Iran Analysis: The Regime's Ultimate Challenge "We Will Kill You"

Sometimes a story doesn't take shape immediately. Sometimes words are put out for the public, their possible significance only emerged when they are repeated, reprinted, recycled. Sometimes the speaker may not even realise how "big" his declaration is going to be.

Sometimes, even when two people have their lives cut short for reasons far beyond their specific place in this world, the act is only fulfilled in days and weeks to come.

So it may prove with the hangings of Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmanipour, two men whose arrest for alleged membership of a "monarchist" group took on its imposed meanings in the conflict which began two months later and is still ongoing. So it may prove with the speech of an Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, a man whose long, confirmed membership within the Iranian regime reaches the point where he argues that Iranians could and should be put to death.

It may prove so for, twelve days before the anniversary of 22 Bahman (11 February), Jannati --- as not the speaker at Tehran's Friday Prayers but as the head of the Guardian Council, the body that supposedly gives legitimacy to Iran's elections --- saw not the ballot box but the coiled noose, the cocked trigger, the unsheathed blade and said, "Do it!":

God ordered the prophet Muhammad to brutally slay hypocrites and ill-intentioned people who stuck to their convictions. Koran insistently orders such deaths. May God not forgive anyone showing leniency toward the corrupt on earth.

Only weeks after the Presidential election in June, another Friday Prayers speaker, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, had held up the possibility of death for "rioters", albeit less dramatically than Jannati. The regime, however, did not opt for executions. It tried the security measures to disperse and even beat demonstrations out of existence. It tried the mass, loudly public trials of August. It tried hundreds, thousands of arrests in the night. It tried the expulsion, "filtering", detention of those who might provide information that the protest continued. It tried firings and termination of studies.

Still the protests continued. Even in the "lull" after 13 Aban (4 November), the university campuses maintained the show of resistance. Then, when the regime may have convinced itself that it was primarily the students who were troublemakers and they could be contained and separated from "good" Iranians, tens of thousands (how many tens of thousands?) who were not students came out on the streets of Tehran and other cities on Ashura (27 December). They demonstrated and, in some case when they were confronted, they pushed back the security forces who had tried to remove them from visibility for the past six months.

When the history of this conflict is written, Ashura may take its place --- alongside the march of millions of 15 June and the demonstration five days later which ended in more lives lost --- amongst the most symbolic moments. For if 15 June showed the possibility and 20 June the danger, Ashura revealed the endurance of the challenge to the regime. The regime --- frustrated, concerned, panicked --- initially responded by calling from the highest levels for "good" Iranians to demonstrate their loyalty. And even after tens of thousands (how many tens of thousands?) responded, the regime was possibly still frustrated, concerned, panicked.

It did so in the thought that this might not be enough. This Government, this Supreme Leader had to prevent the mantle of the 1979 Revolution from being wrested from its grip on 11 February.

So more, many more detentions during the demonstrations and during the night. More disruptions of communications. More finger-wagging and shaking of the head from the Supreme Leader. More, shriller declarations of the "foreign menace".

But this might not be enough. So on Thursday, less than two weeks before a public display which may or may not signal that this regime will never again be legitimate, its officials put to death two men. And even those two men had no connection with the post-election events, they were bound to it --- as they had been with their "confessions" during the Tehran trials of August --- by the pronouncement that nine others, some of whom were Ashura demonstrators, had been sentenced to the same fate.

So on Friday, an Ayatollah who has claimed leadership in this system since 1979, who is a staunch supporter not only of the "system" but of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the "head of the system", defined that legitimacy not by elections, freedoms, discussions, public and private compassions but by the shout:

"Do It!"

He does so, I think, without the full recognition of the challenge he has set, not to those whom he opposes but to those whom he is nominally defending. For now, to make the warning real, the regime must put to death a few representatives not only of the pre-election "threat to national security" but of the post-election resistance and even of the specific defiance on Ashura. It must act before 11 Bahman, hoping that it suppresses the opposition rather than supporting it with more martyrs, more symbols of injustice and abuse.

