This article was first published by the Stonegate Institute.

The beginning of the New Year saw only an increase in the oppression of Christians under Islam, from Nigeria, where an all-out jihad has been declared in an effort to eradicate the Muslim north of all Christians, to Europe, where Muslim converts to Christianity are still hounded and attacked as apostates.  According to the Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, “The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it’s increasing year by year”; in our life time alone, he predicts “Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt.”

An international report found that Muslim nations make up nine out of the top ten countries where Christians face the “most severe” persecution.  In response to these findings, a Vatican spokesman said that “Among the most serious concerns, the increase in Islamic extremism merits special attention.  Persons and organizations dedicated to extremist Islamic ideology perpetrate terrible acts of violence in many places throughout the world: the Boko Haram sect in Nigeria is but one example. Then there is the climate of insecurity that unfortunately in some countries accompanies the so-called “Arab spring”—a climate that drives many Christians to flee and even to emigrate.”

Categorized by theme, January’s batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by country, not severity of anecdote.

APOSTASY

Iran: A Christian convert who was arrested in her home has been sentenced to two years in prison. Previously she endured five months of uncertainty detained in the notorious Evin prison, where the government hoped she would come to her senses and renounce Christianity. She was convicted of “broad anti-Islamic propaganda, deceiving citizens by formation of what is called a house church, insulting sacred figures and action against national security.” Likewise, Iranian Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani continues to suffer in prison.  Most recently, he rejected an offer to be released if he publicly acknowledged Islam’s prophet Muhammad as “a messenger sent by God,” which would amount to rejecting Christianity, as Muhammad/Koran reject it.

Kenya: Muslim apostates seeking refuge in Kenya are being tracked and attacked by Muslims from their countries of origin: An Ethiopian who, upon converting to Christianity, was shot by his father, kidnapped and almost killed, is now receiving threatening text messages. Likewise, a Ugandan convert to Christianity is in hiding, his movements severely restricted since “the Muslims are looking to kill me. I need protection and help.”

Kuwait: A royal prince who openly declared that he has converted to Christianity, confirmed the reality that he now might be targeted for killing as an apostate.

Norway: While out for a walk, two Iranian converts to Christianity were stabbed with knives by masked men shouting “infidels!” One of the men stabbed had converted in Iran, was threatened there, and immigrated to Norway, thinking he could escape persecution there.

Somalia: A female convert to Christianity was paraded before a cheering crowd and publicly flogged as punishment for embracing a “foreign religion.” Imprisoned since November, “the public whipping was meant to mark her release.” She received 40 lashes as hundreds of Muslim spectators jeered. An eyewitness said: “I saw her faint. I thought she had died, but soon she regained consciousness and her family took her away.” Likewise, “Somali Islamists arrested a Muslim father after two of his children converted to Christianity” and fled.  He is accused of “failing to raise his sons as good Muslims,” because “good Muslims cannot convert to Christianity.”

Zanzibar: After being robbed, a Muslim convert to Christianity called police to his house; they discovered a Bible during their inspection. The course of inquiry immediately changed from searching for the thieves to asking why he “was practicing a forbidden faith.” He was imprisoned for eight months without trial, and, since being released, has been rejected by his family and is now homeless and diseased.

CHURCH ATTACKS

Azerbaijan: A pastor has been threatened with criminal proceedings following a raid on his church during Sunday service. Earlier, he was told that “a criminal case had been launched over religious literature arousing incitement over other faiths,” and was pressured by authorities to leave the area, which he did, traveling great distances each week to lead church services.

Egypt: Before a bishop was going to inaugurate the incomplete Abu Makka church and celebrate the Epiphany mass, a large number of Salafis and Muslim Brotherhood members entered the building, asserting that the church had no license and so no one should pray in it. One Muslim remarked that the building would be suitable for a mosque and a hospital.

Indonesia: A sticker on the back of the car of a member of the beleaguered Yasmin church saying “We need a friendly Islam, not an angry Islam,” distributed by the family of the late Muslim president, prompted another Islamic attack on the church: scores of Muslims “terrorized the congregation and attacked several church members.” Since 2008, the congregation has been forced to hold Sunday services on the sidewalk outside the church and then later in the home of parishioners. Not satisfied, hundreds of Muslims later searched and found the private home where members were congregating and holding service and prevented them from worshiping there as well: “It crosses the line now. The protesters now come to the residential area, which is not a public place.” A new report notes that anti-Christian attacks have nearly doubled in the last year.

Nigeria: Soon after jihadis issued an ultimatum giving Christians three days to evacuate the region or die, armed Muslims stormed a church and “opened fire on worshippers as their eyes were closed in prayer,” killing six, including the pastor’s wife. Then, as friends and relatives gathered to mourn the deaths of those slain, “Allahu Akbar” screaming Muslims appeared and opened fire again, killing another 20 Christians. Several other churches were bombed, and seven more killed.

It was officially called the State of the Union Address, but what President Obama actually delivered on Tuesday night was a campaign speech targeted directly at his base. The message went something like this: “Unions, environmentalists, teachers, Hispanic immigrants, women, I’m your president…I’m your candidate.”

Consider the code words and messages sprinkled throughout the speech.

The president began with a shameless signal to the Code Pink crowd and anti-war left—the folks who fueled his rise and run for the White House. “For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq,” he declared, sidestepping the unraveling situation that has emerged as a result. And he went on: “We’ve begun to wind down the war in Afghanistan. Ten thousand of our troops have come home. Twenty-three thousand more will leave by the end of this summer.” Again, never mind what is left behind.

For Big Labor, he boasted about his efforts to get “workers and automakers to settle their differences” and get a government-owned, union-run General Motors “back on top as the world’s number one automaker.”

He gratuitously mentioned a “unionized plant in Milwaukee” and cited key union cities in key states for good measure: “Detroit and Toledo and Chicago…Cleveland and Pittsburgh.”

For the teachers’ unions, he lamented how “tight budgets have forced states to lay off thousands of teachers” and called on Congress to give states “the resources to keep good teachers on the job.” Drifting into meaningless platitudes, he promised that in exchange he would support programs to “replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn.”

While on the subject of meaningless platitudes, the president boasted that “there are fewer illegal crossings than when I took office.” The reason for that, of course, is that he’s presiding over the worst economy in four decades. In other words, there are no jobs to entice immigrants to cross America’s southern border—legally or illegally. (See Mitch Daniels’ sparkling rebuttal for more on why.)

But the president’s main message on immigration was for the amnesty lobby: “Hundreds of thousands of talented, hardworking students in this country face another challenge: The fact that they aren’t yet American citizens. Many were brought here as small children, are American through and through, yet they live every day with the threat of deportation,” he chided. “Let’s at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people,” who, it pays to recall, are not responsible enough to legalize their status.

The government of Iraq has temporarily detained hundreds of private US contractors in recent weeks, mostly for paperwork violations related to weapons registrations and visas.  The detentions — which can last from 24-96 hours or more — are the result of bureaucratic infighting between Iraqi government agencies who seek to control the movement of foreign contractors.

The result is mass confusion. A trade group representing the contractors in Washington has written a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton begging the State Department to intervene, but there is apparently little that can be done to solve the bureaucratic turf wars that have resulted in what one Iraqi businessman who works with the contractors called “a state of chaos.”

The detentions of American citizens are taking place against the backdrop of the strong re-emergence of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the nation’s continuing slide into sectarian conflict, and accusations of a power grab by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki by his coalition partners who are being frozen out by the Shiite majority.

The New York Times reports that another reason for the detentions is that Iraq is “asserting its sovereignty” by developing its own set of rules to deal with the foreigners. Such may be the case, but the result of the crackdown has been what one blogger who follows the industry says is “controlled harassment.” Indeed, the Times reports that more than a hundred private contractors were detained at the Baghdad airport for a week wrestling with visa issues. Evidently, no 2011 visas have been renewed and no 2012 visas have been issued.

The embassy in Baghdad is overwhelmed. They issued a statement saying, in part, “The Embassy’s ability to respond to situations in which U.S. citizens are arrested or otherwise detained throughout Iraq is limited, including in and around Baghdad.” Last Thursday, 4 embassy employees were stopped and detained for two hours by Iraqi security forces.

The letter to Secretary Clinton, signed by Doug Brooks, president of the International Stability Operations Association, said that they wanted “to ensure that you [Clinton] are aware of the seriousness of this issue,” and “the impact it is having on our members’ ability to support the transition and government programs in Iraq and ask your assistance in working with the Government of Iraq to reach a prompt solution.” The “impact” is that it has brought much of the transition and reconstruction work to a standstill. Brooks told the Washington Post that it is becoming impossible for his members to move in Iraq. “It’s been a nightmare,” he told the Post.

