had these open trials where people said yes, I was responsible for this and this and I'm sorry. And that didn't even happen. And you've got some of the most brutal killers. Some of the people responsible for the most horrific crimes are freed now. They were interviewing some of these people and they were saying look, for now, we're willing to give the regime a chance to Islamize society by themselves slowly through the political process. But look, we won the election in 1991. And if we don't get power soon, we will have to revert back to violence. So nothing has really changed. If another civil war happens in Algeria in the next 10 years, it will not shock me. Finally, one group inspired directly by the Iranian Revolution because they are Shiites. All of these other groups are predominantly Sunni. Was the Hezbollah in Lebanon. Now the Hezbollah comes about as a union of a number of different groups who are opposed, a number of different Shiite militant groups who are opposed to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Israel invades Lebanon in 82 because basically Yasser Arafat has created an army with artillery, with thousands of troops on Israel's northern border. Yasser Arafat basically controls southern Lebanon. This is a time where Lebanon is in civil war. Christians, the Druze, Druze of the secret religion that nobody really knows what they do. And the Sunnis and the Shiites are all fighting. In Syria's involved, Syria has troops both in Beirut and in the Baka Valley, which is a valley on the east side, the southeast side of Lebanon. And Israel is, you know, the Yasser Arafat's people are firing missiles into northern Israel on a regular basis. Israel's had enough. They invade southern Lebanon. And there's some dispute about whether Awek Sharon tells his cabinet the real plan for what Israel has in mind or not, whether the prime minister actually approves this, but Israel pushes all the way to Beirut, which some members of the cabinet claim was never the plan. It clearly was, at least on the military level, clearly the plan. The Shiites in Lebanon, again, mobilized, radicalized. They've always been the minority in Lebanon. They've always been the oppressed group in Lebanon. They're always been treated badly. And suddenly there's this revolution in Iran and they're inspired. Money, weapons, Iranian military personnel start coming into Lebanon to train the Shiites. They organize, between 1983 and 1985, the Khizballah is created. One of the first acts is actually against Americans in 1983, which is the blowing up in a suicide attack of the Marine barracks. First the American Embassy in Beirut and then the Marine barracks. Near the Beirut airport is blown up. 241 Marines are killed that day as will become a pattern. Ronald Reagan comes on TV and says I will hunt them down. I will find them in the caves. I will eradicate these terrorists. They land up lobbing a few bombs from a warship off the coast of Lebanon into the Bakar Valley. And within a couple of months troops retreat out of Lebanon and the Americans go home. All these are lessons learned by these radicals in terms of American commitments and whether to take seriously American presidents' threats. The Khizballah gains more and more strength, more and more power as Israel retreats out of Lebanon during the 1980s. The Khizballah takes credit for every step that the Israelis retreat. Israelis stay in a small band of space in southern Lebanon until early 2000. The harassed continuously by the Khizballah maybe some of you are following right now the story of the Israeli soldier who was kidnapped by the Hamas. Two of his buddies were killed and he was kidnapped. The Khizballah invented this tactic in the 1990s. They would regularly cross over and try to snatch an Israeli soldier and they were successful on a number of occasions. But they continuously harassed the Israelis within Lebanon. And in 2000, in the middle of the night, in a surprise move, the Israeli troops retreated completely from southern Lebanon back into the Israeli borders. A move that the Khizballah celebrated as a major victory, a major victory. And a move that the Palestinians took as, oh, this is the way to beat the Israelis. Harass them, keep firing them, never give up. Guerrilla warfare, keep at it, and they will retreat. Here is the example of the Khizballah. And the Khizballah has always been in contact with the Hamas and the Islamic jihad. And indeed, it's not that many months later that the Palestinians second into Fadah begins. The al-Aqsa into Fadah begins. Where, to a large extent, the Hamas, Islamic jihad, and our Fadah movement use Khizballah tactics on the Israelis over, you know, from 2000, really, till 2004 in a systematic way, killing thousands of civilians, killing troops. And finally, in my view, leading to an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. So, in other words, it's worked. Again, the Khizballah in Lebanon is committed to establishing the Shiite theocracy in Lebanon, ultimately. They say that, they don't hide that fact. The leader, Nazrallah, is his name, has said on a number of occasions that one of the things that make them confident in their success, one of the things that makes them confident in the West's failure is the fact that they are long-term planners and that the West is only interested in the short-term. And from