RUTHFULLY YOURS

The last engaging book I read on the means and ends of warfare before John Lewis’s was a 2009 abridged version of Winston Churchill’s The River War, originally published in 1899. Its original, full title included An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan.

The term “reconquest” was misleading, because the Sudan had never before been “conquered” by the British, but was under the jurisdiction of Egypt, then a protectorate of Britain. Egypt was unable to deal militarily with the Dervish forces that meant to conquer it. It fell to Britain extinguish the Mahdist or Islamic threat, which, unchecked, could well have spread from Egypt to the rest of North Africa and the Middle East.

General Herbert Kitchener was tasked with that formidable project. Churchill describes the meticulous and determined campaign he waged, which was not just a matter of sending an army into the desert wastes to fight fanatical tribesmen. It meant reforming the corrupt and ineffectual Egyptian government, rebuilding the Egyptian army and its Sudanese levies, building a railroad into enemy territory, and mastering the stupendous logistics of supplies and men. The stated objective was to erase the Mahdist regime as a military and political threat in the whole region. The climax of the campaign was the Battle of Omdurman in September 1898, in which the Dervish army was utterly decimated and routed.

In the end, over a year later, the successor of Mahdi Muhammad Ahmed, Abdallah ibn Muhammad, was killed and the remnants of his forces routed at the Battle of Umm Diwaykarat.

The Sudan Campaign had clear military and political objectives. The British government then had the will to take the necessary actions to destroy an enemy and discredit the ideology that moved it.

Churchill noted in The River War that, ” The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.”

“America cannot do a damn thing.”

A banner displaying that slogan adorned the stage of an elegant mausoleum in Tehran where Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appeared last week. Negotiations to conclude a deal ending Western sanctions on the Islamic republic, the world’s foremost sponsor of terrorism, in exchange for a verifiable halt to its nuclear weapons program, are now in a critical phase with a new round of talks to begin Monday in Geneva. At this moment, it would make sense for Iran’s rulers to soothe and reassure their American interlocutors. Why are they provoking and taunting them instead?

Because they can. They are convinced that the U.S. government is as feckless and self-deluding today as it was when “America cannot do a damn thing” was first proclaimed, 35 years ago this fall, by Iran’s revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, after his followers seized the American Embassy in Tehran and took the diplomats working there hostage.

Doing so was not just a violation of international law. It was a casus belli — an act that unquestionably would have justified going to war against the fledgling Islamic republic. Instead, President Jimmy Carter launched a rescue attempt that failed. After that, he utilized diplomacy to no effect.

The number of executions in Iran in 2014, up to June 5, now totals 325; the Iranian government has admitted to only 122. These numbers do not include the Iranian regime’s “silent executions” — depriving prisoners who were tortured of medical care, and then claiming they died in prison of “natural causes.”

On February 13, two prisoners were publicly hanged in Kouzehgari Square, in the Iranian city of Shiraz, and in the same spot on February 19, another prisoner was also publicly hanged.

The number of executions in Iran in 2014, up to June 5, now totals 325; the Iranian government has admitted to only 122, according to the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center’s Chart of Executions by the Islamic Republic of Iran – 2014. These numbers do not include the Iranian regime’s “silent executions” — depriving prisoners who were tortured of medial care, and then claiming they died in prison of “natural causes.”

The Mehr News Agency, an official mouthpiece of the Iranian regime, also reported that a prisoner was condemned to the sharia law punishment of “cutting off one hand and one foot.”

The recent victories in Iraq and Syria by the terrorists of ISIS — said to be an offshoot of al-Qaeda — have emboldened the group and its followers throughout the Middle East. Now the terrorists are planning to move their jihad not only to Jordan, but also to the Gaza Strip, Sinai and Lebanon.

Failure to act will result in the establishment in the Middle East of a dangerous extremist Islamic empire that will pose a threat to American and Western interests.

“The danger is getting closer to our bedrooms.” — Oraib al-Rantawi, Jordanian political analyst

Islamist terrorists in Iraq and Syria have begun creeping toward neighboring countries, sources close to the Islamic fundamentalists revealed this week.

The terrorists, who belong to The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS — known as DAESH in Arabic] and are said to be an offshoot of al-Qaeda, are planning to take their jihad to Jordan, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula — after having already captured large parts of Syria and Iraq, the sources said.

The capture this week by ISIS of the cities of Mosul and Tikrit in Iraq has left many Arabs and Muslims in the region worried that their countries soon may be targeted by the terrorists, who seek to create a radical Islamist emirate in the Middle East.

According to the sources, ISIS leader Abu Baker al-Baghdadi recently discussed with his lieutenants the possibility of extending the group’s control beyond Syria and Iraq.