“While private organizations are often able to resolve low-level disputes and irregularities, this issue is beyond our ability to resolve and we need the assistance of the Department of State and the U.S. Embassy in Iraq,” Brooks wrote in his letter to Clinton. Specifically, Brooks pointed to the movement of private security guards protecting the hundreds of businesses and their employees who are regularly stopped and detained at checkpoints by Iraqi security personnel. When the armed guards can’t travel, the businesses are paralyzed as well.

An Iraqi businessman was quoted in the Post as saying, “We are, on one side, trying to promote Iraq to get foreign investors, but from the other side, the government is creating all kinds of difficulties…They just create rules overnight,” he said.

The harassment of the contractors is partly the result of the conflicts over incidents that occurred during the occupation where the Iraqi government believed that some of the security personnel were trigger-happy and were careless in firing where civilians congregated. One such incident in 2007 resulted in the deaths of 17 civilians, although all charges against the Blackwater personnel involved were eventually dismissed, mostly because of technicalities. The US military determined that the guards opened fire “without provocation” and used “excessive force.

How time flies!  It seems only yesterday that we folks in Norway first heard the name Mullah Krekar.  The sometime leader of Ansar al-Islam – which narrow-minded individuals insist on calling a terrorist organization, but which I prefer to think of as a heavily armed, Koran-toting Iraqi version of Rotary or the Knights of Columbus – the charismatic Krekar has long since become every (well, not quite every) Norwegian’s lovable grandpa.  Now, after many years in Norway, he has announced that he will soon be leaving us and returning to Iraq, where he will continue to pursue the task to which he has consecrated his life: that of serving his God.

And oh, how many ways there are to serve God!  Ansar al-Islam, according to the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies, has “burned down girls’ schools and beaten and killed women for not wearing the burqa.” Human Rights Watch notes that under its previous name, Jund al-Islam, Krekar’s industrious associates took over villages in which they required, among other things, “the obligatory closure of offices and businesses during prayer time and enforced attendance by workers and proprietors at the mosque during those times; the veiling of women by wearing the traditional ‘abaya; obligatory beards for men; segregation of the sexes; barring women from education and employment; the removal of any photographs of women on packaged goods brought into the region; the confiscation of musical instruments and the banning of music both in public and private; and the banning of satellite receivers and televisions.”  The Lord’s work never ends!

Krekar first came to Norway in 1991 as an asylum seeker – although, as is true of many Muslim asylum seekers, his professional obligations obliged him to travel frequently between his new nation and the country from which he had fled.  But not till after 9/11 did his name become widely known here.  Arrested in the Netherlands in 2002 on his way back to Norway from Iraq, he was released after four months and allowed to proceed to Norway, where he was again arrested and released – a series of torments which, as the discerning reader will readily notice, are not unlike those visited upon Jesus by the Romans and the Sanhedrin.  Krekar has lived in Oslo ever since, in apartments which (in newspaper photographs) look quite pleasant, with fine bookcases full of handsomely bound volumes in Arabic.  A great man deserves no less.

Over the years Krekar has provided Norway with invaluable spiritual lessons of a sort that a few stubborn Norwegian officials have failed to appreciate, simply because Krekar’s brand of evangelism involves guns, explosives, and the removal of limbs without anesthesia.  Consequently they have persisted in attempts to take him away from us – and have thus caused him no little amount of distress.  Meanwhile those of us who appreciate Krekar can only be grateful for his long-term presence in our midst – and cherish the memories.

Ah, the memories!  Here’s just a sampling:

2003:

Perhaps the key event in Krekar’s emergence as a contemporary Norwegian folk hero was a speaking engagement at a popular Oslo café.  Krekar was the guest of the Liberal Party’s youth organization, which had invited him to give his political views.  The place was packed to overflowing – mostly, according to Morgenbladet, with “students in their twenties and thirties.” They greeted the Man of the Hour with spontaneous applause.  Morgenbladet quite aptly described Krekar’s response – a hand movement indicating that they should stop clapping – as one of “humility.”  After offering a twenty-minute analysis of international affairs, the humble homme de guerre took questions and graciously accepted his fans’ declarations of support.  The event was the greatest success in the cafe’s history.  Morgenbladet called Krekar “Norway’s beloved fundamentalist.”

In March, in a demonstration of the petty abuses that unfeeling authorities can visit upon their betters, VG reported that the police had confiscated Krekar’s wife’s cookbook, and that the mullah had been forced to eat the same kind of cake – apple! – fifty days in a row.

In an interview with Der Spiegel, Krekar again showed his humility by offering unstinting praise for a colleague: “Osama bin Laden is a good man.  He is the jewel in Islam’s crown.” Krekar confirmed that he had trained suicide bombers and – in a sign of his generous readiness to share the delights of Islamic law with unbelievers – declared his intention to help turn Norway into a sharia state.  In August, apparently appreciative of the contribution Krekar was making to Norwegian society and culture, William Nygaard, head of the venerable Aschehoug publishing house, invited him to the company’s annual garden party.

2004:

In January – would the torments never cease? – Norwegian police ransacked Krekar’s apartment.  Aftenposten provided a heartbreaking picture of the mullah’s wife and daughters, those innocent victims of official harassment.  “Daddy opened the door when the police buzzed,” said one of the girls. “We had to sit still in the living room and were not allowed to go outside or use the phone while they were there.” Krekar’s lawyer, Brynjar Meling, announced that his client planned to sue the Norwegian government for unwarranted prosecution, and to call Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik as a witness.  Bondevik said Krekar would be deported.  In June, a Jordanian court convicted the poor, put-upon mullah in absentia of conspiracy to commit (that ugly word!) terrorism.

But not all the news was bleak.  The same year saw the publication by Aschehoug of Krekar’s In My Own Words.  A publisher’s representative characterized it as a “personal and political biography” in which the “Islamic and Kurdish activist [bless him for not using the “t” word!] examines the events in Iraqi Kurdistan and the case against him in Norway from his own perspective.”  At the book launch, Krekar declared his “great respect for the Norwegian people, for the king, the people, the culture, and the civilization.  And I say to you that I am proud of you.”

In April, in a small gesture toward the justice due him, the Dutch government awarded Krekar 45,000 euros in damages for wrongful imprisonment.  In August, Krekar sued Norway for millions of kroner in damages for all the trouble they had caused him.  In December, it was reported that Krekar, in a speech at an Iraqi mosque, had praised bin Laden for 9/11.  Once again, Krekar’s exemplary willingness to praise other laborers in the fields of the Lord testified to his remarkable lack of ego.

Yesterday, Iraq was hit with another wave of bombings as sectarian strife continues to dramatically increase following the withdrawal of U.S. forces. At least 70 Shiites were killed, presumably by Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Across the Middle East, tension and bloodshed between the region’s various communities is increasing, prompting Turkey to warn of a new Cold War.

Three of the explosions took place in Sadr City, the Shiite stronghold in Baghdad of Moqatada al-Sadr. Another two explosions happened in Kadhimiyah district and near Nasiriyah, targeting Shiites celebrating the holiday of Arbaeen by traveling to Karbala. On December 22, 60 Iraqis were killed in terrorist attacks in Baghdad.

The attacks come as the Shiite Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is locked in an intense political struggle with his Sunni rivals. Al-Maliki issued an arrest warrant for Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, accusing him of being involved in terrorism. He also called for the sacking of Deputy Prime Minister Saleh el-Mutlaq, another Sunni, after he accused al-Maliki of acting like a dictator worse than Saddam Hussein. Al-Hashimi is now avoiding arrest in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The al-Iraqiya bloc, led by secular Shiite Iyad Allawi, is allied with the Sunnis and is boycotting parliament. Al-Maliki is threatening to replace its representatives in the parliament. Some of al-Maliki’s opponents are calling for his replacement. Moqtada al-Sadr’s bloc, which supports al-Maliki, wants parliament to be dissolved and new elections to be held.

One concern is that Moqtada al-Sadr will make good on his threat to reassemble his Mehdi Army militia, which would prompt the Sunnis to act in a similar fashion. The Iranian-backed cleric has threatened to target any American personnel remaining in Iraq this year, including contractors. In an interesting twist, he is criticizing another militia, Asaib al-Haq (League of the Righteous), accusing it of killing Iraqis and being an Iranian puppet. The group just agreed to give up violence and pursue its aims solely through political means.