their perspective, the long-term is generations. They're not looking within their lifetime to being about victory because their lifetime is meaningless to them. You know, an individual's life has no meaning. It is Islam that matters. And they'll be up in heaven watching it all happen anyway. You know, enjoying those 72 virgins or whatever. So, from their perspective, a year, five years, 10 years, 100 years is not a significant amount of time. They plot for generations ahead. So even though Khizballah's a tiny minority still, a small minority, a tiny minority, the Shiites are a minority within Lebanon, it doesn't bother them. They're building, they're growing. Influences is becoming more substantial. And one day, it might take a few generations, they will rule the country. They will rule the Middle East and they will have kicked out the Jews from Israel. Okay, so it's this time, it's very different. And also, as a consequence, Arabs and Muslims know their own history or their vision of history, their view of history really, really well. Americans barely know the name of the president right now. Never mind no anything about their history going back 200 years, a glorious history. They know almost nothing about it. Arabs know their history. Because to them, it's not about their life, it's about the life of the community of Muslims. And they are dedicated to that life of the community of Muslims. And if you listen again to Bin Laden, or Zahiri, or any of these guys, they are continuously referencing events in history, whether it's the fall of Khalifat in 1924, whether it's the Mongol invasion in the 13th century, they're continuously making historical references that to most, even some scholars in the West, seem mysterious, but within their community, everybody knows what those historical references mean. They understand history. The Hizballah, again, you remember the, what was it, the Cedar Revolution? By the way, the Lebanese never called it the Cedar Revolution. That was a name adopted by the West. The Lebanese called it the Lebanese Intifada, partially in sympathy with the Palestinians. In Lebanese newspapers, all those demonstrations and everything were called an Intifada. And as a consequence, the elections that were held found the Hizballah getting more votes than ever before. And indeed, for the first time in the Hizballah's history, they are part of the Lebanese government now. They actually have a cabinet level, I think two ministers in a cabinet level in the Lebanese government. So the Lebanese government is partially Hizballah government, i.e. partially in, the members there, Islamic totalitarians, they want to impose Sharia. They are the agents of Iran, because again, they don't believe in countries. They're not nationalists. They're not about Lebanon being an Islamic state. They're about everything. So it's fine for them to take orders from the top Ayatollah Khamenei in Iran because he is the authority. He is the top guy within the Shia community, whether it's in Lebanon or anywhere else. So Iranian influence in Lebanon has only increased. And the role of militant totalitarian Islam in Lebanon has only increased. You can't print invoices without ink. You can't print status reports, spreadsheets, or that report due in 12 minutes without ink. No, you can't print anything without ink. Luckily, Staples has a huge selection of ink and toner in stock and at great prices every day. This week only, buy one HP ink at Staples and get a second 30% off. So stock up now because you can't afford to run out of ink. And Saturday, 7, 21, 18, C-Store Associates are Staples.com for details. Restrictions may apply. Welcome to the Total Wireless Store, where total confidence awaits. I need a smartphone with an awesome camera. Got anything to fit a new dad's budget? Don't worry, you got this with Total Wireless. And now you can get $50 off on select phones, $99 and up. My relatives won't miss a thing. Now you can focus on the important stuff like diaper duty. Discover the Total Wireless stores and get total confidence, the latest phones. The best network, all at great prices. Now open in L.A. Limited time offer in 6.30.18. Available while supplies last. Port and require for a non-track phone brand. Offer only available at Total Wireless stores. Visit store for details. Okay, any questions? Yeah, Ted. Oh, correct me. I kind of think of the SUNY Shiite thing that I've been trying to understand over the years. And I can't help but making an analogy to Protestants, Catholics, during the Reformation, is that a useful analogy or a way-off phase? I don't think so. I think that, you know, I don't think the differences she shared in SUNY's, or anywhere near the differences between Catholics and Protestants, and neither one really are Catholics. There is no Catholic kind of hierarchy. I mean, the Shiites have somewhat of a hierarchy, but it's not, there's no pope. There's no equivalent to that kind of dogma, or scholasticism, or writings. There is no equivalent to that. I mean, it's really a political split. It's basically all relates to the authority of the leader. The SUNYs accept, whichever Muslim leader is there, as long as he's Muslim and as long as he's imposing Islamic law. It doesn't matter who he is. The Shiites demand that he be a descendant of Ali. And, you know, and they're still waiting for Hussein's son to