To make the warning real, it cannot come just from an Ayatollah Jannati. It must also come from the head of Iran's judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, whom Jannati called out yesterday. And it must be endorsed by the Supreme Leader. Ayatollah Khamenei may wish to stand aside from this ultimate threat but this week he has faced his own challenge --- Mehdi Karroubi speaks, speaks again, clarifies, reiterates a different "Do It": get rid of this President and this illegitimacy that threatens to crumble not just a Government but an Islamic Republic.

For what Jannati set out --- not only to the Green movement, not only to Mssrs Mousavi, Karroubi, and Khatami, but also to his Government and Supreme Leader --- was this command, a command that defines how far this regime has advanced since June 2009:

To Assure Your Legitimacy, You Must Kill.

The Latest from Iran (29 January): Sideshows and Main Events

2320 GMT: The Committee of Human Rights Reporters has issued a statement on recent allegations against its members, many of whom are detained:

The civil society’s endurance depends on acceptance and realization of modern norms and principles. When a ruling establishment with an outdated legal system tries to impose itself politically and ideologically on a modern society, the result will be widespread protests.

2315 GMT: Correction of the Day. Although it was not widely noted, there were 40th Day memorial ceremonies for Grand Ayatollah Montazeri in Qom.

2310 GMT: Diversion of the Day. From Press TV:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's top aide said Friday Tehran is concerned about the direction of the US administration after President Barack Obama delivered his first State of the Union address.

"We have concerns Obama will not be successful in bring change to US policies," Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, the senior aide to President Ahmadinejad and his chief of staff, said.

With respect, Esfandiar, I don't think President Obama is your biggest concern right now.

NEW Iran Patriotism Special: Wiping the Green From The Flag
Iran Document: Karroubi Maintains the Pressure (28 January)
Iran Document: Resignation Letter of Diplomat in Japan “Join the People”
Iran Document/Analysis: Karroubi’s Statement on the Political Situation (27 January)
Iran Analysis: Leadership in the Green Movement
The Latest from Iran (28 January): Trouble Brewing

2300 GMT: Yawn. Well, we started the day with a sanctions sideshow (see 0650 GMT), so I guess it is fitting to close with one. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking in Paris:

China will be under a lot of pressure to recognize the destabilizing impact that a nuclear-armed Iran would have in the [Persian] Gulf, from which they receive a significant percentage of their own supplies....We understand that right now it seems counterproductive to [China] to sanction a country from which you get so much of the natural resources your growing economy needs....[But China] needs to think about the longer-term implications.

1. The White House is not even at the point of agreeing a sanctions package with the US Congress, let alone countries with far different agendas.
2. China is not going to agree tough sanctions in the UN Security Council. Really. Clinton is blowing smoke.
3. About the only outcome of this will be Press TV running a story on bad America threatening good Iran Government.


2250 GMT: Back after a break (Up In The Air is fantastic --- there, I've said it) to find that the reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front has written an open letter to Iran's head of judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, putting a series of questions over the executions of Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Ramanipour.

1820 GMT: We've moved our item on the regime's apparent removal of Green from Iran's flag to a separate entry.

1755 GMT: Today's Pot-Kettle-Black Moment. Just came across a discussion on Press TV of a bill, passed in the US House of Representatives, threatening to block "anti-US" television channels.

Don't get me wrong: this is an incredibly stupid measure, although as Professor William Beeman, the most reflective of the three guests notes, it is a symbolic declaration unlikely to become law. However, I have to note that at no point do the words "Internet filtering", "expulsion/imprisonment of journalists", "jamming of satellite signals" (say, of Voice of America Persian or BBC Persian) come up in the conversation, which also includes a Dr Franklin Lamb and a Dr Seyed Mohammad Marandi.

