Defeating ISIS won’t stop terrorism, but defeating Wahhabism can by Dr. Ali Alyami

While Western powers are mired in fighting diversionary and unwinnable ideological and civil wars in many Arab and Muslim countries thousands of miles away, the Saudi government has been intensely planting and financing its lethal doctrine (Wahhabism) in Kosovo, Europe’s backyard.  Ironically, the Saudi success in penetrating Kosovo, as this New York Times’ account amply demonstrates, can partially be attributed to Western powers’ policies and myopic view of the world as it is.

According to a high ranking official in the Serbian Embassy in Washington, D.C. (related to me in a casual conversation a few years ago), the Clinton Administration was under tremendous pressure from the Saudi regime and former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to invade Serbia. As per UN demands, NATO conducted “Operation Deliberate Force” against Serbia in August 1995. The massive bombardment of Belgrade resulted in forcing the Serbian regime to halt its ethnic cleansing and forced the Serbian government to accept the independence of Kosovo. Once that was achieved, the West effectively exited the fragile newly independent Kosovo, opening the door for the Saudi regime to embark on an unprecedented operation of radicalizing the Kosovars through an enormous infusion of money and extremist imams. While the Western powers saved the Kosovars from Serbian onslaught, they abandoned them to subjugation by a punishing ideology that poses a dire threat to Western democracy.

Dr. Ali Alyami

This is not the first or only time that the Saudi/Wahhabi collaborators have infiltrated and radicalized other Muslim societies in order to expand their hegemonical influence and intimidate those who pose threats to their repressive religious and political domination. As has been abundantly documented, the Saudi regime has employed the same method they have used successfully in Kosovo, that of building schools, mosques and sending radical imams, to infiltrate and radicalize not only large segments of countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Yemen and even Egypt, but is using the same technique to infiltrate Muslim communities in Europe, the US, Canada and South America.

The question that must be asked is when Western governments, societies and businesses will realize that their empowering democratic values and lifestyle are being threatened by the Saudi deadly doctrine which has been described as the “Fountain Head of Muslim terrorism.” The West should have heeded the warnings offered by powerful and prominent Muslims like the former President of the most populated Muslim country, Abdulrahman Wahid of Indonesia who said that “Muslims and non-Muslims must unite to defeat the Wahhabi ideology.

Defeating ISIS won’t eliminate terrorism, but defeating Wahhabism will go a long way toward eradicating the root causes of extremism and terrorism. ISIS is only a symptom of something bigger and more dangerous.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in TheNatSecDailyBrief.

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