Al-Muhajir's Evil Presence

Nibras Kazimi editorialized in New York Sun The bad guys are now celebrating the Democratic Party's sweep of Congress in the belief that the American electorate has pronounced its verdict on the grand visions of the neoconservatives — the fall guys for what is hyperbolically called the "catastrophe in Iraq." The most compelling example of this jubilation has been the audio message released by the current head of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the elusive Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, who read the election results as a victory for his dark cause. At this stage, as the Democrats articulate their plan for Iraq, they need to ponder why evil men are hailing their anti-war talking points.

As if they care. They foolishly think that they can negotiate with someone with a sword, about to cut their head off.

Middle Eastern autocracies and the American bureaucracies that deal with them share a similar dislike for change in any form. Taking out Saddam Hussein meant bestowing equal rights upon the Shiite and Kurdish underdogs and beginning a democratic experiment — one that would be a model for all the despots in the region and empower other restless minorities, or so the neoconservatives thought.

The fespots in the area thought they were right, which is why they did everything they could to prevent it.

To jihadists such as al-Muhajir, resurgent Shiism and the allure of freedom for Arab and Muslim youth are stumbling blocks to their drive to establish a caliphate, one that is propelled by sectarian hatred and nihilist frustration with the ossified order. The tyrants and terrorists found a convenient echo chamber within American partisan politics in their effort to snuff out the new Iraq and turn it into an embarrassment for President Bush. The Democrats may not as yet have a real plan to fix Iraq, but al-Muhajir is brimming with ideas: Al Qaeda is grooming a caliph to do war against the heretical Persians, turn the Mediterranean into an Islamic lake, kill more American soldiers, and generally win the war on terror for the side of the bad guys.

Just as the heretical Persions seek to develop atomic weapons, letting them take over not only Iraq, but also the holy places (Saudia Arabia. with Mecca and Medina).

Beyond the theatrics of denouncing Mr. Bush as "the stupidest president the nation of slaves and drugs [America] had ever known" and threatening to blow up the White House, al-Muhajir's message is important on many practical counts. He positions Al Qaeda as the defender of Sunnis not only in Iraq, but also across the region in facing down the Shiite menace. He warns that Mr. Bush's actions in Afghanistan and Iraq have enabled the Persians, that is to say the Iranians, to expand the writ of the Shiite "heresy" into these traditionally Sunni domains, and beyond, to Syria and Lebanon. Al-Muhajir even takes the rising stardom of Shiite Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to task by referring to him derisively as "Nasr-Al-Lat," literally, the Victory of Lat, with Lat being a pre-Islamic pagan deity, implying that Nasrallah is not a Muslim.

But what is most surprising in al-Muhajir's message is his belief that what he perceives as America's imminent military retreat from Iraq has brought an end to one of the "phases of jihad." This is an occasion for al-Muhajir to herald a new phase: the establishment of the caliphate. Al-Muhajir pledges allegiance to the hitherto unheard of " Abu Omar al-Baghdadi." The glaring hint that he is indeed Al Qaeda's candidate for the job of caliph is al-Muhajir's insistence on highlighting al-Baghdadi's Hashemite pedigree — a traditional must-have for any would-be caliph.