KYE-201: Islamist Lust for Iraq

(2007) Why is Iraq so important to Al-Qaeda?

As many of us have realized, historical glories and misdeeds are often used by politicians and radicals to rally the people to commit to new wars and atrocities.  The wars in the former Yugoslavia truly highlighted how deep people will dig to find a reason to hate and kill.  It was quite common for the warring sides to quote acts from the 11^th century as grounds for their 20^th century atrocities.

In the 21^st century, the regional powers of the Middle East have a profound interest in keeping their huge neighbor of Iraq in a weakened state, not only to prevent it from becoming a new empire of the Middle East, but also to prevent a democracy from taking hold and succeeding.  The latter would then erode the level of satisfaction that their own people have under their current forms of government.  This includes our allies but moreso our enemies.

In the 21^st century, Al-Qaeda sees the weakened state of Iraq as their best chance to obtain a national status, as opposed to their current stateless status.  It is their desire to recover some sense of a “home base” that was lost following their miscalculations over the US and world response to 9/11.

 

But there are greater reasons to their focus on Iraq, particularly since they dropped focus on fighting us in Afghanistan.  The first thing to realize is that despite the Koran teaching that all muslims are equal, it is not practiced.  It’s easy to see that women are treated as lesser muslims, as the Koran requires that the testimony of two women to provide equal weight of testimony as a man, along with various other discriminations, in practice and in the writings of  the Koran.

A lesser known but equally true discrimination is that Arabs are considered higher muslims than non-Arabs.  Even within Arabs, some are considered more muslim than others, with Palestinians being near the bottom and Saudis being at the top of the Arab muslim hierarchy.  Pakistanis and Afghanis are non-Arab and hence quite low on the hierarchal list.  Persians (Iranians) are higher on the list of non-Arabs, but still of Aryan descent, rather than strictly Arab.  Hence, a muslim empire with a capital outside of Arabia would have less moral authority to muslims.

 

 

With this backdrop, I’ll look at the significance of Iraq.  The early days of islam were days of great violence and expansion, including violence within muslims and their religious and military leaders.  The Shi’a-Sunni split occurred very early with the primary difference being akin to the Catholic-Orthodox split in the early Christian church.  It was mostly a matter of difference in who should be their version of the Pope or Caliph (in their terms.)  Within each of these, many subordinate sects of the denomination emerged, including eventually Wahhabism (Sunni).

The first Caliph was Abu-Bakr, the original replacement to Mohhamed himself.  The title Caliph (or Kalifa Allah) can be interpreted as “Deputy to god.”  While Mohammed had expanded his theocratical kingdom to most of Arabia, in the 8 years following his death, to all of Arabia as well as much of Persia and Northeastern Africa.  Within 129 years, it was a theocratical empire built upon conversion by the sword, as it was from the time Mohhammed left Medina.

 

Even the rulers (or Caliphs) attained power by the sword, through assassination or revolt.  On 9 June 747 or 25 Ramadan 129(their date), Abu Muslim under the black flag (not dissimilar to that of Al-Qaeda) began a revolt against the Umayyad Caliphate in Syria.  This established the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad which oversaw the greatest expanse of islam and included many parts of Europe, including Spain and parts of France, as well as the only non-sword conversions of modern day Turkey and their expansion by the sword of islam into the Balkans.

 

 The Abbasid Caliphate ruled for five centuries.

Iraq is the home to many Shi’a shrines and of great importance to the Shi’a.  Though Al-Qaeda is Sunni based, control of those shrines and more importantly, the destruction of them, as they have already proved through attempts to destroy them is of great significance to their internal struggle.

Iraq represents an historical caliphate that oversaw a great expansion of islam and the days of glory.  It is close to their eventual goal of Mecca and Medina. It is rich in oil.  It is Arab, but borders its Asian neighbors.  It is the geographical center of the islamic lands.  It would afford them greater legitimacy to their muslim followers and greater access to their primary targets.

And while, they continue to train and base themselves in various lawless lands of Asia, such as the tribal mountainous areas of Western Pakistan, their effort continues in Iraq, because it is historical and Arab and closer to their mid term goals.

 

 

While some would say that all of this should have been taken into account before we ousted Saddam, that is already done.  This article is not about the reasons for the invasion of Iraq.  I’ve gone into the reasons for that elsewhere.  This article is about why Al-Qaeda shifted its focus from Afghanistan, where we continue to fight the Taliban and HIG, primarily, to Iraq where our primary enemy is Al-Qaeda and Iranian backed terrorists.

Please, do not be confused by the fact that I have listed opposing enemies together.  While Muqtada al-Sadr, an ally of Iran in Iraq has accused Iran of supporting Al-Qaeda and there is evidence to support his claim, the Iranians are competing with Al-Qaeda over Iraq, but just as the Taliban and HIG are competitors for power, they also ally themselves and subvert their own religion for their individual goals of power.  I really do need to do an article on the HIG and individually on these other players.  As with many ‘religious’ leaders, their method is religion while their goal is mere power.

War on Terror News©2007-2008, ARM, all rights reserved, http://waronterror.typepad.com/