Sectarian tension is increasing in Syria at the same as it is in Iraq. The Bashar Assad regime draws its top officials from the Allawite minority, generally estimated to be about 13% of the entire population. This minority is sticking by the regime, likely fearing that it will be massacred if it falls. The Christian minority, about 10% of the population, is doing the same. The failure of the Allawites to turn on the regime is enraging the rest of the population that supports the revolution. An opposition figure named Mamoun al-Homsi angrily stated on December 20, “If the Allawites do not renounce Bashar Assad, we will turn Syria into their graveyard.”

The city of Homs is experiencing tremendous sectarian violence. Last month, 36 bodies were found dumped along the border of the Sunni and Allawite areas of the city. Some of them were decapitated and appeared to have been tortured. Opposition activists are reporting a cycle of murders and kidnappings. On December 20, five Iranian “engineers and technicians” were kidnapped in Homs, as were two more the following day. It is widely reported that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards are playing a direct role on the ground in fighting the uprising.

Ten years on from the invasion of Afghanistan, America has grown weary of war. President Obama, having realized his long-held target of withdrawing from Iraq, is trying to wind down the war in Afghanistan with the aim of ending American involvement by 2014. As Washington has lost faith in the war effort, so too has the broader public. Skeptical of success and encouraged in their doubts by the political establishment, Americans increasingly want the war, like a tiresome, too-long movie, to end at last. This national resignation is fraught with peril – for America’s counterterrorism objectives, for our strategic allies – but perhaps most of all for the soldiers who did the fighting. The U.S. military has a policy of leaving no man behind.  But as the country turns its attention away from the warfront, it risks forgetting the servicemen who fought so valiantly on its behalf, and who have returned home bearing the wars’ indelible marks.

The official end of the Iraq war this month is an occasion to reflect that, for many of America’s wounded veterans, the war will never be over, that they will always carry its scars. Over 32,000 servicemen have been wounded post-9/11, spanning all branches of the military. In the sands of Iraq, and in the mountains of Afghanistan, they have suffered horrific injuries, of which the most painful often left no outward mark. Limbs lost, lives turned upside down, futures permanently altered. For those of us safe in the comforts of civilian life, the enormity of their sacrifice is utterly beyond comprehension.

Just as awe-inspiring, though, is their resilience, their relentless determination not to surrender to the hardships imposed by their injuries, mental or physical. Where lesser spirits might have yielded, they have worked to embrace life, going to school, finding jobs, raising families. While others their age were playing at rebellion on the streets of New York and Oakland, they, who have so many reasons to complain, refused to turn their personal struggles into a public spectacle. They’re not the protesting kind. For these daily acts of heroism, no less than for the heroism they showed in battle, America’s wounded warriors are Front Page Magazine’s “Man of the Year.”

They are men like Army Sergeant First Class, Leroy Petry. The product of a military family, Petry enlisted in the Army Rangers in 1999, at the age of 20, inspired by their motto: “Rangers Lead the Way.” Petry did just that in May 2008, when he and his platoon found themselves in the midst of a deadly firefight while attempting a raid on a Taliban compound in Afghanistan’s remote Paktia province. Inside the compound’s courtyard, Petry and a fellow Ranger, Private First Class Lucas Robinson, were pinned down by heavy fire from Taliban fighters when a bullet round pierced both of Petry’s legs. As the Rangers battled back, a live enemy grenade landed just a few feet away. Acting on instinct, Petry lunged at the grenade to throw it back, but could not release it fast enough. The blast blew off his right hand at the wrist. Undaunted, Petry placed a tourniquet on his arm and called in by radio that he and two other Rangers had been wounded. Then he added, “And I also lost one of my hands.” Not until the Taliban fighters were killed would Petry allow himself to be evacuated. During his recovery, Petry received a prosthetic hand and arm. To his new arm, author Peter Collier recounts, Petry added a plaque listing the names of the fallen Rangers in his unit.  For his bravery, Petry this July was awarded the Medal of Honor, becoming only the second living recipient of the medal for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The medal did not mark the end of Petry’s military career. He recently re-enlisted for another eight years of service in the Army.

Marine Staff Sergeant Chad Brumpton was serving in Iraq when an improvised explosive device blew up the tank he commanded in 2005. “Both my legs from the knee down were shattered to little pieces,” Brumpton recalls. “My left hand, thumb, and wrist were shredded up and broken. I received four compression fractures in my lower back.” For two years, Brumpton went from one surgery to the next, undergoing 19 in all. He required heavy dosages of medication just to get out of bed. In the end, his legs could not be saved. Yet, Brumpton is anything but a broken man. Newly mobile on prosthetic legs, including a pair for running, he continues to defy his physical constraints. As he puts it: “I won’t let anything hold me down, especially my disability. After the explosion, doctors told me I’d never walk again, but on the day I was discharged from the hospital, I walked out. There was no way I was going to let anything stop me.”

Army Spc. Brent Whitten exhibits the same single-mindedness as he tries to move on with his life. Whitten was 20 years old when his Humvee was struck by a suicide bomber in eastern Baghdad in 2006. Flames engulfed the Humvee, but Whitten couldn’t move his legs to escape. Eventually, he managed to roll out of the Humvee’s roof and onto the street, where a rescue unit picked him up. Whitten’s pelvis was fractured and he suffered second-degree burns to his arms and face, but he still mustered the strength to call his wife back in Kansas and tell her not to worry. Now a broadcasting student at the University of Kansas, he urges other wounded veterans to look upon their injuries as a new battle to be won. “When I think of my recovery, my message to other wounded warriors is this: Your recovery is your new mission. You have to get victory. You’re still a soldier, so you have an obligation not to surrender. Your family is counting on you.”

Marine and machine gunner Mike Heller knows how difficult that recovery can be. When his Humvee hit a landmine in Iraq in 2005, Heller was violently ejected, seriously injuring his spine. But his immediate concern was not for himself but for his unit’s team leader, Cpl. Joseph Tremblay, who was badly injured in the explosion. For the next three hours, as they made their way to the hospital, Heller tried to keep Tremblay calm and divert his attention from his bleeding wounds. Tremblay did not make it to the hospital. Heller survived, but today he suffers from chronic back pain and the awful thought that he failed to keep his comrade alive. It has taken time and treatment for Heller to realize that he could not have changed what happened, that he could not have done more to save his friend. He is still working to come to terms with his memories. But he is also getting on with his life, raising his daughter, working as a stock analyst, and pursuing a business degree.

Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon, a deep thinker and close colleague of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, claimed to a Jerusalem audience this week that Israel has talked some sense to President Barack Obama about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We convinced the American administration,” Yaalon said, “that there is no way to solve the conflict in one or two years…. The US is trying to manage the conflict now, rather than solve it.”

Reporter Gil Hoffman notes that “there has been no public indication that the Americans have given up their hope of solving the conflict, and the US helped draft the Quartet position that aims to solve the conflict by the end of 2012.”

And just a few weeks ago Defense Secretary Leon Panetta sounded as sure as ever that the conflict could be solved if the parties would just “get to the damn table” and Israel would “reach out” to its neighbors and be more pliable.

Yaalon, for his part, gave Obama less credit on Iran, saying that “France and Great Britain are leading the West now in calling for crippling sanctions on the Iranian central bank and preventing Iran from exporting oil, while the US is unfortunately leading from behind.”

Still, as Hoffman points out, Yaalon’s words regarding the Palestinian issue constitute “the first time a high-ranking Netanyahu administration official has indicated that the US had shifted from conflict resolution to management.”

If Yaalon is right, one would expect an easing of the administration’s pressure on Israel regarding this issue—pressure that has been obsessive and often brutal.

Upon taking office the administration proclaimed all Jewish life over the 1967 lines—including in parts of Jerusalem that it saw as off limits to Jews—illegitimate and the main obstacle to peace. Obama pursued the theme in his June 2009 Cairo speech, in which he sang the praises—often with invented “facts”—of Islam as a civilization while portraying “the settlements” as the hub of evil and equating self-imposed Palestinian displacement with the Holocaust.

The pattern of Israel-abuse reached another high point with the administration’s tantrum over Israeli building plans in Jerusalem in March 2010 and Obama’s notorious snub of Netanyahu at the White House. Also around that time Obama signed onto Arab attempts to divest Israel of its nuclear deterrent—that is, its fundamental guarantee of survival in the region.