1750 GMT: The Judiciary v. Ahmadinejad. At insideIRAN, Arash Aramesh has a useful summary of the suspension of the publication Hemmat by Iran's judiciary. The twist is that Hemmat, which ran into trouble for running an attack piece against Hashemi Rafsanjani, is a supporter of the Ahmadinejad Government. No surprise then that the President reportedly declared:

I am not very happy with some of the Judiciary’s actions. Someone published a paper and you shut it down. It is the job of a jury to order the closure of publications. We do not agree with such actions and believe that these actions show a spirit of dictatorship.

However, Aramesh does not connect the Hemmat story to the imprisonment of Mohammad Jafar Behdad (see 1230 GMT), an official in the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, for four months.

1725 GMT: The Latest from Gohardasht Prison. Peyke Iran reports that 300 Ashura detainees are under severe pressure by Ministry of Intelligence agents, demanding confessions of "mohareb" (war against God), in sections controlled by the Revolutionary Guard.

1700 GMT: The International Committee for Human Rights in Iran has started a new blog. Current posts consider the Zamani/Rahmanipour executions and "Members of Committee of Human Rights Reporters Under Pressure to Make Forced Confessions".

1600 GMT: The Strategy of Deaths. Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi has offered details on the regime's handling of executions: having put to death two pre-election detainees to death yesterday, the Government has handed down five more sentences on five people arrested on Ashura (27 December). The sentences are currently being appealed.

Doulatabadi's declaration complements a recent announcement that by Iran Prosecutor General Gholamhosein Mohseni Ejei that at least three Ashura Day detainees will be executed. Ejei also said four more pre-election prisoners had been sentenced to death. (Added to Thursday's executions, Doulatabadi and Ejei's numbers match up to the "eleven" death sentences announced by Iranian state media yesterday.)

1410 GMT: Man, 1) Ayatollah Jannati is in a really bad mood after being verbally slapped by Mehdi Karroubi; 2) the Government is scared of the forthcoming demonstrations on 22 Bahman (11 February); 3) both. The Los Angeles Times offers translated extracts from Jannati's Friday Prayers address (see 1155 GMT) in Tehran:

The prophet Muhammad signed non-aggression pacts with three Jewish tribes. The Jews failed to meet their commitments, and God ordered their massacre (by Imam Ali, the 3rd Imam Shia, despite his reputation for compassion)....When it comes to suppressing the enemy, divine compassion and leniency have no meaning.

The judiciary is tasked with dealing with the detained rioters. I know you well, judiciary officials! You came forward sincerely and accepted this responsibility. You are revolutionary and committed to the Supreme Leader. For God's sake, stand firm as you already did with your quick execution of these two convicts....

God ordered the prophet Muhammad to brutally slay hypocrites and ill-intentioned people who stuck to their convictions. Koran insistently orders such deaths. May God not forgive anyone showing leniency toward the corrupt on earth.

1230 GMT: An Ahmadinejad Official in Jail. Mohammad Jafar Behdad, head of internal media at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, has been sentenced to 4 months in prison. Behdad, a former head of the Islamic Republic News Agency, was convicted of disregarding judiciary warnings against provocative publications. His newspaper Hemmat had been suspended for a feature on "Hashemi [Rafsanjani] and his band of brothers".

1220 GMT: Verbal Skirmishes. Retired Revolutionary Guard General Ali Asgari, a former minister in the Khatami Government, has declared that Hashemi Rafsanjani must remain by the side of the Supreme Leader and denounced Rafsanjani's verbal attacker, Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, as a radical who defends a backward Islam.

On the regime side, Iran's police chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam has announced that "some of the elite are against the regime and with the enemy". At the same time, he appears to have held out a hand to Mir Hossein Mousavi, saying he "was deceived" by these wrong-doers.

1210 GMT: The "Real" Karroubi Interview. Fars News, whose distorted report on Mehdi Karroubi's views inadvertently moved Karroubi's challenge to the Ahmadinejad Government centre-stage, makes another clumsy intervention today.

Selecting extracts from Karroubi's interview with Britain's Financial Times and quoting them out of context, Fars declares that Karroubi has "100%" backed the Supreme Leader and denounced protesters.

Yeah, right.