come back from some mystical place. And they take this seriously. I mean, one of the things that the current president, whose name I said I couldn't pronounce, talks about when he gives these speeches is, it's almost like this end-of-the-world type stuff that exists within Christianity. He talks about the fact that the 12th Khalif is on his way. He's coming. He feels it. You know, God has talked to him. This is the end of time. This is when, because the whole idea is when the 12th Khalif comes back, exposes himself after being in hiding for so many centuries. He will lead Islamic troops to take over the world and establish this Islamic empire. That is their ends of day, if you will. And he sees it. It's on its way. It's coming. But that split is primarily political. There's very little. I mean, they all. And Dr. Lewis corrected me yesterday. I said there are four pillars of Islam. There are five. And so I added a pillar to my five pillars of the Islamic totalitarianism just to make sure that we have a power. The five pillars of Islam, which are there is only one God, right? And Muhammad is his prophet. That's the first pillar. The second pillar is the Ramadan fast. And I'm not doing the right order, but that's okay. Ramadan fast. The third is pilgrimage to Mecca. Every Muslim has to make a pilgrimage to Mecca once in his life. And if you want to know why, you have to listen to my Middle East history thing. Prayer five times a day. And arms to the poor. Those are the five. I'll tell you what my five are in al-Lawah. They share that. They share the Quran. They discuss interpretations of Quran very similar. They're not that different. Most of the conflict is around politics. About the legitimacy of the political entity. And even that has been substantially eroded with the establishment of real political power by the Shiites. Because now they do recognize the political power of Khomeini in the regime he set up. Yeah, John. What does it mean to become a Muslim brother? Is the brotherhood, it's not a political party like to say I've become a Democrat because I registered somewhere that I'm a Democrat. Is it like a fraternity? If somebody is a brother, did you become a brother because your father was a brother? No, you joined. So I guess it's like a fraternity, although not being an American, I'm not as familiar with fraternities as I should. But yeah, it's an organization you join. You participate in their activities. You become a member. You might pay dues. You certainly pay dues as membership. So when I said there were half a million members, there were literally half a million dues-paying registered members of the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt in 1949. And now a lot of this is underground in Syrian places like that and even in Egypt. Now in Egypt it's also a political party. Now they're not allowed to run as Muslim brothers. So there's no Muslim brother but they are allowed to run even though they are Muslim brothers and everybody knows they're Muslim brothers. So there's no... But it's obvious that there is a political entity and certainly in the 40s and 50s, early 50s before they were arrested, they was a political entity called the Muslim brotherhood. So it's politics. It's a social organization. I think I read the list of all the things there are but there is a membership involved. Yeah, John. Just to note the ideological and religious root of this that it comes from Mohammed's all Muslims or brothers and it's an attempt to supersede the rise above divided factions and cliques of families to create a brotherhood. It's truly transnational and really sees itself as a world. Yeah, I mean, the big, big deal is made by all of these people about unity. The importance of unity of all Muslims. They're all supposed to follow the same law. They're all supposed to follow the same leader. They're all supposed to think the same. Disunity, they don't believe in political parties. You know, even when you have representation one day, you know, like Iran, they have elections but they don't have political parties. You don't have political parties because that is an expression of disunity. And yeah, this is all one... And Mohammed, from Mohammed's perspective, if you think about it, he's trying to unite these clans, these tribes, these disbanded families to try to create one political entity. He's trying to get rid of all these blood disputes. If you think about, you know, how they interacted. You know, you killed my brother three generations ago so, you know, we're going to go back and forth and slaughter each other and he's trying to get rid of that politically. He's trying to bring these people together and these blood feuds and these disputes and create a nation and create one political entity. Yeah, Betsy. How did the Saudis get a hold of the oil money? I mean, they're too primitive to develop the oil on their own. How did Saudis get a hold of the oil money? I mean, the oil was all developed by Western companies, by French, British and American companies. And, you know, they basically nationalized it. I mean, they didn't nationalize it by sending out troops, but they nationalized it by threatening that and by cutting deals with Western companies and establishing ultimately a company that was mostly owned by the Saudi oil family and some owned by Western companies that controlled the oil