Menges Opens DFF Forums Addressing Emerging Threats to U.S. Foreign Policy
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DFF Chairman Ambassador J. William Middendorf, II, looks on as Dr. Constantine Menges answers a question during DFF’s Capitol Hill Forum. |
Dr. Constantine Menges, credited with being the architect behind the Reagan Doctrine and the planning of the first-ever successful reversal of a communist regime, addressed the topic: “Emerging Threats to U.S. Foreign Policy: Iran v. Iraq and Latin America” at DFF’s opening forum in January. During his presentation, Menges warned about Iran’s covert work to undermine the coalition efforts in Iraq that could be traced back to January, 1979 when Khomeini first came to power. Although engaged in a power struggle with the Marxist-Leninists, the clerical dictatorship of Khomeini immediately began covert actions, a secret terrorist war against other Islamic regimes that were not Shiite Islamic and against the United States with the formation of terrorist organizations.
The Iranian regime set up and funded Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Hamas, and all the terrorist organizations that have waged a secret war against the United States, our allies and against Israel. In
1983, those terrorist organizations blew up the U.S. and French embassies in Lebanon, killed 241 Marines in one night in Lebanon, and then also tried to blow up the French embassy in Kuwait and the U.S. embassy in Kuwait. The Iranian war of terrorism has been constant, making Iran the most active state sponsor of terror. Iran has developed hundreds of ballistic missiles, is working on an intercontinental missile, has chemical weapons in large supplies, and is working on biological weapons. Menges pointed out what is not understood is what Iran is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan to bring about a pro-Iranian Shiite extremist regime hostile to the United States and all the democracies. The covert action against the American activities began in the fall of 2001, when the United States removed the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Within a matter of weeks, Iran recruited from hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees on Iranian territory, thousands of young men, trained them and called them their Afghan Hezbollah. Those young men were sent to Afghanistan and western Iraq to operate against U.S. forces and political leaders friendly to the U.S.
Iran has four parts to its covert action in Iraq: First, it has worked through the Shiite clergy having a fatwa issued right after Baghdad fell calling on all the Iraqi Islamic clergy to work with the pro-Iranian political group, to stay away from the U.S. and the coalition, and to go back into Iraq and take over mosques to gain control of their treasuries. Second, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq is working to have their forces win elections and is funding the Badr Brigades, an armed unit of 20,000 to 30,000 which began going into northern Iraq before the war started. The third part involves Muqtada Al-Sadra, a very radical Iraqi cleric who Menges believes is behind the murder of pro-democracy Iraqi leaders. The fourth part is to use the media to advance their agenda.
Regarding Latin America, Menges discussed Castro’s Forum of Sao Paulo which was started in 1990 with the unraveling of communism in Eastern Europe. The forums objective was to take back in Latin America what had been lost in Eastern Europe. While Castro was the sponsor of the Forum, the chairman was Lula da Silva, now president of Brazil. Silva headed the Workers Party of Brazil and was a self-professed friend and admirer of Castro. The secretary general of the Forum is Silva’s man for international covert action, Marco Garcia. The Forum brings together all the communist parties and the Marxist-Leninist terrorist organizations from Latin America and has visiting participants from Iran, Libya, North Korea, China, Vietnam, and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. They all decide how they can help each other. Menges said they use a highly deceptive two-level approach: the first level is to maintain normal relations with the U.S. and other countries. “Smile and have summits with Bush . . . Be nice to American business, export to the United States. Get money from the World Bank and IMF,” said Menges, “while at the second level work actively to promote pro-Castro radicals, whether through destabilization or through winning elections. And the network of the Forum of Sao Paulo will help with the winning of elections.”
Menges said their first success was Chavez in Venezuela and then Lula da Silva in Brazil, and then Lieutenant Colonel Gutierrez in Ecuador. As a result, a pro-Castro axis has developed to include Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, and they are working for the same in Bolivia. Menges explained that this trend could be stopped through political action alone by helping the Latin American democracies and providing them honest and factual information.