1155 GMT: Your Tehran Friday Prayer Summary. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the head of the Guardian Council, had the podium today. Given that Mehdi Karroubi knocked him about a bit yesterday, Jannati was probably not in the most conciliatory of moods as he said:

Weakness in the face of events such as the "irreverence" of demonstrations on Ashura will undermine the regime. Ayatollah [Sadegh] Larijani, be a man, get tough, bring in some protesters. (Hey, but it was pretty cool that you executed those two guys yesterday to please God.)

1140 GMT: A very slow day, both for sideshows and main events. During the lull, this comment from a reader to Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, reacting to the Zamani/Rahmanipour executions, is striking:

You see the strategy is an obvious one: start with the people who are the weakest links, some obscure monarchist group and not directly related to the reformist/Mousavi's camp or the greens, that way it would make it harder politically for [Mir Hossein] Mousavi or [Mehdi] Karoubi to defend them. Then they will advance. This is, in their mind, also the best way to send a message about Feb 11th that if you are arrested on that day, you could be executed. The combination of desperation and cruelty.

0750 GMT: Remembering Montazeri. Video of the bazaar at Najafabad, the birthplace of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, was empty on Thursday to mark the passing of the cleric in late December. Memorials for the "40th Day" of Montazeri's death were planned for both yesterday and today.)

0650 GMT: There are a number of obstacles to clear this morning before getting to the important developments. Foremost amongst these is last night's news that the US Senate, the upper house of the Congress, has approved tougher sanctions against Iran. The focus is on petroleum, denying loans and other assistance from American financial institutions to companies that export gasoline to Iran or help expand its oil-refining capacity. The penalties would extend to companies that build oil and gas pipelines in Iran and provide tankers to move Iran’s petroleum. The measure also prohibits the United States Government from buying goods from foreign companies that do business in Iran’s energy sector.

Even if sanctions are central to a resolution of Iran's political crisis, as opposed to their place in the manoeuvres over Iran's nuclear programme --- personally, I don't think they are --- there is a lot of bureaucratic road to cover before they are in place. The Senate has to agree its version of the bill with the House of Representatives. More importantly (and The New York Times story ignores this point), the Obama Administration so far has opposed the petroleum measures because they are unlikely to be effective. The White House and State Department prefer "targeted" sanctions, aimed especially at economic interests of bodies like the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps.

Then there is the Washington sideshow of Very Important People battering each other in the guise of offering the Very Best US Policy on Iran. The Washington Post announces the boxing match between Richard Haass, formerly of the State Department and now head of the Council for Foreign Relations, and the Flynt/Hillary Leverett duo, formerly of State and the National Security Council. The punches are entirely predictable --- Haass, while proclaiming himself a "realist", has joined the chorus of US experts singing of "regime change", while the Leveretts are staunchly defending the legitimacy of the Iran Government --- and pretty much swatting air when it comes to the complexities of the Iranian situation. (But Haass was best man at the Leveretts' wedding, which turns a marginal story into a "quirky" one.)

So where are the significant stories? Well, there is yesterday's execution of two detainees, Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmanipour, who were jailed in April 2009 for endangering Iran's national security. In one sense, this is another sideshow. Obviously, neither Zamani and Rahmanipour were involved in post-election protest and the "monarchist" group to which they allegedly belonged is not significant in the Green movement.

However, the regime was far from subtle in linking the hangings of the two men to the demonstrations of Ashura (27 December), and that linkage --- inadvertently --- displays its fear of the forthcoming marches on 22 Bahman/11 February, the anniversary of the 1979 Revolution. What's more, by promising the executions of nine more detainees if everyone didn't just shut up and go away, the Government made a risky commitment. Either it goes ahead with the executions, making more martyrs for the protests, or it backs down.

And then there is The Week of Mehdi Karroubi, with the cleric launching another broadside against President Ahmadinejad and his allies yesterday. Some media continue to be led astray by confusion over Karroubi's loud and emerging strategy --- The New York Times, for example, mis-reads Karroubi's latest statement as "conciliatory remarks...shifting the blame for the violent postelection crackdown away from Ayatollah Khamenei".