fields and the refining and the piping. But it's all American, originally capital as well, but now expertise in building, or Western expertise in building. But, you know, they owned Saudi Arabia. They're the king. So they owned all the land at Saudi Arabia. So even if you discover oil in your backyard, it's not your oil. It's the Saudi oil family's oil. So they control that. Yeah, Betty? It sounds like that the Saudis did a lot of financing of universities, et cetera, and supported the brotherhood by being a financial base. Yeah. Is that still true or is Iran, where is the underlying support coming from? It's coming from both those countries. There are billions of dollars being spent on Islamic totalitarian groups and movements and mosques and preachers by both the Iranians and the Saudis. Now, the Iranians are more blatant about it. And in Iran, it comes from the government. I mean, they used to until, I think about until, just after September 11th, there used to be a line item in the Iranian budget called terrorism. You know, supported terrorist groups, absolutely. And they actually did away with it because they were being sued in the United States. There's a group in the United States that's quite effective in suing Iran, suing Saudi Arabia, and try to freeze their assets. So it's victims of terrorism who sue these regimes trying to freeze their assets in the United States. And they were successful and they were using as part of their evidence the fact that it's on the line item. You know, here's a PowerPoint presentation. See the Iranian budget? Here's terrorism. And the Iranians did away with the line item because it was just too explicit. The Saudis don't do it quad the Saudi government. What happens is Saudi Arabia and because of one of the pillars being charity, there are these enormous charities in the Muslim world. It's true in Iran, which a lot of the funding goes through the charity as well, but also through the government. But it's primarily true in Saudi Arabia. There goes enormous charities, which every Muslim has to by religious decree support. And which our family pulls huge amounts of money into. And then these charities build the mosques all over Europe and many of the mosques in the United States, many of the Imams leading the mosques in the United States and Canada were trained by the Saudis, by the Wahhabis, by the Muslim brothers. They support the Egyptian brotherhood. They support the Syrian brotherhood. I mean, they hate Assad, who's a secular dictator. And they support, I haven't talked about the Muslim brotherhood in Jordan. There was a big Wall Street Journal article a couple of months ago about, again, the fact that Hussein, the king Abdul in Jordan, doesn't want to hold elections because he knows the Muslim brotherhood is going to win. And Americans are putting enormous pressure on him to hold elections next year. And he's trying to slow them down and the Bush administration is pushing it forward. And there's this tug of war. So the Saudis fund that as well because they want the Muslim brotherhood successful there. So they do it through the charities and that's the way they can have an arms-length relationship. Now, has the Bush administration put a lot of energy behind trying to stop these charities? Yes, but this is the problem when you don't identify the enemy. What's happening is they're freezing assets for money flowing into what they view as al-Qaeda, Hamas, certain specific entities. But they're not for building mosques in Europe. I mean, that's just helping Muslims. Who are we to be against a particular preacher who happens to be preaching violence against the West? That's just preaching. That's not terrorism. I mean, that went on in London until last year until the terrorist attack actually happened in London. You had some of the most radical, militant, nutty advocates for violence against the West preaching in London mosques openly calling for the death of Westerners left and right. It's only after the terrorist attack in the subway were they kicked out of England and they weren't even prosecuted. They were just kicked out. So the money's still flowing all the time everywhere. Look what the U.S. is doing with the Hamas in the Palestinian Authority, right? They're saying, oh, we won't give money to the Hamas, but humanitarian aid. So the funnel money, where does that money land up? Of course, it lands up in the coffers in the hands of the Hamas. Okay, I'm going to take two more. Yeah. The women in these Muslim countries seems to be the only offense that there ever will be because they're the ones who's really mistreated. Has there ever been a history of any women's group that rise up against this awful system that they live in? No, I mean, you have to remember that any of these women are committed to this. Oh, the question is, is there women who obviously the victims of these Islamic countries? I mean, everybody's a victim, but the women obviously are such victims. Has there ever been a movement of women to rise up against? You have to remember that many of these women are supporters of these regimes. They are religious themselves. They believe in the role that is being granted to them. Many are not, but they are a minority and they are powerless. Women generally in these cultures don't have much power. Certainly no political power. And it's very difficult for