Worse is the fate that awaits non-Muslim women, such as the Yazidi minorities of northern Iraq. The surviving victims have given lurid, medieval descriptions of the Caliphate’s slave markets:
They put us up for sale. Many groups of fighters came to buy. . . . Sometimes they brought girls back who had been beaten, injured. When they recovered, they were sold again. Eventually, they took all the girls.
ISIS’s “Research and Fatwa Department” did, of course, make sure to issue a pamphlet carefully outlining rules for the treatment of slaves, including sexual relations with those who have not yet reached puberty. It was blandly titled “Questions and Answers on Taking Captives and Slaves,” and came complete with Quranic citations.
Given what we have seen, this shouldn’t surprise anybody. If people are only willing to open their eyes and look to the sources of Islamic thought they will see that subjugation of women falls right in line with the vision for a “modern” Caliphate.
LIE #11
* * *
“IRAN CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A NUCLEAR WEAPON.”
“Nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction have no place in Iran’s security and defense doctrine, and contradict our fundamental religious and ethical convictions.”
—Iranian president Hassan Rouhani
“We are, in fact, closer than ever to the good, comprehensive deal that we have been seeking, and if we can get there, the entire world will be safer.”
—Secretary of State John Kerry
Barack Obama seemingly has an obsession with making a nuclear deal with the leaders of Iran. Back in 2007, he talked eagerly about engaging in “aggressive personal diplomacy” with the clerics in Tehran. Even Hillary Clinton mocked Obama at the time as “naïve” on foreign policy.
If only we’d talk to our enemies. It’s a refrain we’ve heard many times in history; often from people who wrongly assume that every leader is rational and receptive to diplomacy. In fact, that was the stance of many on the left for most of the Cold War as they railed against Ronald Reagan, the “warmonger” who led a military buildup to confront the Soviet Union. Time and again, we heard them argue for “peaceful coexistence” with the Soviets. Negotiation, discussion.
When Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II and Lech Walesa and others stood up to the threat, and then toppled Soviet governments, the lies those leftists had told were exposed. In fact, we learned, it was true that many Soviets wanted to invade or destroy the United States. They had plans for conquering Western Europe and then America and believed that communism was the future for mankind.
The Left was wrong during the Cold War. And they are even more wrong today about Iran.
After his reelection in 2012, Obama doubled down on his pursuit of Iran, calling for “a more serious, substantive” discussions about their nuclear ambitions.
Three years later, after negotiating a deal that would allow Iran to develop nuclear capability for “peaceful” purposes, Secretary of State John Kerry gloated, “This is an agreement that is based on transparency, accountability, verification.”
Echoing Kerry, President Obama has repeatedly claimed that Iran has no aspirations for a nuclear weapon—citing an alleged fatwa from Iranian supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that possessing such a weapon was anti-Islamic.
Obama has celebrated, in his words, “a deal that allows them to have peaceful nuclear power but gives us the absolute assurance that is verifiable that they are not pursuing a nuclear weapon.” The president added that “if in fact what they claim is true, which is they have no aspiration to get a nuclear weapon, that in fact, according to their Supreme Leader, it would be contrary to their faith to obtain a nuclear weapon, if that is true, there should be the possibility of getting a deal.”
Okay, fair enough. But that is not true.
As a recent article in U.S. News & World Report concluded, there is no evidence of any fatwa of this sort from Khamenei—and even if there were, why on earth would we believe him? James S. Robbins, a senior fellow in national security affairs at the American Foreign Policy Council, did some additional research on this supposed fatwa, writing:
The nearest thing to an official text can be found on the web page of Iran’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations. This version, dated Feb. 19, 2012, declares that “The Iranian nation has never pursued and will never pursue nuclear weapons. There is no doubt that the decision makers in the countries opposing us know well that Iran is not after nuclear weapons, because the Islamic Republic, logically, religiously and theoretically, considers the possession of nuclear weapons a grave sin and believes the proliferation of such weapons is senseless, destructive and dangerous.” That’s all well and good, but it is not exactly a fatwa. It makes no reference to the Quran or any other Islamic text or tradition, as other religious edicts traditionally do. It reads more like a statement of government policy, and as such, can be changed with the circumstances. In fact, even genuine fatwas can be amended and changed by circumstances.