They are not. Karroubi is both giving the Supreme Leader (or "Mr Khamenei", as he was labelled on Monday) a chance and setting him a test: do what you are supposed to do under our Constitution and Islamic Republic, Supreme Leader, and make your President accountable for injustices and abuses.

Enjoy all the sideshows, folks, but in this political circus, that's your centre-ring main event.

Iran Patriotism Special: Wiping the Green From The Flag

Yesterday we noted that the Iran flag had morphed from Red, White, and Green into Red, White, and Blue in a speech by President Ahmadinejad to officials:



I thought this might have been a production slip-up, with the Iranian flag melting away into the sky, but now a 2nd photo has emerged, from Ahmadinejad's introduction of the new head of the Islamic Republic News Agency:


Golnaz Esfandiari of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has more on the story.

A Gut Reaction to Obama's "State of The Union" & Foreign Policy: Ignoring the Kids in the Backseat

My kids are no longer kids: my son is 13 and my daughter is 10 going on 18. But, as I am driving, it still happens. First, a sharp one-liner, then a squeal, and a quick escalation to a scuffle and "Dad!". I just keep my eyes on the road, trying not to notice.

Well, President Obama has given his annual set-piece speech, the Washington pundits have pronounced, and already everyone "in the know" are rubbing hands over the forthcoming showdowns between the White House and Congress over domestic issues. And all the while I'm thinking about this speech....

When it comes to the US beyond Capitol Hill and its borders, President Obama just tried to ignore the kids in the backseat.

Video & Transcript: President Obama’s State of the Union Address (27 January)

That's far from a shocking response. Obama's immediate road ahead, for his future and that of the US, is the economy and health care. Having bailed out a leaking ship last year, the Administration now has to show progress on employment; otherwise, the Republicans, even though it was their eight years in the White House that set up the debacle and even though they have put forth no alternatives for the way out of recession, can just keep hammering away at White House failure. As for health care, what should be the overriding issue --- an expensive, inefficient US system will continue to leave millions of Americans unprotected --- is being replaced by the politics of display: the Obama Administration needs a bill, no matter how watered down, just to show that it is not captive to the blows of the Republican minority in Congress.

Not surprising then that the President only devoted eight out of 60+ minutes to affairs beyond the US. What is more significant, of course, is what was in those eight minutes.


Speaking to his front-seat passangers --- Congressmen and "fellow Americans" --- the President returned to the rhetoric of his Inaugural:

Let’s put aside the schoolyard taunts about who is tough. Let’s reject the false choice between protecting our people and upholding our values. Let’s leave behind the fear and division and do what it takes to defend our nation and forge a more hopeful future — for America and the world.

Going back to lofty words is not necessarily a bad thing, and Obama should be commended, given past White House-whipped-up hysteria about "security", for trying to damp down the culture of fear, for example, over the recent incident of the failed Christmas Day explosion on a US-bound flight.

But for the kids in the backseat --- the squabbles over US involvement in the world from Central Asia to the Middle East to Africa to Latin America --- Obama had nothing beyond the stock phrases of a Dad trying not to notice:

We have prohibited torture and strengthened partnerships....Hundreds of al-Qaida’s fighters and affiliates, including many senior leaders, have been captured or killed — far more than in 2008....In Afghanistan, we are increasing our troops and training Afghan Security Forces....We are responsibly leaving Iraq to its people....

We are also confronting perhaps the greatest danger to the American people — the threat of nuclear weapons....We are working through the G-20 to sustain a lasting global recovery. We are working with Muslim communities around the world to promote science, education and innovation. We have gone from a bystander to a leader in the fight against climate change. We are helping developing countries to feed themselves and continuing the fight against HIV/AIDS....

America must always stand on the side of freedom and human dignity.