them and some of them manage to escape to the West or manage to escape, but many are just stuck there. It's pretty horrific. Okay, last one for this round. Maybe you'll repeat it, but it's a lot about the money. Has there ever been research how they're using the West's money directly? Money from us, money from us. Like here in Boston, it's happening. There's no money against us. Yeah, the only place I've seen where they've looked at money coming from the West and how it's being used is the aid the Palestinians have received over the last, since Oslo, since 1994 from the European Union and from the U.S. and how our foot used that money. And even there, nobody likes to talk about it because much of that money landed up in Swiss bank accounts and much of that money went into terrorism. But nobody wants to admit that because this was humanitarian aid. This was development aid. But if you go to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, there is no development. They built nothing with it. And indeed, some of the most frustrated people in that entire region are Palestinian entrepreneurs who came to, who were in the West and went back to the West Bank in Gaza after Oslo and wanted to build and wanted peace and really wanted to build businesses there and were completely shut down by the corruption of the Palestinian Authority, by the terrorism, by the autocracy. And they either left or just become completely depressed over there. So the Palestinians themselves are the victims of the way the money was used ultimately. But I haven't seen any study that looked systematically at the way money is being used partially because it's so hard to keep track of the money. So much here for a newborn. We need to start planning his baptism and his holiday outfit and his birthday party. Sure, but, um, how long are you planning to stay? 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Offer only available at Total Wireless stores. Visit store for details. Um, I said it was the last one. Go ahead, John. Well, I have to admit that I was here for the beginning and I'm here for the end. Yeah, skipped out too quickly. I've got a sense of the way the store is unfolded and it all sounds pretty gloomy, growing significance in every important way. I'm just curious, outside of us or the West, where do you think the best hope that there is any lies within their own world? Can I answer that in a few minutes? Yeah. Okay. Let me, let's quickly catch up on where we are. I want to talk a little bit about Al-Qaeda and the groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is ultimately a conglomeration of a number of terrorist organizations, bin Laden's, Afghan fighters, Saudi connections, as Wahiri's, Egyptian, Al-Jihad, and a number of other smaller groups all got together. In 1998 and formed this entity, it was called the International Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. And this is where there's a lot of dispute among the Islamic totalitarian. Whereas the Muslim Brotherhood is primarily focused in every single country we've looked at and other countries as well. And in establishing political power and ultimately battling within those countries and even the terrorist elements within the Muslim Brotherhood and within the Shiites are focused on fighting their own regimes. It's really only the Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and some other Hizballah that are even fighting Israel. You don't see Algerians coming over to fight Israel. The Algerians are fighting in Algeria. The Egyptians are fighting in Egypt. The Sudanese are fighting in Sudan. The Jordanians are fighting in Jordan. Syrians in Syria. Al-Qaeda has taken a different attitude towards all this. They believe that success will only come locally if the battle is made international. If the battle, if Islam confronts the West directly. And there's an enormous debate going on and you can go to websites, you know, the translations. There's these debates going on among these Islamic radicals between those who say, no, leave America. That's last. We'll get to them. Don't worry. You know, we're another generation or two. We'll take out America. Let's focus now on taking on Mubarak and taking out, you know, the Alawis in Syria and so on. And then others coming back and say, stop antagonizing Americans. They're just getting, you know, they're just getting agitated. Let's focus right now on these particular countries. And there's an enormous split going on. And indeed, Iraq is the one thing they all agree on. Because Iraq is convenient because it's in the Middle East. It's basically an opportunity to take over an Arab country to get rid of Saddam Hussein, a secular dictator and establish Sharia in Iraq. And at the same time, fight the Americans. So for them, this is one point of unity of all the different groups. Both the groups that want to fight, what they themselves call the far enemy, and those groups that want to fight the near enemy, i.e. their own regimes. So Al-Qaeda launched this attack. And the idea is, if we can destroy the will of America to fight, if we can humiliate the Americans, we will achieve a number of different things. One, we will get them to stop supporting all these regimes that exist because of American support, like the Saudi oil family. Saudi oil family holds that throne because we help them hold that throne. We