Even more grave, though, was the president’s explicit call in May this year for an Israeli return to those 1967 death-trap borders, a violation of solemn American commitments dating back forty years to uphold Israel’s right to defensible boundaries.

Naturally, even if the pressure lets up at this stage, one can attribute it to the upcoming US elections unless the administration shows some explicit sign of actually having learned something on the Palestinian issue.

Seemingly, though, it would be hard for Washington not to learn something about the difficulty of achieving amity in the Middle East. One would think a headline like last week’s “Deadly Blasts Rock Baghdad…” would leave an impression, coming so soon after the U.S. pullout and tolling over 60 dead and over 200 wounded.

Seven long years after he allegedly committed “premeditated murder,” Iraq war veteran Ilario Pantano, who gave up a comfortable life on Manhattan’s Upper West Side to fight for his country following the September 11th attacks, has been thoroughly vindicated. Thus ends a saga highlighted by an unconscionable rush to judgement by the military, and the subsequent trashing of Mr. Pantano’s reputation by leftists who never miss an opportunity to denigrate American soldiers based on nothing more than unproven allegations.

By any reasonable measure, Mr. Pantano is an American patriot. A man born to poverty in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen, Pantano managed to win a partial scholarship to Horace Mann, one of the top private schools in the nation. Students from Horace Mann routinely qualify to attend some of the best colleges in the nation and Pantano was no exception. Yet he made himself an exception, putting off college to join the Marines to fight in the first Gulf War against Saddam Hussein.

After that tour of duty he returned home, finished college at nights, and ended up working for Goldman Sachs. Thus we have someone who had served his country, re-entered civilian life and made himself successful. For most men, a tour of duty in a combat zone followed by the procurement of a good job and a promising future would have been more than enough reason to let “someone else” fight for this nation following the 9/11 atrocity. Ilario Pantano is made of sterner stuff. At age 31 he persuaded the Marines to take him back so he could once again take the fight to Islamic terrorists.

It was a fateful decision. In 2004, Lieutenant Pantano was leading his squad through an area known as the “Triangle of Death,” a Sunni-insurgent dominated region where some of the fiercest fighting of the Iraq war was taking place. It was there that Pantano stopped two Iraqis who were driving a car away from what was discovered to be a terrorist ammo dump. When he ordered them to search their own car in case it was booby-trapped, the two men rushed Pantano. He opened fire, killing both. He reloaded his magazine and fired again, after which he hung a sign on the dead bodies saying “no better friend, no worse enemy.” It was intended as a message for other terrorists–according to both the prosecutor and Pantano who admitted to it. The sign was removed after one of his men told Pantano it was inappropriate.

Daniel Coburn, a disgruntled sergeant who had been disciplined by Pantano and subsequently demoted within the platoon, accused Pantano of shooting the men in the back. Despite the fact that all other testimony contradicted that claim, the Judge Advocate General’s investigating officer chose to believe Coburn and charge Pantano with premeditated murder.

On May 12, 2005, the case began to fall apart. A Marine hearing officer, Lt. Col. Mark E. Win, recommended to Maj. Gen. Richard Huck that the charges be dropped and not proceed to court-martial. This decision was largely based on the fact that Coburn had made several contradictory statements. Win still recommended punishment for the sign, but Huck rejected it.

Incredibly, despite the conflicting versions of the incident related during the Article 32 hearing (the military version of a preliminary hearing in civilian law), no autopsy reports were ever submitted into evidence. According to Pantano’s civilian lawyer, Charles Gittens, it was too dangerous for Navy investigators to try to exhume the bodies. Yet after the hearing, an “embarrassed” high command got permission from the dead men’s wives and local villagers to dig up the remains.

Forensic anthropologist William C. Rodriguez was brought in on May 24, 2005 to examine the bodies. “When the remains arrived, I didn’t expect the large crowds of people to [be] present at the mortuary” said Rodriguez. “Most were NCIS agents and various representatives of the Marines. Prior to the exams, there was much discussion concerning the case, talk of court-martial, prosecution and being guilty. The image that came to my mind…was that of a lynch mob: ‘Let’s make an example of [Pantano].’”

A coordinated wave of bomb attacks has rocked the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. At least 69 people have been killed and more than 185 injured in a series of 14 explosions, consisting of four car-bombs and 10 improvised explosive devices (IEDs). This is the worst violence to besiege Iraq in months, and it puts an exclamation point on the daunting reality that America may have prematurely left a nation whose government remains ruptured by sectarian divisions. Divisions that may ultimately undermine the enormous sacrifices made by American troops, and plunge the country into sectarian turmoil.

Although it was not immediately clear who was behind the attacks, analysts speculate that the level of coordination reflects a capability only available to al-Qaeda in Iraq, which is primarily a Sunni-dominated organization. Furthermore, the bombings were aimed at “soft targets,” another al-Qaeda trademark. “They targeted children’s schools, day workers and the anti-corruption agency,” said security spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta. “The children were scared and crying,” said Raghad Khalid, a kindergarten teacher at a school in Karrada. “Some parts of the car bomb are inside our building.” The car bomb was actually an ambulance driven by a suicide bomber, who killed 18 people when he detonated the vehicle.

Most of the districts targeted were Shi’ite neighborhoods, and the attacks were apparently timed to coincide with the morning’s rush hour. They may also be the first reprisals directed at Shi’ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose move to sideline two Sunni rivals has caused turmoil within the fragile coalition that forms the current government. Earlier this week, Maliki demanded the arrest of Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, claiming he organized assassinations and bombings. Hashemi denies the accusations, and has taken refuge in Irbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, where he is being given protection by the regional government. The Kurds, who represent Iraq’s third major political faction, are unlikely to hand him over to Maliki’s Shi’ite-led government in Baghdad.

Adding to the tension is another demand by Maliki, who asked parliament to fire his Sunni deputy, Saleh al-Mutlaq, for comparing Maliki to Saddam Hussein. On Wednesday al-Mutlaq was granted leave until the Iraqi House of Representatives can make a decision regarding his fate. Yet al-Mutlaq was not alone in making such a comparison. Sunni tribesman Ali Hatem Suleiman, the leader of powerful Dulaimi tribe, also told the BBC Maliki was becoming like Hussein. “Maliki will drive Iraq towards separation and will create a new dictatorship and take on Saddam’s mantle,” he contended. “Unfortunately this was all agreed upon by America–to hand over Iraq to a new dictator, and so Iraq will implode again.”

Suleiman joins a growing list of disaffected Sunnis, all convinced Iraq is disintegrating into sectarian factions. This disaffection is highlighted by a government boycott precipitated by the al-Iraqiyya group, the largest Sunni bloc in parliament. They are protesting the warrant for Hashemi’s arrest, and accuse Maliki of trying to monopolize power. Al-Iraqiyya’s disaffection may be critical. They are led by secular Shi’ite Muslim Ayad Allawi, who had convinced many of the same Sunni tribes responsible for driving the bloody insurgency from 2004-2007 that he would help them reclaim some of the power they’ve lost in a post-Saddam Iraq. Yet those hopes have now been dashed. “That’s all finished,” said an unnamed senior diplomat in Baghdad. “The office they created for Allawi [a strategic policy ministry] isn’t even functioning anymore. No one turns up for work.”

Iraq is facing renewed sectarian tension just as U.S. forces finishing leaving the country. On Monday, the Iraqi government issued an arrest warrant and travel ban on Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, a Sunni. At the same time, Prime Minister al-Maliki, a Shiite, is calling for the firing of Vice Prime Minister Saleh Mutlak, a Sunni. To make matters worse, Moqtada al-Sadr says he will revive his Iranian-backed Shiite militia in 2012 if any American personnel, including civilians, remain. His forces have much Sunni blood on their hands.

The Iraqi government claims that Vice President Hashemi is involved in terrorism, an accusation he says is politically motivated and comes from Maliki. It is claimed that he has a hit squad to kill Shiite officials, including Maliki. Three of his bodyguards were arrested and 13 detained. Their testimony incriminating Hashemi was aired on television. Hashemi’s supporters believe their testimony was coerced.

“I swear to God that I never committed a sin when it comes to Iraqi blood,” Hashemi said during a press conference in Iraqi Kurdistan. He also thanked Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, for his hospitality.

Maliki is also demanding that Vice Prime Minister Saleh Mutlak, another Sunni, lose his position after he accused Maliki of acting like a dictator and being worse than Saddam Hussein. This indicates that Maliki is waging a political offensive against the Sunni leadership. This may be encouraged by Iran, as both Sunni officials consistently warn of its meddling.