For some in the front seat, the litany was enough. Robert Dreyfuss of The Nation declared, "It was a pleasure to listen to a State of the Union address, especially after eight years of his predecessor's alarmist warnings and warlike thundering, in which war, terrorism, and 'rogue states' went almost unmentioned."

By the benchmark of avoiding the foreign policy pile-ups of 2001-2009, there's something to say for Eyes on the Road and Leave the Kids Alone. But, if Obama is serious about his declaration, "Abroad, America’s greatest source of strength has always been our ideals," he better take a look over his shoulder.

It's all too easy to rip away the screen of the rhetoric. Obama may have "prohibited torture" through his Executive Order, but the promise to close Guantanamo Bay --- unmentioned in the speech --- is gone, and there are much bigger US detention facilities in Afghanistan holding uncharged prisoners who may or may not be going through "enhanced interrogation". "Hundreds of al-Qaida’s fighters and affiliates" killed also means, in bombings and drone attacks, hundreds of civilians killed, with the consequences for public attitudes towards US interventions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The declaration about fighting corruption in Afghanistan, after last summer's failed symbol of the Presidential election, is now a sentence without significance, and Obama did not even bother to make a reference to non-military projects in the country. And "responsibly leaving" Iraq? Well, the political and economic conflicts have been left to the Iraqis --- which is preferable to the Bushian approach --- but it is far from clear what 100,000+ US troops are now doing as bystanders.

Yes, all too easy to identify the thin and getting thinner rhetoric overlaying the complexities and tensions in American "interventions". What was really disappointing for me, however, is that Obama did not even bother to offer the squabbling kids some words of substance.

There is a virtue, under this Administration, that Bush-era fist-shaking has been replaced by "engagement". In Latin America, no more quick-fix solutions like the attempted 2002 coup in Venezuela but recognition of governments, even if their interests do not coincide with those of Washington. (For the moment, I'm treating Honduras as a serious but exceptional complication.) In Africa, the military-first approach of AFRICOM and rather empty posturing over issues such as Sudan has been replaced by diplomacy. And while it was a bit rich for Obama to claim "leadership" on climate change, at least the US hasn't loudly picked up its toys and gone home, as was the case over the last eight years.

But "engagement" has got to have meaning beyond rhetoric and has got to have significance in the tough cases. Months after Obama's Ankara and Cairo speech, and despite his attempted cover of "working with Muslim communities", I am pretty sure that those in the backseat will have noted no reference to Israel and Palestine, or even the Middle East. Obama's Iran references, in light of the internal developments in and beyond Tehran, appeared obsolete (the same old engagement/sanctions declaration in a nuclear-first policy) and fleeting (a mention of "an Iranian woman" standing in for any engagement with how the US backs "rights" in a difficult case).

And of course, Obama can say "values, values, values", but "values" sit uneasily alongside the military-first approach in the symbolic centrepieces of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They don't stand in for a political approach that is based on more than putting in more troops and pretending that the issues at the centre of the Afghanistan and Pakistan Governments will just vanish, even if we really don't like Mr Karzai or Mr Zardari.

I'm sorry to be snippy. Dads have it tough at the best of time. But even a well-intentioned father has to got to recognise that, at some point, squabbles have got to be confronted with more than a reassurance that "Dad/America Knows/Means Best". Especially when the US was not a part of these squabbles but has been very much a central actor in them --- and, with its failures of engagement and its recourse to the harder side of US power --- and is still much part of the argument.

"War on Terror": How to Remove Al Qa'eda From Under Your Bed

Sharmine Narwani, writing for The Huffington Post, takes a long look under her bed, and at the US and the world, to advise how to deal with the fear of Al Qa'eda:

I looked under my bed last night. Just in case. And don't tell me you haven't either. With Al Qaeda popping up in new countries every day, it seemed prudent to make sure a spanking new Salafi jihadist cell wasn't being formed under my California Kingsize mattress.

Known Al Qaeda host nations: Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Pakistan, Jordan - purportedly even Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Syria, Xinjiang in China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Myanmar, Indonesia, Mindanao in the Philippines, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Libya, Nigeria, Tunisia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Dagestan, Jammu and Kashmir, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Azerbaijan, Eritrea, Uganda, Ethiopia, and - drum roll - the United States.

