Author: Brad Johnson

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What’s really going on with the Iran situation? Is this more to do with China than Iran?

June 22, 2019, Articles, Liberty Nation News

Divide and Conquer: Liberty Nation Unpacks Iran Mess with Exclusive interview

Richard Higgins is the senior fellow at Unconstrained Analytics. He is an expert on irregular warfare and the nexus between theological doctrines and Information Age unconventional warfare. A U.S. Army veteran, Higgins has advised Congress and the White House on terrorism-related matters. In Liberty Nation’s exclusive interview, we sought his opinion on the growing issues between the U.S. and Iran, and what could be behind this sudden increase in hostilities.
Divide and Conquer: Liberty Nation Unpacks Iran Mess with Exclusive interview

UA’s Rich Higgins was interviewed by LibertyNation about his opinion on the growing issues between the U.S. and Iran, and what could be behind this sudden increase in hostilities:

Liberty Nation: Richard, my first question is what’s happening with the Iran situation? Other than the main events that we hear on the news, is there an undercurrent that’s really bringing these things to the fore right now?

Richard Higgins: I think the understanding of events taking place in the Middle East, along with events taking place in wider South West/South East Asia, has to be viewed through the prism of the economic realignment that’s attempting to be put in place by the current administration with China. Any thoughts about Iran that don’t incorporate the Chinese economic angle and their One Belt, One Road strategy are inconclusive to events.

The same is true in the North Korea situation. I think the maximum pressure campaign has been underway for a long time now, but one has to ask oneself, “Why are the Iranians acting out now?” My personal belief is that it’s largely due to the fact that the G20 meeting is coming up and I’m sure the G20 meeting is driving a lot of these events. Far more so than the average strategist needs to be thinking about.

LN: I’ve been looking through the Ayatollah Khamenei’s social media accounts, and he seems to be trying to build up more international support with the European Union, and most especially with Japan. Is this to see if they’ll take up the slack that’s left by President Trump pulling away from the Iran Deal, or is there more at play?

RH: I think you can understand the Ayatollah’s actions in trying to break our united front, right? Which is to peel off the Japanese, peel off the European Union. The Chinese strategy would be to isolate the United States. The United States’ strategy will be to hold China accountable for the actions of their own and their surrogates. But the Chinese have a strategy, I mean, it really goes back to Sun Tzu, which is: Operate through surrogates. Don’t be directly attributable for these different events.

And so, when you look at the Ayatollah’s statements, and I haven’t seen them myself, so I’ll cautiously apply … you need to understand that their goal would be to enhance the isolation of the United States. Not necessarily to do something directly with Japan, per se, but on behalf of the Chinese. The Chinese operate through economic pacts, like the Shanghai Cooperative Organization, the One Belt, One Road Initiative, China 2025, China 2049, and they do it through irregular warfare; what they call unrestricted warfare. It is not something that Western strategists are familiar with.

LN: It seems as though there’s an information war that’s already taking place that involves a lot of persuasion, narrative, and attempts to isolate. Is this making more of a move right now because of the sunset clauses or provisions in the Iran deal? Is it heading towards an inevitable conflict or a complete reorganization once the sunset clauses start kicking in?

RH: I don’t think you necessarily have to have conflict. By that I mean, there is going to be disagreement, there is going to be, “conflict,” and I think that the president recognizes that and what he is offering up to the leadership of Iran, right now, is the opportunity to do this short of war. For example, lets come up with a different way that doesn’t result in the deaths of untold hundreds of thousands of people. It’s an important moral stand that the president has to take and I think that the president is operating, not that he’s afraid of power, per se, but he recognizes that you look at America and the United States and our history, we’ve always been able to maintain a moral high ground in our actions … when war came, we did everything we could to avoid it. Sometimes they beat you to a brick, sometimes that drove our allies nuts, right? Because we would wait, and wait, and wait to get into war.

I think that the president reflects that sort of Christian base; deliberative action, recognizing the monumental nature of war in and of itself. And you saw that in his decision to pull back on the strike because he thought 150 casualties was inappropriate for shooting down some drone.

My personal opinion on that is, I think the president did two things: Number one, he showed that he is able to be a moral man, number two is that he is the commander-in-chief and he demonstrated that very clearly to the entire chain of command: “I’m in charge, nobody else.” I think he’s putting in a really strong position in terms of his ability to negotiate and you know, I’m amazed we have all these generals and all these millions of talking heads, who talk about the president, on and on and on; none of them have read his books. None of them have read The Art of the Deal. Because if you’ve read The Art of the Deal, you understood exactly what he was doing yesterday in pulling back from that attack. And now he has leverage.

Liberty Nation will be providing more analysis and coverage of the developing Iran situation over the coming days.