It is very possible that the charges are politically-motivated, but it must be remembered that Hashemi has extremist ties. He is a leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, which is a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate. The Brotherhood has existed in Iraq since the 1940s. In November 1991, its periodical stated that there is a “U.S.-led western conspiracy which was plotting to destroy it [Iraq] in the interests of Israel and ensuring oil supplies to the western world.” One of its pamphlets explicitly said that Iraq should be an Islamic state and that “Islam would have to be re-implemented slowly and gradually” but without violence.

He and his Iraqi Islamic Party colleagues were staunch supporters of a timetable for American forces to leave and legitimized the insurgents targeting Coalition forces. “You call it ‘insurgents,’ we call it ‘resistance,’”  Hashemi said, though he condemned Al-Qaeda and said the terrorist group should not be coupled with Iraqis trying to expel Coalition forces. In the same December 2006 interview, though, Hashemi noted that only 20-25,000 of the Coalition forces were combat soldiers, and said more were needed.

A recent Fox News report tells of how “a rash of attacks on Christian-owned businesses in northern Iraq has raised troubling questions about the future safety of the country’s shrinking Christian community, particularly as U.S. forces withdraw completely from the nation they’ve refereed since 2003.”

In fact, “questions about the future safety of the country’s shrinking Christian community”  have been raised ever since the U.S. toppled secular strongman Saddam Hussein, thereby unloosing the forces of jihad previously corked.  The report continues:

The attacks, which have received little international attention, raged through northern cities following a sermon last Friday by a local mullah. Video purportedly from the riots posted online shows mobs burning and wrecking businesses, which included liquor stores, hotels and hair salons.

Note the two important facts here that play over and over whenever Christians are persecuted under Islam: 1) Despite their frequency and severity, they “receive little international attention” (indeed, only the most spectacular of terrorist attacks on Christians—such as the 2010 Baghdad church attack which left some 60 dead—ever receive mainstream media attention); and 2) as usual, the attacks followed “a sermon last Friday by a local mullah” (in other words, are Islamic in nature).

As if the situation wasn’t bad enough, after pointing out that “Iraqi Christians … are living in fear,” U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf said:

“Now with the [U.S.] forces leaving … I think the Iraqi Christians are going to go through a very, very difficult time.” … He urged the Obama administration to do more to speak up on the issue.   “They know this is a problem. Our government ought to be advocating and ought to be pushing.”

It ought to, but it’s not.   After calling the U.S. government’s silence concerning the blatant persecution of Iraq’s Christians “disturbing,” the founder of the Iraqi Christian Relief Council added: “We’re on the verge of extinction.”

“The next president of the United States is not going to have to address the issue as to whether we went into Iraq or not,” Sen. John McCain explained in 2008. “The next president of the United States is going to have to decide how we leave, when we leave and what we leave behind.”

President Obama, as we now know, decided to leave Iraq rather abruptly—and to leave behind a fragile, unfinished country. As Iraq limps into the unknown, many dangers and questions await. Because U.S. troops are in Kuwait or back in the states, Iraq will face those dangers alone and Washington will have little say in how those questions are addressed.

The debates over whether President Bush should have launched the war and over how President Obama ended it will go on for many years. Perhaps someday a consensus will emerge. But perhaps it won’t. It pays to recall that 36 years after the fall of Saigon, Americans are still debating the war in Vietnam.

Suffice it to say here that President Bush, after receiving approval from the Senate (77-23) and the House (296-133), ordered U.S. forces to take down Saddam Hussein’s regime because September 11 changed the very DNA of U.S. national-security policy. “Any administration in such a crisis,” as historian John Lewis Gaddis concludes in Surprise, Security and the American Experience, “would have had to rethink what it thought it knew about security and hence strategy.” Was deterrence any longer possible? Was containment viable? Was giving repeat-offenders like Saddam Hussein the benefit of the doubt responsible?

One by one, the Bush administration—and large, bipartisan majorities in Congress—answered those questions. And the answer to each was “no,” which is why September 11 led first to Afghanistan and then to Baghdad. This is perhaps the most fundamental way that September 11 is linked to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq: The latter did not plan or hatch the former, but the former taught Washington a lesson about the danger of failing to confront threats before they are fully formed. In the same manner, the appeasement of Hitler at Munich at once had nothing and everything to do with how America responded to Stalin and his successors during the Cold War.

As for President Obama’s decision to let Iraq stand or fall on its own, it should come as no surprise. It pays to recall that the centerpiece of President Obama’s foreign policy—indeed the very fuel for his White House run—was always withdrawing from Iraq. If nothing else, he deserves credit for keeping his word.

Of course, when it comes to national security, inconsistency would be preferable to instability—especially in the Persian Gulf.

“Our forces are good,” according to Col. Salam Khaled of the Iraqi army, “but not to a sufficient degree that allows them to face external and internal challenges alone. The loyalty of forces is not to their homeland. The loyalty is to the political parties and to the sects.”

It wasn’t as ignominious a picture as US helicopters frantically taking off from the roof of the American embassy in Saigon — the iconic image of defeat from the Vietnam War. But the sight of the last convoy leaving Iraqi soil nevertheless imparted a feeling of inexplicable sadness; a realization that the sacrifices made by the military and their families over the previous decade may have been wasted because a president was more interested in fulfilling a political promise than in seeing the Iraq mission through to a more successful conclusion.

The Iraqi people, deeply ambivalent toward America’s role in the country, appear to have mixed feelings about the end of our military’s combat operations. While celebrating the end of the occupation, there are many Iraqis who also wish America had stayed a little longer to allow the country to get on its feet and resist the pressure coming from Syria, Saudi Arabia, and especially Iran. And not surprisingly, our soldiers leave with a sense of pride in their accomplishments, relief that they are getting out of a dangerous place alive, and insisting that their mission was worth it.

Underscoring the ambivalence of the Iraqi people toward our withdrawal are the words of this schoolteacher from the deeply divided city of Tikrit — Saddam’s hometown and a place where Shia and Sunni divisions can turn deadly:

The American departure represents a joyous event, but our concerns are about the time after the departure,” the Tikrit schoolteacher said. “Absolutely, after the American withdrawal the divisions between Sunnis and Shiites will get worse and worse.

But the American government has left Iraq in a lurch. Iraq’s government is incapable of functioning in a way that adequately addresses the basic needs of the people. The Iraqi military is barely able to maintain domestic security against an array of enemies, much less meet the challenge of a foreign invasion. And Iraqi society is as fractured and riven by sectarian divisions as it ever has been.

Could any of this have been fixed by our continued military presence? Not alone, of course. But the US mission in Iraq was a stabilizing influence that might eventually have allowed the factions to coalesce, and given the government the confidence to resist Iranian influence — a prospect that will now loom large in the next few years as Iran will ratchet up the pressure using its surrogates and militias to potentially dominate the weak national government.

The challenges facing Iraq without the American military to backstop efforts to create a functioning democracy appear almost insurmountable. Corruption is rampant. Violence, although much reduced, still affects the daily lives of all Iraqis. And the legacy of Saddam and his regime still hangs over the nation he brutalized for three decades. There is zero trust between Sunni and Shia in Iraq — a consequence of Saddam keeping the lid on sectarian divisions by simply eliminating those who tried to stir the religious pot. And the Shias, oppressed for years under the dictator’s Sunni regime, refuse to forgive the Sunnis and to this day, seek to freeze them out of the economic and social life of the country.

“These politicians will lead the country into sedition and civil war. Iraq now is like a weak prey among neighboring beasts,” said one Shia shop owner in the southern city of Basra. With the Americans leaving, there is little chance that situation will change for the better anytime soon. The Iraqi military, while fairly competent in going after domestic terrorists, is in no shape to face the challenge of a foreign military intervention.

President Barack Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met at the White House on Monday to map out the future relationship between the two countries now that American combat troops will be out of Iraq by the end of this month.

While the president proclaimed that we leave Iraq with our “heads held high,” the re-emergence of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the increasing influence of Iran on Iraqi affairs, troubling indications of increased oppression by Maliki’s government, and the unstable political situation all point to the rising probability that the 4,400 Americans who died in Iraq may have given their lives in vain.

Indeed, the Washington Post editorial board took the president to task for drawing a “too rosy” picture of Iraq in his remarks following the meeting with Maliki. During those remarks, the president stated no less than 5 times that the war was over, as if he was reminding voters that he kept his “promise” to end the conflict.