In 2012, Alireza Forghani, a former Iranian governor and advisor to Ayatollah Khamenei, wrote an article, widely publicized in Iran, arguing that, in fact, Muslims must have access to nuclear weapons. “The Islamic world should rise up and shout that a nuclear bomb is our right,” Forghani wrote, “and disrupt the dreams of America and Israel.”
Here’s the truth, and it’s pretty simple: The radicals in charge of Iran seek our destruction. They want to kill us. But don’t just take my word for it—they say it themselves. There’s a mural on display in the Iranian capital of Tehran—a mural that would not be permitted unless it reflected the views of the Iranian government—that has the phrase “Down with the U.S.A.” printed on it in English. That’s bad enough, but far worse is the actual translation in Persian, written at the bottom of the mural: “Death to the U.S.A.”
“Death to America” is a chant that Iranians utter all the time—during political rallies and even during Friday prayers. It’s often accompanied by a burning of the American flag.
In March 2015 Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader and a leading Muslim cleric, shouted “Death to America” during a speech to a frenzied crowd in Iran. He said this while President Obama was citing Khamenei himself as a source for why we should trust Iran on a nuclear deal.
We are negotiating with these people?
We are making it possible for them to obtain nuclear capabilities?
Are we insane?
Iran does not want to be our friend. They do not want peaceful coexistence.
They want us, the Great Satan, gone.
To say otherwise is a very dangerous lie.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, understands this. Netanyahu has told Americans that a nuclear Iran is a far greater threat than ISIS. He has pleaded with Americans to listen to his warnings and has been virtually ignored by the Obama administration. The president even refused to meet with Netanyahu on a recent visit to Washington, D.C. The frosty relationship with the White House notwithstanding, Netanyahu found a welcome reception for his message in the halls of the U.S. Congress, where he was given the hero’s welcome he deserved.
“Once Iran, the preeminent terrorist state of our time, acquires nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu warned, “it will be a hundred times more dangerous, a thousand times more dangerous and more destructive.”
Netanyahu sees right through the bald-faced lies Iranian diplomats tell the West—and there are plenty of them. For example, referring to the Old Testament, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, said, “If you read the Book of Esther, you will see that it was the Iranian king who saved the Jews.” Iran, you see, is an historic friend to the Jewish people, and has absolutely no designs on destroying Israel. These are the kind of statements that get sent around in press releases and fact sheets by the Iranian Information Ministry, the U.S. State Department, and other regime lackeys.
But dig a little deeper and you’ll see that Iran openly admits its intention to pursu
e nuclear weapons and destroy Israel. They tend to say these things in Farsi so that they don’t get played on a loop in Western media, but consider the following quotes:
• IRANIAN PRESIDENT MOHAMMAD KHATAMI (2000): “If we abide by real legal laws, we should mobilize the whole Islamic world for a sharp confrontation with the Zionist regime . . . if we abide by the Koran, all of us should mobilize to kill.”
• AYATOLLAH ALI KHAMENEI (2001): “It is the mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to erase Israel from the map of the region.”
• FORMER COMMANDER OF IRAN’S REVOLUTIONARY GUARD CORPS, YAHYA RAHIM SAFAVI (2008): “With God’s help the time has come for the Zionist regime’s death sentence.”
• KHAMENEI’S REPRESENTATIVE TO THE MOUSTAZAFAN FOUNDATION, MOHAMMAD HASSAN RAHIMIAN (2010): “We have manufactured missiles that allow us, when necessary to replace [sic] Israel in its entirety with a big holocaust.”
