A View of the War on Terror

How well do we understand the war on terror? How well are we doing? What is it we are fighting against? You could read A View from the Eye of the Storm by Haim Harari in FrontPage Magazine to get a broad strategic sweep.

The root of the trouble is that this entire Moslem region is totally dysfunctional, by any standard of the word, and would have been so even if Israel had joined the Arab league and an independent Palestine had existed for 100 years.

And this great region with 300 million people has

a combined GDP smaller than that of Netherlands plus Belgium and equal to half of the GDP of California alone.

...

Within this meager GDP, the gaps between rich and poor are beyond belief and too many of the rich made their money not by succeeding in business, but by being corrupt rulers.

There are four main pillars of the conflict: the suicide murder, lies, money, and the “total breaking of all laws.”

And this conflict is power by three “concentric spheres supporting death and murder.”

The first sphere is the terrorists themselves. “They are surrounded by a second wider circle of direct supporters, planners, commanders, preachers.” Then there is the outer sphere,

the third circle of so-called religious, educational and welfare organizations, which actually do some good, feed the hungry and provide some schooling, but brainwash a new generation with hatred, lies and ignorance.

We’ll win, of course. But meanwhile how are we doing?

Now that Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya are out, two and a half terrorist states remain: Iran, Syria and Lebanon.. [Both] Iran and Syria are now totally surrounded by territories unfriendly to them... This is a significant strategic change and it applies strong pressure on the terrorist countries...
I do not know if the American plan was actually to encircle both Iran and Syria, but that is the resulting situation.

Read the whole thing.