Beyond that, there was a strange disconnect between the president’s words and the reality on the ground in Iraq. For example, Obama described Iraq as “sovereign, self-reliant, and democratic” despite the fact that it is clear that Iranian influence is guiding Iraqi foreign policy, that the Iraqi government will rely heavily on America for economic and military aid for the foreseeable future, and that the country is hardly “democratic” in any meaningful sense of the word. Freedom House, which rates countries based on their political and civil liberties, lists Iraq as “Not Free” (“Free” and “Partially Free” are the other designations), and gives the Iraqi government a grade of 5 out of 7 for political freedoms and 6 out of 7 for civil liberties – with 1 being the best grade and 7 the worst.

Freedom House notes:

Iraq is not an electoral democracy. Although it has conducted meaningful elections, political participation and decision-making in the country remain seriously impaired by sectarian and insurgent violence, widespread corruption, and the influence of foreign powers.

Obama also stated that Iraq was “working” to build “efficient and independent and transparent” institutions despite the fact that the Iraqi government is considered wildly corrupt and secretive by Freedom House.

But this didn’t stop the president from trying to cover himself in glory for ending a war he opposed and negotiating a withdrawal that is a disaster. In what CBS News referred to as a “victory lap,” the president used the occasion of Maliki’s visit as part of a carefully staged series of events to publicize the end of the war. The show began on Saturday with the president thanking service members attending the Army-Navy football game and continued with his appearance on 60 Minutes Sunday evening.

Following his meetings with Maliki, the president and prime minister traveled to Arlington National Cemetery for a wreath laying ceremony. Then on Wednesday, the president will be at Fort Bragg addressing the troops, continuing his self-congratulatory tour. While 78% of Americans approve of the withdrawal from Iraq, many analysts believe that the White House didn’t try hard enough to maintain a minimum security force to not only protect Americans still in Iraq, but to deter Iran from stirring up trouble.

This is significant because not only is there the threat of Iran fomenting sectarian strife through its Shia militas, but al-Qaeda in Iraq appears to be making a comeback. One American military observer said that the terrorists may be confined to the north of the country, but carry out about “30 attacks a week” across the country. Just two weeks ago, a car bomb blew up outside of a prison, killing at least 19 and wounded dozens. Two other bombings killed 15 more in Baghdad and another 19 in Basra. The most spectacular recent attack was in August when more than 70 Shia pilgrims were massacred in several different suicide bomb attacks during Ramadan.

At the recently held Cannes G-20 Summit, the host, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, unaware of the fact that his lapel microphone was live, said to U.S. President Barack Obama, “I cannot stand Netanyahu. He’s a liar.”  And, according to the report by French media website Arret Sur Images, Obama responded with, “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day.”  The shameful and hypocritical behavior of Sarkozy and Obama, not to be outdone by Britain’s Prime Minister Cameron, speaks volumes about their perfidy and treachery.

Earlier this year, Sarkozy and Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron threatened Israel with severe consequences if Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not accept the Hamas-Fatah unification, and agree to their demands as a price for the resumption of “peace” talks.  Sarkozy (and Cameron) hinted he will certainly vote for a Palestinian State. Although France ultimately abstained on Palestinian statehood, France voted for the Palestinians to have full membership in UNESCO.

French treachery vis-a-vis Israel has a history.  And, on the eve of the 1967 Six-Day War it was on full display, when French President Charles de Gaulle decided to reverse the country’s foreign policy to one in favor of the Arabs, and placed an embargo on weapons deliveries to Israel, despite France’s contractual agreements with Israel. De Gaulle, who had served as founder and president of France’s Fifth Republic from 1959-1969, had forged an alliance with the Jewish state during a time when both France and Israel fought Arab nationalism in Algeria and Nasser’s Egypt respectively.

In 1960, France promised to supply Israel with 200 AMX-13 tanks and 72 Mystere fighter jets over the next 10-years.  On June 2, 1967, three days before the war broke out, de Gaulle cut Israel off cold.  He told his cabinet that “France will not give its approval to, and still less, support the first nation to use weapons.” De Gaulle’s statement was hypocritical and treacherous since he had already decided to abandon Israel and embrace the Arabs. On November 27, 1967, in a televised news conference, de Gaulle described the Jewish people as “this elite people, sure of themselves and domineering.”

Much of the instability and violence in today’s Middle East has its antecedents in the actions taken by the British and French governments.  While World War I was still going on they met and began to draw the map of the Middle East and drew up what would became known as the Sykes-Picot secret agreement of May 1916.  Following the end of war and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire they created new and mostly artificial nations such as Iraq, Trans-Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, while abandoning minorities such as the Kurds.
On August 10, 1920, a pact between the allies (Britain and France) and the representatives of the Ottoman Turkish government, known as the Treaty of Sevres, abolished the Ottoman Empire and obligated Turkey to renounce all rights over the Arab Middle East and North Africa.  The treaty also provided for the establishment of an autonomous Kurdistan.

The Turks rejected the Treaty of Sevres, and in 1923, Turkey was recognized as an independent nation, with the Treaty of Lausanne subsequently replacing Sevres.  Under its terms, Turkey was no longer obligated to grant the Kurds autonomy.  The treaty divided the Kurdish region among Turkey, Iran, and Syria – with British and French collusion.

Syria became a hodge-podge of ethnic and religious groups.  The French, who were wary of Sunni-Arab nationalism, granted autonomous status to the Alawites. They created an officer cadre from amongst the Alawites, which eventually gave rise to the Assad dictatorships, and Alawite domination of the Syrian military. Today’s upheaval in Syria has a great deal to do with those early French policies. The majority Sunni-Arabs resent the Alawite monopoly on power, and they remember (as the Kurds do) the betrayal of the French.

Vice President Joe Biden announced the beginning of a new American relationship with Iraq during a surprise visit to Baghdad. With only weeks remaining before American troops are scheduled to withdraw from the country, Biden’s pronouncement comes as sectarian tensions and violence threaten to tear Iraq apart.

Biden told reporters at a joint press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that the exodus of the remaining 13,000 US troops from eight Iraqi bases at the end of December 2011 marked “a new beginning…that will not only benefit the United States of America and Iraq… it will benefit the region and will benefit the world.”

While Biden claimed the new US-Iraqi partnership would “bring stability to the region,” he acknowledged that America’s departure from Iraq would not remove “security concerns.” Nevertheless, Biden was “confident that [the Iraqi government] is fully capable of handling those internal security concerns.”

Unfortunately, Biden’s optimism isn’t equally shared by Iraqi Prime Minster Maliki or by American military commanders. While Maliki didn’t address Iraq’s security capabilities at the press conference, his feelings were best expressed days earlier when he said Iraq “remains in the circle of danger” due to rising sectarian violence.

For his part, General Lloyd Austin, the top American general in Iraq, said only a week before Biden arrived in Baghdad that the exodus of the remaining US troops would be followed by increased terrorist operations by al-Qaeda and other Sunni insurgent groups.

Austin’s assessment was echoed by Iraqi Interior Ministry official, Adnan al-Asadi, who said al-Qaeda and its affiliates have been given an opening to revive operations in former strongholds in Iraq’s northern and western provinces.

According to al-Asadi, “When the US withdrew from this triangle, which is Diyala, Salahuddin, Anbar and Mosul, a gap was left behind. Al-Qaeda has redeployed in the area.”

While Sunni-led al-Qaeda remains a serious threat to Iraqi stability, General Austin was also quick to point out that Iraq’s Shiite militias — all supplied with weapons, training and funding by Iran — were equally dangerous. According to Austin, the Shiite militias are “really focused on creating a Lebanese Hezbollah kind of organization in this country,” one that would be “a government within a government.”

In fact, at least three Shiite militias are reported to be active in Iraq, the most prominent being the Promised Day Brigade, which is under the control of anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Not surprisingly, followers of al-Sadr had greeted Biden’s Iraq visit by holding rallies in Baghdad and Basra, chanting, “Biden get out of Iraq” and “No to America.”

Unfortunately, the prospects of both al-Qaeda and Shiite militias ramping up their terrorist attacks once American troops leave is quite disconcerting given the record levels of violence both groups are currently inflicting upon the Iraqi populace.

According to Iraqi government figures, scores of suicide bombings and other attacks by Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias in October 2011 killed 258 Iraqi civilians and police — or about eight people a day — the highest death toll of the year.