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On July 22, 2019, al-arabiyya TV news reported that a NYT radio cast reported on Qatar’s support for terrorism in Somalia. But, of course, at Americans for Intelligence Reform we have been reporting on Qatar’s (and Turkey’s) support for terrorism since the moment we joined.
This is a huge leap for the NYT which heretofore has been more than willing to overlook Qatar’s (and Turkey’s) support for terrorism in the Middle East/Africa sphere (and elsewhere). So, this raises the question as to why now? Why is the NYT suddenly so interested in reporting on Qatar’s support for terrorism?
The obvious answer is that just last week Trump warmly hosted the Emir of Qatar, and singed a “very nice” weapons deal with Qatar.
And, reporting on Qatar’s support of terrorism gives them a tool with which to bludgeon Trump now that the Russia hoax has dried up.
Of course, this places the NYT in a delicate position. Since many of their journalists have accepted payola from Qatar with the promise of never reporting anything bad about Qatar, what’s a self-respecting far Left rag supposed to do? Well, just find a journalist who has not taken money from Qatar. Or, perhaps the NYT felt that they would prefer risking Qatar’s ire if there is an opportunity to damage Trump.
Another interesting point coming out of this news story is that according to this al-arabiyya report, quoting the NYT story, this information came about from a phone call between a prominent Qatari businessman close to the Emir, and Qatar’s ambassador in Mogadishu. Now, to a retired NSA guy, this raises the obvious question as to where in the h*%$ would a failing newspaper like the NYT get the resources necessary to intercept phone calls? That’s a privilege (and skill) usually reserved for the intelligence agencies of major powers.
My guess is that someone from within the U.S. intelligence community intentionally leaked that information to the NYT for the express purpose of giving the NYT and the rest of the Left a new club with which to pummel Trump. My guess also is that this “someone” was someone very highly placed who might have a lot to lose when and if the FISA abuses and payments for the phony Steele dossier are investigated and made public. This is a defensive move on the part of elements within the “Deep State.”
From this standpoint I will make a couple of predictions: We will soon be seeing more articles in the NYT and/or other leftwing “news” entities tying Qatar (and possibly Nigeria and Turkey) to terrorism. These will be followed by other news items linking Qatar’s support for terrorism with Trump’s cozy relation with the Qatar Emir, and the weapons sale.
This is almost laughable coming from a NYT (and other leftist entities) who overlooked Obama’s massive support for terrorist regimes. But, all is fair in love, war, and politics. I guess.
As for the Trump administration, for months we’ve been trying to warn them against following the Obama example of having close military relations with terrorist-supporting nations such as Qatar, Turkey, and Nigeria, yet they persist.
The morale to this story is that any policy maker who fails to keep up on the postings by Americans for Intelligence Reform do so at their own peril.
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Barry Webb had a 25-year career as an NSA Arabist, holds two MA degrees in related subject matter, and is currently a Senior Fellow at Americans for Intelligence Reform www.intelreform.org He is also the author of Confessions of an (ex) NSA spy: Why America and its Allies are Losing the War on Terror. His website is: www.barrywebbauthor.com

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In a previous video interview with www.vladtepesblog.com we discussed the phenomenon of human sacrifice in Islam as pertaining to the inclination of HAMAS and other Islamist groups (both Shi’a and Sunni) to deliberately put children and other civilians in harms way during wartime, and explained that justification by quoting Islamic jurisprudence (al-Masri, ‘umdat as-Salik pp. 583-584).
Then, we showed the pre-Islamic origins of that theology by tying it back to the ancient Canaanite/Phoenician/Carthaginian practices of sacrificing their infants to their deities during times of war.
Thus, it seems appropriate to make the obvious connection of that tradition of human sacrifice on behalf of deity to the modern jihadi compulsion to blow themselves up on behalf of deity.
The following Qur’an verses will help bring that to light:
“Do not imagine that those who are killed on behalf of Allah are dead, rather they are alive at their Lord’s side and they are provided with provisions” (Qur’an 3:169).
“And, if we had decreed for them: Lay down your lives or go forth from your dwellings, but few of them would have done it; though if they did what they are exhorted to do it would be better for them, and more strengthening” (Qur’an 4:66).
“Verily, the life of this world is nothing but a game and an entertainment. Far better is the hereafter for those who keep their duty to Allah. Do you not understand?” (Qur’an 6:32).
“Those who believe, and have migrated (haajirou) and performed jihad on behalf of Allah with their wealth and their lives, they have attained the highest degree at the side of Allah, and those are the victorious ones” (Qur’an 9:20).
“Among the believers are those men who have been true to their oath to Allah and among them are those who have paid their vow by death (in battle), and among them are those who are still waiting and they have not altered in the least” (Qur’an 33:23).
“Those who believe say ‘if only a surah was revealed’ (regarding battle), but when a decisive surah was revealed in which battle was mentioned you saw those in whose hearts was sickness look at you with the look of men fainting out of the fear of death, which would be more suitable for them” (Qur’an 47:20).
These are only a few examples of the many unabrogated verses in the Qur’an which define Islam as both a warrior cult and a death cult. Inspired by these verses Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s chief general and the first Caliph, is alleged to have said this to the Persians:
“You should know that I have come to you with an army of men that love death, as you love life.”
This “we love death as you love life” has become not only a common saying among jihadis, but an abiding principle.
Now, keeping all of these Qur’an verses, and Abu bakr’s boasting in mind, we can clearly see foundation for the motto of the modern day Muslim Brotherhood:
“God is our goal, the messenger (Muhammad) is our leader, the Qur’an is our constitution, Jihad is our way, and death on behalf of Allah is the loftiest of our desires.”
All prospective members of the Muslim Brotherhood must swear that oath to become a member. All Sunni terrorist groups from ansaar ash-shari’a to ISIS and al-Qaeda are essentially offshoots of the Brotherhood, and they too use the same oath to welcome members into their group.
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Barry Webb served 25 years as an NSA Arabist, holds two MA degrees in related subject matter fields, and is the author of Confessions of an (EX) NSA spy: Why America and its Allies are Losing the War on Terror (2016). He is currently a senior fellow at Americans for Intelligence Reform www.intelreform.org His own website is www.barrywebbauthor.com

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