provide them with intelligence. We provide them with weapons. We provide them with, I bet you those guys are protected by CIA agents. We fly AWACS airplanes above Saudi Arabia. You know, we, FDR side, cut a deal with the Saudi family in the 1940s, in 1944 to protect them in exchange for oil. And that's what we're doing. They view us as the protectorate of the Mubarak regime. Again, we give them over $3 billion a year. We protect the Jordanian regime, which again, I think we indeed do protect them. We're behind Israel. We're behind all their enemies they view right now. We're behind, what's his name? In Pakistan, Musharraf, in Pakistan. So from their perspective, if they can get us to back away, the new enemy will be easy to deal with because they won't have American protection. The second element is public relations within the Muslim world. If they can attack the United States and show that we are weak and show that we are pathetic and show that we were back down, then Muslim world will rally to their cause. Because from their perspective, the only thing holding back the Muslim masses is the idea that how can we win? America is so strong and so powerful. The West has, you know, has colonized us, has written over us, has controlled us for such a long time. We are too weak. And if al-Qaeda can show them no, it is America and the West who are weak. We have the power. And they're weak, and when you ask me a lot, or these monsters, what is it that makes America weak? Because they've got the weapons, they will tell you that the important thing is not the weapons that you have. The important thing is the moral commitment you have to your own ideals. That's the term they call us moral cowards. They know. They talk in the verbiage of ideology and morality. They understand that this is an ideological and moral battle. And what they're out to prove is that we are moral cowards and I think they're proving that quite successfully. That's their goal. And if they can do that, the rest of the Muslim world will rally to their cause. And indeed, right after September 11th, you got two reactions within the Muslim world, within the radical Muslim world. You got celebrations in the streets by many. You got recruitment al-Qaeda going up dramatically. So that's one sector. Another sector of the radical cause said, wait a minute, and those people want to focus on the near enemy. This is going to be bad because America is going to come after us. They're really tough. They're really strong. And I think you're seeing that part of it, that part of the radical movement, a lot quieter these days. Because America hasn't been that strong. The response hasn't been as awful as they expected it to be, particularly the Egyptians that they were writing from jail. The Muslim brothers who were in jail were writing and saying, this is horrible. The Americans are going to crack down on us. This is going to be a disaster. This is the end of our movement. What has Bin Laden done? X communicates Wahiri. He's not an Egyptian anymore. They were panicking in the weeks and months falling and then Afghanistan happened. That seemed pretty bad. But then when everybody survived, Wahiri survived, Bin Laden survived, and Iraq turned into what it's turned into, they are now gaining a little bit of confidence. Maybe America is not a stuff. Maybe Bin Laden was right after all. And if we pack up and suddenly leave Iraq with the tail between our legs, that's the message they're going to get. Now of course if we stay there and get killed and do nothing, it's also perceived as weakness and their victory. Given American politics and American moral courage, it's hard to see a positive outcome out of Iraq. So the disagreements, at least in terms of targeting America have gone away. There's still major disagreements with regard to democracy and using the political process. Wahiri actually just, like two or three tapes ago, his main message in one of these videos that Al Jazeera plays was to chastise the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt for participating in their elections and calling them sellouts and telling them that even if they won a majority, there was no way they could stick to their radical agenda that they would ultimately compromise, that the very nature of democracy demands that because it places the votes of mere humans above God's rule. And that the only way was militant violence in Jihad. So that is the only debate going on between these. And you can see, I think, again, since September 11th, I think they were quiet for a little while. But look at how resurgent Islamic totalitarianism is. They did very well in the election in Egypt. They just took in the process of taking over Somalia. Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan and gaining power, well, not political power, but gaining strength. In Algeria, they're talking about maybe starting the civil war up again in Iran. Look at Iran. I mean, they've never been more brazen since at least the hostage crisis. Telling the Americans to go to hell. They don't care. Telling the West, who cares? We're going to develop our nuclear program no matter what. And we've got 150 American troops on their border. We're surrounding them. We've got troops in Afghanistan. And they fear us not. They have no worries. At least that's how they're behaving. Because I think, again, I think after September 11th, they were worried. They were concerned. And then we proved to be the same old paper tiger as we've always been. I believe the Iranians, I can't prove this, but I believe the Iranians are funding both the Sunni insurgency and the Shiites. I think they're playing both sides. They don't care if the Sunnis kill Shiites. As long as it hurts the Americans, they kill Shiites. They would kill Shiites. Their alliance is not with the particular group. Their alliance is with its anti-American. And if they could play both sides against the Americans, they have every incentive to create a civil war and to create a situation where the Americans are kicked out. I also think that they have supported al-Qaeda for a long time, and that they are strong. And indeed, if you read the Commission on Terrorism report after September 11th, the links between al-Qaeda and Iran just fall off the pages. I mean, they stated the links between al-Qaeda and Iraq you have to dig for. You have to kind of find in the subtleties. But Iran and al-Qaeda have been talking, have been working together. The al-Qaeda has been, al-Qaeda has been training al-Qaeda in explosives and suicide bombings for well over 10 years now. Again, according to Congress. So, if anything, it looks to me like Islamic totalitarianism is energized, is on the rise, recruitment is up, and is spreading in the Muslim world. What I find the most interesting, if you project in the future, I mean, I'm pretty pessimistic, obviously, about the Middle East. There's not, and to go to John's question, is there a powerful force within the Middle East? Challenging them. And the answer is no. The answer is no. Yes, are they moderate secular Muslims? Yes. Are they pro-American? Almost none. Almost none. Most are European-type appeasing, you know, leftists who hate America almost as much as they hate the religion. I think the best writer on kind of the state of moderate Islam is Fawda Jami. He's much more optimistic than I am. But if that's optimism, then you'll get a sense of what's going on. There is no intellectual ideological force in the Arab world challenging these people. There is no intellectual ideological force within the Muslim world. There is the establishment, the religious establishment, and the rulers, the dictators. But they have no ideology other than Islam. And you can't fight radical Islam with moderate Islam. That's not how Christianity was moderated. It wasn't radical Christianity versus moderate Christianity, and they came to some agreement in the middle. It was radical Christianity and reason. And, you know, Christianity moderated as a consequence in a direction of reason. But there are no advocates today for reason in the Arab world. And this brings me to my fifth pillar of... Well, let me start over, because I only had four yesterday. And I didn't tell you what the fourth was. In my view, there are five causes, if you will. There are five engines of this movement. And the first, which I didn't mention, but John reminded me of when he mentioned there were five pillars and what the first pillar of, there was one God and Muhammad is his messenger. The first pillar has to be the fact that the Islamic world is a religious world. Islamic culture is a religious culture. There is no... The secular part of the Muslim world is tiny, is minor and ultimately intellectually insignificant because of the last point I want to make. So number one is the Muslim world is fundamentally a religious world. It was a passively religious, moderately religious and, you know, kind of doing their own thing until they were radicalized by the Muslim Brotherhood. So that's number two. Radicalized, energized and organized by the Muslim Brotherhood. They were given a purpose, a goal, a vision. But the Muslim Brotherhood was not as powerful and successful as it could be without Saudi money and that's obvious. And I believe a certain element of Saudi spirit, a certain element of warrior, nomadic, war-like spirit that the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula have, a certain aggressiveness that the Egyptians, I don't think, had and that combination turned out to be this incredibly violent. Even that would not have been inspired, would not have been as successful as it is being without the example, the support of Iran and the Iranian Revolution. The fact that it was successful gave them a model and that's why we have always advocated that Iran should be the first target. Destroy the model, show them that even that model can't survive and you kill, you take away one of those pillars. And finally, the fifth element is none of this would have been successful. None of this would have ever happened. None of this could have gone anywhere unless without the weakness of the West. The fundamental cause is the fact that the West is so weak and not weak militarily, not weak economically, but weak ideologically. But when the better Arabs, the better Muslims send their kids to study in the United States and in Europe, what do they get from their professors? They get garbage from their professors or they get multiculturalism from their professors. They get a hatred of the West from their professors. The West stands for nothing. It has no positive ideas to give them and indeed the one political idea that the Arabs got from the West is fascism and socialism. Since