November was also a deadly month, as Iraqis were witness to a suicide bombing at a military base in the Iraqi town of Taji that killed 25 civilians and soldiers; two suicide bombings at a marketplace in the southern city of Basra that killed 25 people; and a series of bombings in and around Baghdad that killed 13 people.

“The attacks on Christians continue and the world remains totally silent. It’s as if we’ve been swallowed up by the night” — Iraqi Christian

Egypt’s Maspero massacre—where the military killed dozens of Christians protesting the destruction of their churches—dominates October’s persecution headlines.  Facts and details concerning the military’s “crimes against humanity” are documented in this report, and include videos of armored-vehicles running over civilians, a catalog of lies and deceitful tactics employed by Egypt’s rulers and state media, and other matters overlooked in the West.

More damning evidence continues to emerge: not only did Egypt’s military plan to massacre Christians to teach them a “lesson” never to protest again, but “death squads” were deployed up buildings the night before to snipe at protesters.  Instead of trying the soldiers who intentionally ran-over demonstrators, the military has been randomly arresting Copts, simply “for being Christian.” Finally, the fact-finding commission of Egypt’s National Council for Human Rights just submitted its report which, as expected, “whitewashes” the military’s role, including by “asserting that no live ammunition was fired on the protesters by the military, as the army only fired blanks in the air to disperse the protesters,” a claim many eyewitnesses reject out of hand.

Meanwhile, not only are Western governments apathetic, but it was revealed that “Obama’s top Muslim advisor blocks Middle Eastern Christians’ access to White House.”  Newt Gingrich asserted that Obama’s “strategy in the Middle East is such a total grotesque failure” and likened the “Arab spring” to an “anti-Christian spring.”  Ann Widdecombe accused the British government of “double standards in its threats to cut aid to countries which persecute gay people while turning a blind eye to persecution against Christians.”  Even Christian pastors in the West, apparently more concerned about appearing tolerant and in “dialogue” with Muslims, are reluctant to mention persecution to their flock.

Categorized by theme, the rest of October’s batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is hardly limited to) the following accounts, listed according to theme and in alphabetical order by country, not necessarily severity.

Churches

Afghanistan: Ten years after the U.S. invaded and overthrew the Taliban—at a cost of more than 1,700 U.S. military lives and $440 billion in taxpayer dollars—the State Department revealed that Afghanistan’s last Christian church was destroyed. The report further makes clear that the Afghan government—installed by the U.S.—is partially responsible for such anti-Christian sentiments, for instance, by upholding apostasy laws, which make it a criminal offence for Muslims to convert to other religions.

Indonesia: Muslims and authorities expelled Christians from their church and shut it down “for allegedly engaging in ‘proselytizing’ in a predominantly Muslim area.”  As in previous cases when churches were seized, “the fundamentalists were aided and abetted by the local administration.” Also, the Muslim behind a September church attack that left three dead confessed that he was operating under his jihad leader’s orders, “based on the Koran and Sunna.”

Kazakhstan: The Muslim majority nation enacted new laws further restricting freedom of religion: “All registered churches must now re-register with the government, and only churches meeting new criteria will be registered.” Accordingly, “police and secret police agents reportedly raided a worship meeting of officially registered Protestant church New Life, saying that under the new Religion Law the congregation ‘cannot meet outside its legal address.’ During the raid, a 17-year old woman was hit by a policeman, leaving her unconscious.”

Sudan: Soon after President Bashir “confirmed plans to adopt an entirely Islamic constitution and strengthen sharia law,” “emboldened” Muslims attacked Christians trying to construct a church, “claiming that Christianity was no longer an accepted religion in the country.” Likewise, authorities threatened to demolish three church buildings “as part of a long-standing bid to rid Sudan of Christianity.”

Christian Symbols

Egypt: A Christian student was strangled and beaten to death by his Muslim teacher and fellow students for refusing to cover his cross. When the headmaster was informed of the attack in progress, he ignored it and “continued to sip his tea.”  In the words of one prominent Egyptian commentator: “a teacher forced a student to take off the crucifix he wore, and when the Christian student stood firm for his rights, the teacher quarreled with him, joined by some of the students; he was beastly assaulted until his last breath left him.”

Saudi Arabia: A Colombian soccer-player “was arrested by the Saudi moral police after customers in a Riyadh shopping mall expressed outrage over the sports player’s religious tattoos, which included the face of Jesus of Nazareth on his arm….  A similar event occurred in Saudi Arabia last year when a Romanian player kissed the tattoo of a cross he had on his arm after scoring a goal, which also caused public outrage.”

Maldives: Police arrested a 30-year-old teacher from India for having a Bible and rosary, finally deporting him after a two-week interrogation. According to the principal, he “was a very good teacher, we’ve not had any complaints of him in the past.” Such cases are not aberrant: “Last year, Maldivian authorities rescued another Christian teacher from India when Muslim parents of her students threatened to throw her into the sea for ‘preaching Christianity’ after she drew a compass in class, which they alleged was a cross.”

Apostasy, Blasphemy, Proselytism

India: A mufti summoned a Christian priest to appear before his court: according to the mufti, the priest “is involved in converting young Muslim boys and girls to Christianity. This warrants action as per Islamic law….  I will take all necessary measures in exercise of the powers vested in me by Islamic Sharia.”

Iran: Militants with suspected ties to Iranian security threatened to kill nearly a dozen evangelical Christians who fled Iran; unless they “repent and ask forgiveness” and return to Islam, they must die.  Likewise, a “group of four officers engaged in a commando-style raid on the house” of a Muslim convert to Christianity, arresting him, confiscating his Bible, and “transferring him to an unknown location….  His family was also threatened to remain silent and not to talk about this incident to anyone.” Also, a Christian named “Muhammad” was arrested, interrogated “for the charge of Christianity.” And Iran’s Supreme Court has ordered the retrial of the pastor sentenced to death for refusing to renounce his Christian beliefs, partially because “Iran is feeling the pressure” from the international community, since the mainstream media actually reported the pastor’s case.

Reaction on the Left to President Obama’s announcement that the remaining 40,000 troops in Iraq would be coming home at the end of the year — with no residual force to counter the Iranian threat — has not been surprising. With a mixture of triumphalism and hate, leftists are celebrating their victory; not over al-Qaeda or the achievement of democracy in a totalitarian prison state, but over their domestic political enemies, while still advocating the prosecution of “criminals” who led the battle to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein.

Despite the fact that George W. Bush has been out of office for nearly three years, there are many on the Left who can’t shake their feelings of loathing and hate for the man who led the nation for 8 years, and who took us to war in Iraq. Bush Derangement Syndrome is alive and well among leftists and it colors their analysis and criticism of the Iraq War to this day.

Perhaps most remarkable of all is the surety with which the Left has pronounced history’s judgment on the war as a universal failure, a blunder, a waste. History doesn’t give out grades before the results are in. And Iraq, as it has been since the beginning, is a work in progress. That progress has been slow at times, but a foundation for democratization has been built in a sea of Islamist totalitarianism. Although not perfect, what we have today is nascent democracy where before there was only mass oppression and killing. For the US, Iraq today serves as a vital strategic asset for America in the Middle East — all now to be given away by Obama to Iran. And the Left applauds.

It is impossible for anyone today to see how the Iraqi experiment will play out over the next few years. Yes, some of the immediate results are not good, even if we had been able to keep a small force garrisoned for a few years. But to believe that this can’t change is to ignore the underlying historical forces that the liberation of Iraq has unleashed. Indeed, dismissing the idea that a struggling democracy on Tehran’s borders doesn’t constitute a threat to the mullahs’ total control is to ignore Iran’s own actions in seeking to destroy the Iraqi government in its cradle. The Saudis, too, were worried enough about contagion from Iraq to spend billions of dollars building a fence to keep the disease out. The Iraqi experiment, consequently, serves as a threat to Islamist totalitarianism in the region and, therefore, serves the interests of America and freedom.

But leftists are not interested in these humanistic endeavors or American achievements — which explains their celebration of Obama’s surrender in Iraq. Successful democracy in Iraq would have meant the discrediting of the Left’s ferocious opposition to the entire operation. In celebrating America’s willing defeat in Iraq, therefore, the Left is cheering the defeat of democracy and security in the fragile, developing country, which makes the progressives’ triumphalism and hate all the more disturbing and hypocritical.

