Seven Easy Steps

The Islamic Caliphate

In 2005, Jordanian journalist and researcher, Fouad Hussen published a piece entitled al-Zarqawi - al-Qaida's Second Generation. A synopsis of his book was published in Der Spiegel in August 2005.  The introduction to the synopsis read:

There must be something particularly trustworthy about the Jordanian journalist Fouad Hussein. After all, he has managed to get some of the the most sought after terrorists to open up to him. Maybe it helped that they spent time together in prison many years ago -- when Hussein was a political prisoner he successfully negotiated for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to be released from solitary confinement. Or is it because of the honest and direct way in which he puts his ideas onto paper?

Fouad Hussein had spent time with key terrorist figures, including al-Zarqawi, who has now been killed by a US drone strike.  Prison conversations amongst prison comrades are often truthful.  What is there to lose?  In any event, Hussein has outlined the "Seven Steps" set out by the idealogues of an Islamic Caliphate to take over the world.  Back in 2005, it may have sounded wacky stuff to Western ears.  Now, maybe, not so much.  (Remember, as you read below, this was published in Der Spiegel in 2005; the resemblances to what is now unfolding in Iraq and Syria are striking.  Back in 2005, it must have seemed pretentious and boastful--which the Der Spiegel article reflects.)

An Islamic Caliphate in Seven Easy Steps

In the introduction, the Jordanian journalist writes, "I interviewed a whole range of al-Qaida members with different ideologies to get an idea of how the war between the terrorists and Washington would develop in the future." What he then describes between pages 202 and 213 is a scenario, proof both of the terrorists' blindness as well as their brutal single-mindedness. In seven phases the terror network hopes to establish an Islamic caliphate which the West will then be too weak to fight.

• The First Phase Known as "the awakening" -- this has already been carried out and was supposed to have lasted from 2000 to 2003, or more precisely from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington to the fall of Baghdad in 2003. The aim of the attacks of 9/11 was to provoke the US into declaring war on the Islamic world and thereby "awakening" Muslims. "The first phase was judged by the strategists and masterminds behind al-Qaida as very successful," writes Hussein. "The battle field was opened up and the Americans and their allies became a closer and easier target." The terrorist network is also reported as being satisfied that its message can now be heard "everywhere."


• The Second Phase "Opening Eyes" is, according to Hussein's definition, the period we are now in and should last until 2006. Hussein says the terrorists hope to make the western conspiracy aware of the "Islamic community." Hussein believes this is a phase in which al-Qaida wants an organization to develop into a movement. The network is banking on recruiting young men during this period. Iraq should become the center for all global operations, with an "army" set up there and bases established in other Arabic states.


• The Third Phase This is described as "Arising and Standing Up" and should last from 2007 to 2010. "There will be a focus on Syria," prophesies Hussein, based on what his sources told him. The fighting cadres are supposedly already prepared and some are in Iraq. Attacks on Turkey and -- even more explosive -- in Israel are predicted. Al-Qaida's masterminds hope that attacks on Israel will help the terrorist group become a recognized organization. The author also believes that countries neighboring Iraq, such as Jordan, are also in danger.


• The Fourth Phase Between 2010 and 2013, Hussein writes that al-Qaida will aim to bring about the collapse of the hated Arabic governments. The estimate is that "the creeping loss of the regimes' power will lead to a steady growth in strength within al-Qaida." At the same time attacks will be carried out against oil suppliers and the US economy will be targeted using cyber terrorism.


• The Fifth Phase This will be the point at which an Islamic state, or caliphate, can be declared. The plan is that by this time, between 2013 and 2016, Western influence in the Islamic world will be so reduced and Israel weakened so much, that resistance will not be feared. Al-Qaida hopes that by then the Islamic state will be able to bring about a new world order.


• The Sixth Phase Hussein believes that from 2016 onwards there will a period of "total confrontation." As soon as the caliphate has been declared the "Islamic army" it will instigate the "fight between the believers and the non-believers" which has so often been predicted by Osama bin Laden.


• The Seventh Phase This final stage is described as "definitive victory." Hussein writes that in the terrorists' eyes, because the rest of the world will be so beaten down by the "one-and-a-half billion Muslims," the caliphate will undoubtedly succeed. This phase should be completed by 2020, although the war shouldn't last longer than two years.

The Der Spiegel article went on to weigh up how seriously this ought to have been taken.  The author of the piece, Yassin Musharbash was generally sceptical.  After all, Al Qaeda was fragmented and had largely appeared to have disintegrated.