the end of communism, what positive political idea do we have? George Bush can talk about freedom and he can talk about democracy but neither defined, neither meaningful, and indeed democracy is a tool for them to gain control for the Islamic deterrence just to gain control. And freedom is never defined. Indeed, one of his talks, he talks about how religion and freedom are the same. It's necessary, how freedom comes from religion. That's our president. So what do we expect from them? The battle for the Middle East, the battle versus al-Qaeda is a battle here in America. It is a battle in the West. It is a battle for positive ideas, for an absolutist morality, for real freedom and for definition of freedom until we can define it for ourselves and until we can present the world with an alternative until we can defend ourselves first but then present an image of what life ought and should be until we are willing to go to the Milwaukee to say, you want a constitution? Here's what Thomas Jefferson wrote. Here's what the American Funny Fathers did. Until we have the courage to do that, the conviction to do that, conviction in our own values, this is going to continue to remain a complete and utter mess. Americans, Europeans, Westerners are going to continue to die. The Middle East is going to continue to be one big civil war, one big mess. And of course, when they gain power, that's not the end of it because they'll hate each other and they'll slaughter each other just like they did in Algeria. It's up to us. There is no force in the world today other than objectivism. It sounds a little weird to say, but it is true. Advocating for an absolutist morality, a secular absolutist morality, they actually can stand up and present a political, philosophical, ideological alternative that will sway anyone. Yeah. Would there be any value to jump on their case which would be the humiliation that no technology comes from them, that it all comes from those that they need? Well, I'm all for, yes. But who's going to do that exactly? Again, the question is would it help if we humiliated them and pointed out, for example, that all the weapons they use, we made. They don't even build their own weapons. For example, this war in World War II, at least the Germans had industry and the Japanese had industry and built their own weapons systems. These people are so primitive that they don't even build their own weapons. They don't even build the means of their own survival. They rely completely parasitically on the West. The oil that we develop, we pipe, we pay for, and the weapons that we build that they buy with our money from the oil. I mean, that's the state of things, yet we have capitulated to that. So, look, winning this war, I've said this many times in many talks, winning this war should not take more than three months. Never mind generations like the administration would claim. It shouldn't take long, but you have to have the more courage to execute on it and you have to know what you stand for, what you believe in, what you're fighting for in order to defeat an enemy, and I don't think we have that. I don't think anybody in this country has that, except for objectivists. I mean, and unfortunately, the only other people in this country that have that sense are the radical Christian right. And to me, the number one threat to the survival of this country does not come from Bin Laden. They will never take over America. There will not be street fights in Atlanta between the Muslims and the Americans. The number one threat to our freedom comes from the only people who could actually beat Bin Laden in our culture. And that is the radical, right, I know, time's up. If you want to see a model for this, if you want to see a model for how it plays out, go and see the movie V for Vendetta. With no recommendation necessarily for the movie. But the scenario of how England in that movie becomes fascist is my prediction if you have no objectivism in the culture for where this country heads. Because it uses, in other words, terrorism is the reason for a strong man, and who's the only strong man that can come up who can challenge Islam, is the person who calls for a crusade, a religious crusade, a Christian crusade to crush Christianity's infidels, the Muslims. And they're the only ones who would have the guts to actually do what was necessary to win, right? V for Vendetta. Thank you all, and I apologize for being so depressed. All material in this program is protected by copyright and may not be reproduced in any form or manner, nor played before a live audience. Without the express written permission of the producer, the Iron Rand Institute. For further information or to order other products, please visit estor.ironrand.org or call 1-800-729-6149. It'll be like she never left. The nation's best network? I feel better already. Now you can focus on how you're spending your summer. Discover the total wireless stores and get total confidence. The latest phones. The best network. All at great prices. Now open in Los Angeles. Refer to the latest terms and conditions of service at TotalWireless.com. Saturday Staples has a huge selection of ink and toner in stock and at great prices every day. This week only, buy one HP ink at Staples and get a second 30% off. So stock up now because you can't afford to run out of ink. Restrictions may apply.