This perversity could not have been more adequately expressed as when radical leftist Tom Hayden gleefully wrote in The Nation that the Iraq decision was a “stunning…victory for the American peace movement.” Not a victory for Iraq, but for Hayden and his allies. Hayden doesn’t exhibit the slightest concern for a fledgling democracy in need of support to preserve the precious gains it has already made; he shrugs off the reality that the country has been “delivered… to the orbit” of the fanatical, despotic mullahcracy next door. And this is a person who purports to care about human rights.

In “Good Riddance to a Woebegone War,” Paul Pillar, writing at The National Interest, encapsulates the view that history is so judgmental that it renders its verdict with blinders on; he refuses to acknowledge an unknowable future:

The return of the last combat troops from Iraq will be a good time to reflect on the nature and broader consequences of what future historians will regard as one of the biggest blunders in U.S. history. That reflection can consider how a small number of determined advocates of war were able to use the post-9/11 political milieu and scary themes about dictators giving weapons to terrorists to get enough people to go along with their idea. The reflection also can consider the full range of costs and damage to U.S. interests, from the more than four thousand Americans dead and tens of thousands wounded, to the trillions of dollars of direct and indirect fiscal and economic losses, to the tarring of America’s standing abroad and the boost the war gave to America’s extremist enemies.

Much of what Pillar writes is simply untrue. In the first place, it is not clear at all that our “standing abroad” could have gotten much worse than it was before the invasion. Whether we are loved or hated, despite notions of “soft power” to the contrary, the world can’t ignore us and must deal with us as we are, or as we choose to be.

The assumption that history’s judgment, flowing from the immediate past to the immediate future, is set in stone and unchangeable is disingenuous. The last Iraqi election saw a secular, nationalistic party, the Iraqi National Movement, out-poll the coalition of religious parties led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. A party not even in existence for a year had gained two more seats in the Iraqi parliament than Maliki’s coalition, a political power in Iraq since 2004. This was a huge success. Would a future Iraqi government made up of secular parties be able to resist Iranian influence and work to heal the nation’s sectarian divide? Perhaps the better question is: Does Pillar honestly believe that this objective could be better achieved if Iraq is left to twist in the wind?

You’ve got to hand it to President Obama. To be able to look the camera square in the eye and declare that retreat from Iraq is victory, failure is success, and emboldening an implacable enemy is in our national interest, is a feat worthy of a snake oil salesman.

What the president is selling, however, is a far more potent and deadly poison: the nonsensical belief that the vital interests of America should be subsumed to the nebulous doctrine that Iraq — and by extension the rest of the Middle East — will be a better, more secure place without American troops. This, despite ample evidence that the influence of Iran will be unchecked in what is still a nascent democracy, struggling with divisions and factions that leave it particularly vulnerable to the machinations of the mullahs in Tehran.

In short, the president thought it more important to keep a campaign promise than protect the hard-fought gains of our military, ignoring facts on the ground and even the private pleas from Iraqi leaders in the process.

Now those hollow words and sentiments spoken by the president at a snap news conference called last Friday are going to be put to the test by history. And one needn’t be an expert to envision how, in going against the advice of his generals on the ground (something he railed against President Bush for doing during the 2008 presidential campaign) to maintain a strong US military presence in Iraq, the president’s blunder will lead to an unmitigated disaster to US strategic interests in the region.

Unnecessarily, the president has elevated Iranian prestige to new heights, cheering Tehran’s allies in Syria and Turkey who see any retreat by America in the Middle East as a boon to their hegemonic designs. And while Saudi Arabian ambivalence toward the Shia majority government in Iraq is hard to miss, the Saudis nevertheless fear Iranian designs on their oil fields, and the large Shia minority that inhabits that area of the kingdom. Other Sunni-majority Gulf states look with equal trepidation on an emboldened Iran. The retreat of American troops from Iraq is as much a disaster for them — even if they would never admit it publicly — as it is for the Iraqi people.

An independent Iraq will not survive the president’s perfidy — a betrayal of those who fought, those who died, and those who worked so long to build a civil society shattered by war and sectarian conflict. It is breathtaking in its totality. With one stroke, the administration has assured an enemy who will almost certainly possess nuclear weapons in the near future, a base from which its terrorist proxies will be able to operate. The Iraqi government, which already has demonstrated it can’t — or won’t — resist Iranian interference in its internal affairs, will now achieve full satellite status; an appendage of Iranian policy no more independent than a Medieval vassal state.

The question that we should be asking is how serious was the president in his negotiations with Baghdad to keep a sizable force to train the Iraqi army, and help protect the country from being overwhelmed by the Iranians? According to Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy’s Cable blog, a deal was to be had on the touchy subject of immunity for our soldiers from the capriciousness of the Iraqi justice system, but the administration bungled the negotiations. Rogin quotes Marisa Cochrane Sullivan, managing director at the Institute for the Study of War, as saying, “From the beginning, the talks unfolded in a way where they [were] largely driven by domestic political concerns, both in Washington and Baghdad. Both sides let politics drive the process, rather than security concerns,” she said.

President Obama has announced that all U.S. troops will leave Iraq by the end of the year, with the exception of 160 soldiers to guard the embassy. The premature withdrawal will force the Iraqi leadership into Iran’s arms, bringing the regime closer to its dream of creating a Shiite crescent to destroy Israel. And in a shrewd political maneuver, President Obama took credit for the “success” and left out the inconvenient fact that the timeline he followed was signed under President Bush.

The administration is deceitfully saying that this was the plan all along when that is demonstrably false. The U.S. pressured the Iraqis to come to an agreement on extending the U.S. stay into 2012, and almost every Iraqi political party approved. General Lloyd Austin asked that 14-18,000 troops remain; a number that did not make President Obama happy. The number was reduced to 10,000, earning the support of Secretary of State Clinton. That, too, was too much for President Obama. It fell to 3-4,000, raising significant concern about whether it’d be enough. Now, it has been announced that all of the remaining 39,000 troops will come home by Christmas, except for 160 attached to the embassy in Baghdad.

Left behind will be 5,000 security contractors for the State Department and 9,500 for the Defense Department. Thousands of more American contractors will stay for logistical support. Also staying in Iraq will be Iran’s proxies like Moqtada al-Sadr, who vowed to target every single U.S. soldier remaining in Iraq next year. Let’s hope he doesn’t view the contractors as legitimate targets, because the U.S. won’t have the forces on the ground to fight his forces. Other Iranian-backed militias like Kaitab Hezbollah, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the Promised Day Brigade will also still be around, and will outnumber the Americans.

It is true that the final decision to carry out a complete withdrawal was based on the Iraqi refusal to grant immunity to American soldiers. Prime Minister al-Maliki wanted to grant them immunity, but it was politically impossible because the Sadrists could bring down his government. The U.S. was defeated politically by al-Sadr, but it didn’t have to be that way.

The U.S. could have put the soldiers on the payroll of the U.S. embassy, automatically granting them diplomatic immunity, instead of seeking the approval of the Iraqi parliament. The issue would have been separated from the negotiations. Additionally, the U.S. failed to reach out to other Iraqi political parties and figures, such as Iyad Allawi, a secular Shiite opposed to Iran, whose support could have allowed al-Maliki to approve immunity. There was already bad blood between Allawi and the Obama Administration. After Allawi won the elections in 2010, he complained that the U.S. wasn’t supporting his attempts to form a government because it wanted to appease Iran.

As a result of this diplomatic failure, the U.S. gave an “unprecedented strategic gift to the Islamic Republic of Iran,” in the words of Mohsen Milani of the University of South Florida. Frederick Kagan, one of the architects of the surge, said that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq was Iran’s “single most important demand it has pursued for years.” It is sometimes argued that Iranian domination of Iraq is inevitable, but that isn’t necessarily true. Less than 20 percent of Iraqi Shiites look favorably upon Iranian influence, and in the last elections, the pro-Iranian parties lost in a landslide.

There is a direct correlation between U.S. strength and Iraqi willingness to stand up to its enemies. When the security situation was at its worst in 2006, the majority of Iraqis wanted U.S. forces to depart. Once the surge began, al-Maliki took on the Iranian-supported militias. Moqtada al-Sadr fled to Iran. The Iraqis looked upon the U.S. presence more favorably as the country stabilized. This summer, when Iran escalated attacks on American forces, the U.S. said it would not stand for it and would take action. The Iraqis privately confronted Iran, and the attacks sharply and quickly fell. On the other hand, when the U.S. declined to back Iraq in its confrontation with Syria in 2009, it decided to mend its ties with the Assad regime. The Iraqi government is now taking Assad’s side as he tries to crush the uprising against him.