Nevertheless, there is no way the scenario he depicts can be seen as a plan which al-Qaida can follow step by step. The terrorist network just doesn't work like that anymore. The significance of the central leadership has diminished and its direct commands have lost a great deal of importance. The supposed master plan for the years 2000 to 2020 reads in parts more like a group of ideas cobbled together in retrospect, than something planned and presented in advance. And not to mention the terrorist agenda is simply unworkable: the idea that al-Qaida could set up a caliphate in the entire Islamic world is absurd. The 20-year plan is based mainly on religious ideas. It hardly has anything to do with reality -- especially phases four to seven. [Emphasis, ours.]

Note in passing the epistemological dichotomy presented in the above quotation: the 20-year plan was largely based upon religious ideas. Therefore, it can have hardly anything to do with reality.  Thus, the blindness of the Western mind when it comes to evaluating what it unfolding in the Middle East.  Religious ideas--to the blinded Western mind--can have no correspondence with reality, which, as all Westerners know, consists of matter, and matter alone.  Religions are figments of imagination and have no metaphysical reality whatsoever.

Consistent, fervent Islam is a religion and its beliefs shape reality.  Consistent, fervent Western materialism is equally religious; its beliefs also shape reality for its devotees.  Both alike are false beliefs, and will fall in the long run.  But in the meantime, they can exert enormous influence and shape human history.  Western materialism clearly has done so.  Islamic jihadism is currently doing so in the Middle East.  The Caliphate is the latest manifestation of the Islamic narrative.

According to the seven steps, we are now in the fifth: a caliphate has been declared, right on schedule, moreover.  The true believers think that the Western powers are weak, divided, already defeated, and the pathway is open to a new world order.  We are now, according to the plan, entering the period of "total confrontation" between belief and unbelief, between Islam and the infidels (that is, the West).

Are the jihadis being realistic, or have they lost touch with things as they really are?  Clearly the latter.  But that is not evident to them--yet.  They are speaking and acting as if they were calling the shots on a world stage.  They boast, they brag, and they think that beheading non-combatant Americans will eviscerate the West's will to fight.  They also believe that millions upon millions of Islamic jihadis from around the world will rise up and come to join them, for the last great battle.  These ideas are fervently believed as absolute truth to them.  They will live and act accordingly. Anyone in the West who expects anything different has also lost touch with reality.

And when they are inevitably defeated in battle, will that end it?  Not at all--no more than secularism would be ended when it failed spectacularly.  The ideologues of both camps will simply go back, lick their wounds, and plan to fight for the longer term.  Christians know that neither will succeed.  Both armies alike hate the one and only Lord of humanity, the King who has been established on Mount Zion, and to whom all authority in heaven and upon earth has already been given.  (Matthew 28: 18)

The West is clearly the much stronger militarily.  However, its key weakness is its persistent failure to recognise its own religious bias and pre-commitments.  Because it is blind to itself, it cannot see its enemy clearly.  It cannot comprehend how the Islamic mind functions.  It deliberately and persistently distorts the truth about Islam--for its own comfort.  Take the most obvious example: when the planes flew into the towers, Western leaders immediately developed a narrative about Islam which was deliberately deceptive and misleading, yet one which they fervently hoped was true.  "Islam", they told everyone, including themselves, meant peace.  Islam was a religion of peace: therefore, Al Qaeda and its collaboraters, were un-Islamic.  The jihadis were a foreign element; they were not true to the faith.

The Western Commentariat deliberately and wilfully misinterpreted what "peace" meant in Islam.  The word "Islam", of course, means submission.  The peace of Islam means subjugation or the death of those who will not be subjugated.  Consequently, the jihadis simply laughed at the stupid, weak Western world for such an addiction to untruth, distortion, and its own false comfort.   Herein lies the Achilles heel of the pagan West: it believes its own false press.  Secularism is a paper tiger.  The jihadis believe this to be the case and in many ways they are not far from the truth.

Secularism is boldly courageous when it comes to killing an unborn infant in the womb, but pathetically compliant when its own life is at stake.  Secularism has no doctrine of an afterlife, and Final Judgment.  All it has is material existence--and since that is all it has, it will desperately cling to its own life.  At root, secularism is cowardice in motion.  That is why suicide bombers, jihadi martyrs, and relentless Islamic brutalities alarm and terrify.  Secularism has no-one to serve, no-one for whom to lay down its life.  Consequently, it will eventually end up losing everything.  Jihadis know this.