Actually, with Al Qaeda's strong internet recruitment abilities, let's just scratch that last paragraph and grandly state that this entrepreneurial Salafi franchise is in potentially as many nations as McDonald's.


Afghanistan was the start-up incubator. Operating out of a cave and strapped to a dialysis machine, the canny Saudi-born businessman Osama bin Laden took advantage of the hospitality of fellow Salafists -- the Taliban -- to engineer a magnificent American investment in his franchise, and grow a global brand. And so, thanks to the US's penchant for disproportionate reaction, a rag-tag group of Saudi-funded jihadists hiding out in rough Afghani terrain with a small cadre of operatives scattered around the world, became the new hot stock overnight.

And like any investor worth his salt, the United States looked to an untapped market -- Iraq -- where it then launched its first world-class subsidiary. Yes, that's right. There was no Al Qaeda in Iraq before the Bush administration initiated its ill-fated market penetration. Not under the watch of the fiercely-secular dictator Saddam Hussein, certainly.

But then American troops swooped in and Al Qaeda, Iraq was born. Every Salafi jihadist still smarting from the US occupation of sacred Muslim soil in Saudi Arabia during Iraq War I -- the raison d'etre of Al Qaeda -- now flocked into the new Iraqi battlefield to prevent a second occupation.

And when the US "surged" in Iraq and Afghanistan, they went elsewhere to revamp, re-arm and recruit. Hence, the presence in Pakistan. And when we "drone-d" in Pakistan, they swarmed to Yemen and Somalia. And when we "funded" Yemen, they reared up in Jordan.

Ergo, every time we make a move in the Muslim world, we invest in Al Qaeda's nimble fund-and-recruit franchise enterprise. In the world of venture capital, the US would be akin to a Greylock, Softbank or Kleiner-Perkins.

This is serious business. Al Qaeda and its copycats threaten not only our way of life, but that of most Muslims in whose nations we wage our silly battles. And after nine years of this, each and every time there is a new Salafi-related development in the Muslim world, we still react with the same bluster, bullying and stunning lack of creativity as we did when we embarrassingly threatened to "smoke them out of their caves" that first time.

Last July, building on the work of the acclaimed 9-11 Commission, the National Security Preparedness Group (NSPG) was formed to tackle changing security threats to the United States. A bi-partisan Who's Who of distinguished security experts, the group includes terrorism and insurgency authority Dr. Bruce Hoffman who recently authored an insightful opinion piece in the Washington Post entitled"Al Qaeda has a new strategy. Obama needs one too."

Hoffman reveals how a "shrewdly opportunistic" Al Qaeda is playing to the US's weaknesses with only a handful of operatives, while the United States is "stuck in a pattern of belated responses." Having failed to recognize Al Qaeda's changing strategies, this systemic failure in US intelligence, security and military centers is doomed to continue unless we re-jig things. But I would argue that Hoffman and the NSPG are also doomed to fail if they do not consider a broader reshuffle of US Mideast policy to keep future Salafi groups at bay.

What is the solution? Look at it as a business venture, if you will.

A well-crafted exit strategy: Get out as quickly as possible without leaving a worse mess behind as we did in Afghanistan I and Iraq I.

Distribution: Hand over ops to sovereign states. And if we are going to fund them, make sure the funds are going to the right fights. Sometimes these are not military confrontations, but instead education, economic progress, human rights and democracy. Which means that we will have to stop propping up dictators in the Middle East, i.e., most of our closest allies, and start standing firmly behind genuine efforts for reform.

That may mean Hamas in Palestine, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt - but you know what? Let them figure it out for themselves. If the Brotherhood, known as the Ikhwan, had been allowed to participate in Egyptian elections decades ago, the whole Middle East may have gone through and come out the other end of "political Islam," which incidentally isn't necessarily a bad thing. Think Turkey.

And we don't have to take on the Mideast's problems ourselves. Distribute the workload and delegate responsibility to other influential nations who have more nuanced relationships with regional players -- some EU nations, Russia, China, Turkey, India and Qatar come to mind.

Partnerships: As hard as this may be for a US administration to stomach, this may be the time to invoke the "your enemy's enemy is your friend" doctrine of foreign policy. Which effectively means that we need to partner with Al Qaeda's biggest regional targets and foes. Who are they? Think Shiites. That means Iran - a country that rang alarm bells when the Taliban rose to power, although we didn't listen then. A country that has offered and delivered help during our worst times in Afghanistan and Iraq, even though we showed no gratitude. More importantly, a country that has been on the receiving end of the same kinds of Salafi attacks by Al Qaeda supported groups as have US troops.

Iran leads a regional bloc of nations and groups included on our dated State Department terrorism lists. We need to start to distinguish between Islamist groups with nationalist agendas (Hezbollah) and those with "cosmic" plans (Al Qaeda) because Iran, Hezbollah, Syria and Hamas have all been under Salafi jihadist threat of some sort this past year. They would make smart, resourceful and powerful regional allies - unlike our alliances with Saudi Arabia and Egypt, both supremely impotent despite their claims otherwise, and boasting zero street cred, unlike the former bloc.

Troubleshoot: Deal swiftly and creatively with the Palestinian issue. This is the one regional issue that will continue to be exploited effectively by Al Qaeda and its franchises - the crux of Bin Laden's most recent audiotape message last weekend. Open up Gaza's Rafah border with Egypt and start physically monitoring the delivery of widespread humanitarian aid to the 1.5 million Gazans living under siege - we will build instant goodwill with Palestinians at the negotiating table and remind Arabs of their hopes in a pre-Cairo Obama.

If we can move mountains and send manpower to Haiti in a nanosecond, we can loosen a crumby little border in Rafah, surely?

Strike Deals: Sponsor a timelined Palestinian-Israeli agreement on final solution issues - borders, refugees, sovereignty, natural resources and Jerusalem. Enough with the spineless pussy-footing around the hard issues that has been "all process and no peace" for 18 years now. Utilize J-Street and other sane voices in the American Jewish community to back up a new, firm approach to Israel - the Jewish state, the occupying entity, needs to make some significant concessions for any peaceful resolution of the conflict . Or...get out of peacemaking altogether and let the Palestinians and Israelis find their own way to a One State Solution. Colonial-settler movements never last, and the establishment of a single democratic state consisting of Jews, Muslims and Christians is the natural, organic direction of things without our overbearing, one-sided participation.

And table the failed Iran nuclear talks to deal with the more pressing issues of Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan where both the US and the Islamic Republic have an "existential" stake and share much common ground. A focused, mutually-beneficial game plan here will create the necessary trust to tackle the nuclear issue further down the road, which will in turn diffuse a regional nuclear race.

As any savvy CEO will tell you, don't say or do anything unless there are clear quantifiable and qualitative benefits to be reaped. From his lips to Obama's ears...

While it looks like Al Qaeda is spreading like wildfire, the fact is, it isn't. Their numbers have dwindled in Afghanistan and Iraq, and their popularity has generally plummeted amongst Mideast populations. But there is a marked increase in the number of Salafi, jihad-mindedindividuals who are fed-up with the status quo and are happy to risk life and limb. Every silly move we make - and we really know how to do silly - beefs up the Al Qaeda brand and extends the franchise.

So in places like Yemen and Jordan, where local governments have until recently played a careful balancing act and kept their Salafists under wraps, one false American move threatens -- always -- to crack open a can of worms. Think healthcare reform and Teabaggers for a closer-to-home analogy.

And it only takes one bus bombing, one aircraft explosion, one restaurant pipe-bomb to level economies, cripple tourism, incite insurgencies and create an environment of fear. We need to exit these battles and fundamentally alter our disingenuous Middle East policies to allow anger to subside and reform to flourish.

Or I will have to check my closets next.