• COMMANDER OF THE BASIJ PARAMILITARY FORCE MOHAMMAD REZA NAQDI (2011): “We recommend them [the Zionists] to pack their furniture and return to their countries. And if they insist on staying, they should know that a time will arrive when they will not even have time to pack their suitcases.”
• AYATOLLAH KHAMENEI (2012): “The Zionist regime is a cancerous tumor and it will be removed.”
• MEMBER OF THE ASSEMBLY OF EXPERTS AHMAD ALAMOLHODA (2013): “The destruction of Israel is the idea of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and is one of the pillars of the Iranian Islamic regime. We cannot claim that we have no intention of going to war with Israel.”
• KHAMENEI’S REPRESENTATIVE IN THE REVOLUTIONARY GUARD, HOJATOLESLAM ALI SHIRAZI (2013): “The Zionist regime will soon be destroyed, and this generation will be witness to its destruction.”
• AYATOLLAH KHAMENEI (2014): “This barbaric, wolf-like & infanticidal regime of Israel which spares no crime has no cure but to be annihilated.”
• DEPUTY HEAD OF THE REVOLUTIONARY GUARD HOSSEIN SALAMI (2014): “We will chase you [Israelis] house to house and will take revenge for every drop of blood of our martyrs in Palestine, and this is the beginning point of Islamic nations awakening for your defeat.”
• HOSSEIN SALAMI (2014): “Today we are aware of how the Zionist regime is slowly being erased from the world, and indeed, soon, there will be no such thing as the Zionist regime on Planet Earth.”
• SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE COMMITTEE FOR SUPPORT FOR THE PALESTINIAN INTIFADA, HOSSEIN SHEIKHOLESLAM (2014): “The issue of Israel’s destruction is important, no matter the method. We will obviously implement the strategy of the Imam Khomeini and the Leader [Khamenei] on the issue of destroying the Zionists. The region will not be quiet so long as Israel exists in it. . . .”
• COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE REVOLUTIONARY GUARD MOHAMMAD ALI JAFARI (2015): “The Revolutionary Guards will fight to the end of the Zionist regime. . . . We will not rest easy until this epitome of vice is totally deleted from the region’s geopolitics.”
Threatening the annihilation of a nuclear-armed country is not something that a government that acts rationally or sees things through the lens of self-interest does. As discussed in chapter 1, Iran’s leadership is guided by a belief in the impending return of the Twelfth Imam, a return that coincides with the destruction of the world and the Day of Judgment. According to various Hadith, the return of the Mahdi is preceded by total conflict that envelops the Middle East. Iranian regime officials have stated that the Mahdi cannot come under the current circumstances; only war with and the eventual destruction of Israel can bring about the End Times. As Muhammad said according to one Hadith:
The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him. . . .”
In other words, annihilating Israel is the next step to ensuring the return of the Mahdi.
Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s last speech at the United Nations in 2012 was filled with rhetoric about the Shia prophecy of the return of the Twelfth Imam. “God Almighty has promised us a man of kindness, a man who loves people and loves absolute justice, a man who is a perfect human being and is named Imam al-Mahdi, a man who will come in the company of Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, and the righteous,” he said. “The arrival of the Ultimate Savior will mark a new beginning, a rebirth and a resurrection.” Remember, Ahmadinejad’s insistence that the Mahdi is coming was not a closed-door speech at a mosque in Tehran; it was an address to the most prestigious international forum in the world.
Other members of Iran’s political-religious establishment see their nation’s destiny as linked to the Mahdi’s emergence, and see events in Iran’s past and future as signs of his return. Reuters reported that Ruhollah Hosseinian, a politician and Islamic scholar, called the country’s 1979 revolution “the prelude to the appearance of the Mahdi.” He also sees the alliance of Iranian forces with Hezbollah in Syria as the fulfillment of an eighth-century prophecy and another “sign of the coming of his holiness”—because one Islamic prophecy speaks of armies “with yellow flags” like those that Hezbollah flies.
Iran analyst Saeed Ghasseminejad, writing in the Times of Israel, reported a conversation between one of Iran’s nuclear scientists—later killed by a car bomb—and Ayatollah Azizollah Khoshvaght, a member of Supreme Leader Khamenei’s inner circle. The scientist asked Ayatollah Khoshvaght when the Mahdi would appear, and Khoshvaght replied: “It depends on what you are doing in Natanz.” Natanz, of course, is one of Iran’s main nuclear facilities.
According to Ghasseminejad, another cleric, Ayatollah Ali Saeedi—the supreme leader’s personal representative to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—reportedly claimed: “Ayatollah Khamenei is preparing Mahdi’s reappearance and IRGC is the instrument to do it.” Iran’s top leaders see themselves as personal instruments for bringing about the Mahdi’s return.
These are the fervent beliefs of the men and women who sat across from U.S. diplomats in Geneva, negotiating over the legitimacy of the Iranian nuclear program.
If Iran obtains a nuclear weapon, there is the distinct possibility, if not likelihood, it will use it to destroy Israel and threaten the United States.
We know this because its leaders have said so over and over again.
LIE #12
* * *
“THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD IS A MODERATE, MAINSTREAM ISLAMIC GROUP.”
“The term ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ . . . is an umbrella term for a variety of movements, in the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried Al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam. . . . They have pursued social ends, a betterment of the political order. . . .”
—Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, 2011
“Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Koran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope. Allahu-Akbar! Allahu-Akbar!”
—Muslim Brotherhood chant
Hassan al-Banna created the Muslim Brotherhood, or Ikhwan (pronounced “ik-wahn”) as it’s called in Arabic, in 1928 as a way of reestablishing the Caliphate. Since that time it has counted among its members jihadist luminaries such as Sayyid Qutb and Ayman al-Zawahiri. The sprawling group now has chapters in countries around the world, including a well-connected and increasingly powerful American one.
In 2011, the Brotherhood’s large Egyptian arm seized power after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak during the Arab Spring. They did this with the active, even vocal backing of the Obama administration. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with then–Muslim Brotherhood ruler Mohammed Morsi in Cairo. (Three years later, Morsi was convicted by an Egyptian court and sentenced to death for his part in the uprising.) That might be surprising, except that, two years earlier, Obama had invited Brotherhood members to his Cairo speech.
President Obama a
nd his intelligence chief, James Clapper, apparently believe that the Muslim Brotherhood is the “good guy” Islamist alternative to “bad guys” like al-Qaeda and ISIS. The Brotherhood, in their view, is moderate and mainstream and worthy of our support.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
It was almost by accident that the FBI discovered the archives of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America. Had Ismail Elbarasse not been detained on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge with his wife in August 2004, we might still be under the illusion that the Brotherhood and its affiliated groups in America were the simple secular advocacy groups they claimed to be—just another identity group lobbying organization, like an NAACP or Catholic League for Muslims.
But after Elbarasse’s wife was caught videotaping the support structures of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge from their car, suspicions were raised. When authorities pulled over the car, they discovered an outstanding warrant for Elbarasse. It turns out he was wanted as a material witness in a case concerning fund-raising for Hamas. The FBI subsequently executed a search warrant on the Elbarasses’ house. Hidden in a subbasement in their Annandale, Virginia, home were eighty banker boxes’ worth of documents.
These papers confirmed what most counterterrorism experts had long suspected: many of the Muslim-American groups in the United States were controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood, and their goals, as clearly outlined in the documents, were anything but benign.
Among the documents was one called “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Group for the Group in North America.” Dated May 22, 1991, the memo was written by Mohamed Akram, a member of the board of directors for the Muslim Brotherhood and a leader of Hamas, and had been approved by the Brotherhood’s Shura Council. It is sixteen pages of chilling reading, but here’s the key passage: