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The Relationship Between Traditional and Contemporary Islamist Political Thought
The Relationship Between Traditional and Contemporary Islamist Political Thought
By Sherko Kirmanj *THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRADITIONAL AND CONTEMPORARY ISLAMIST POLITICAL THOUGHT
Sherko Kirmanj*This article discusses links between the political theories and ideas of medieval and modern Islamists, showing how the latter is a continuation of the former’s writings. It also shows how episodes of Islamist thought have coincided with both external conflicts with non-Muslim powers and internal ones with local regimes.
Political Islamism has often, though not always, been treated as a relatively new phenomenon. By the same token, examinations of Medieval Islamic political thought, like those of Montgomery Watt and Ann Lambton, look at this factor in its own historical context.[1] There are exceptions, of course, as with Hrair Dekmejian who studied the historical cyclic responses of radical Islamism,[2] while Antony Black has traced the broad history of Islamic political thought.[3] What is both interesting and useful at present is to take a broader view of Islamist political thinking over time and the relationship between various waves of its development.
Researchers identify very different contributory factors, including a response to economic crises or social dislocation; a reaction to authoritarianism; national shame stemming from Arab military defeats; crises of national identity, quests for national authenticity; the desire for legitimating authority; and disillusionment with the failures of Western-inspired government (whether liberal democratic or Soviet-influenced) to deal with their societies’ problems.[4]
One scholar states that Islamism is a product of “the failure of authoritarian nationalist governments, and the socio-economic divisions that have been exacerbated by neo-liberal globalization.”[5] Another view is propounded by Nazih Ayubi, who asserts that present-day Islamism does not represent a return to any situation that existed in the past or to any former theories but, rather, “is a new invention.”[6] Samir Amin claims that Islamists are not interested in theology and never refer to the classical theologians, and in a similar vein Bassam Tibi argues that notions of the “Islamic state” and “God’s rule” are recent additions to Islamic thought.[7]
To evaluate these various interpretations, this article reviews the writings of traditional Islamists and compares them with the concepts and approaches used by twentieth-century Islamists. These are important issues. To understand better the new phenomenon it is necessary to unravel the historical roots of Islamism and extremism, a heritage which is very much connected to present-day ideas and movements.
Economic factors (such as poverty) and sociopolitical factors (such as democracy and political legitimacy) have historically contributed to the emergence of Islamism. This article argues, however, that perceived military and cultural invasions have been the primary causes of Islamism and extremism both past and present. Evidence for this lies in the coincidence of past waves of Islamism with such events. It should be noted, of course, that such developments are common in regional history–and did not always produce this reaction–and thus these factors alone do not explain the phenomenon but they are of great significance in its timing and shaping.
Listed chronologically, some of the most extreme Islamists included Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (780-855), Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328), Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (1292- 1350), Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792), Hassan al-Banna (1906-1949), Abul A’la Mawdudi (1903-1979), and Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966). The element common to all of these writers was their hostility to the military and/or cultural invasions of their time.
For Ibn Hanbal, the Mu’tazila movement of that period was a rationalist ideology stemming from Greek philosophy, and as such, he perceived it to be a serious challenge to Muslim orthodoxy (see below for details). Four centuries later the Mongol invasion prompted Ibn Taymiyya and his student, Ibn Qayyim, to preach extreme ideas. Similarly, the primary concern for Mawdudi (leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami organization) and al-Banna (head of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood) was the desire to rid Egypt and India of British domination.[8] More recently, Muslim nations have experienced early twentieth-century colonization by European powers, the Palestine issue, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq; in each of these cases the emergence of Islamism is quite evident.
Invasions–whether military or cultural–are seen by Islamists as evil forces supplanting true Muslim religious and cultural values. In addition to military and cultural invasions, it is argued here that the harsh treatment of Muslim ulama and activists at the hands of authorities has been yet another contributing factor in the production of extreme ideas and writings. As noted above, poverty, illiteracy, injustice, and the absence of democracy provide conditions which make extremist ideas more readily acceptable to frustrated people.
The word Islamism here includes any attempt by Muslim individuals or movements to use Islam’s main sources, the Koran, the Sunna, and Islamic jurisprudence, as the foundations for political theories and ideologies. The term Islamist is used here to refer to Muslim activists in the political sphere who seek a religiously based government and policies in governance.
LINKS BETWEEN TRADITIONALIST AND CONTEMPORARY ISLAMISTS
The link and/or parallel between these two groups will be investigated on the basis of such common concepts as salafiyya (return to predecessors); sovereignty; comprehensiveness and universalism; forms of Islamic government, state and religion; jihad; takfir (repentance); and the status of women and non-Muslims in Islam. The persecution that individual Islamists have experienced and the sociopolitical issues that Islamists and their communities have faced (such as cultural and military invasions) will also be explored to identify the development patterns of Islamic extremism. Similarities will be explored regarding possible links and/or parallels between their political theories.
Salafiyya
Salafiyya is a call for “a return to true Islam” as practiced by the first generation of Muslims in the seventh century. Advocates of salafiyya believe that only by returning to the “true Islam” of the salaf (ancestors) can Muslims fight the immorality, foreign values and practices, and domination by others. Both types of Islamists argue that past solutions should be implemented to address contemporary problems, based on the authority of tradition, and they look to the salaf’s practices and texts as being sacred and equal to the main Islamic sources.[9]
Traditional Islamists: Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058-1111) argues that a caliphate is an indispensable institution of Muslim life and is “demanded by the ijmaa (consensus) of the community.”[10] Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) expressed the view that a caliphate was necessary because Muhammad’s Companions and the second generation of Muslims saw it to be necessary.[11] By the same token, Ibn Taymiyya insisted on the implementation of Shari’a (Islamic laws), and he called it the project of Islam. He believed that it had originally been achieved by the righteous caliphs and that it could be achieved again, though it would require other instruments.[12]
Contemporary Islamists: Mawdudi, who could be considered the father of this group, argues that no mujtahid (qualified person on theological matters in Islam) should ever lose sight of–or proceed independently of–the guidance given by the four Muslim jurists: Hanafi (699-767), Maliki (716-795), Shafi’i (767-820) and Hanbali (780-855).[13] Similarly, Qutb suggests that Muslims will not be masters of their own destiny unless they walk in the footsteps of the first generation of Muslims.[14] Likewise, Yusuf al-Qaradawi (1926- ) stresses the same line and says that individuals cannot interpret the Koran as they wish, but should apply principles and fundamentals compiled by previous religious leaders.[15]
In light of these and other views they have held, it is clear that both traditional and contemporary Islamists regard the acts and practices of the four “rightly guided” caliphs (Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali) and the first and second generations of Muslims as another source of their political theories and view them as shining models of ideal Muslim rulers and believers. For example, the appointment of a caliph is regarded as an essential part of Islamist political theory and is based on what is called the ijmaa of Muhammad’s companions. This is evident in al-Ghazali’s argument on the necessity of the caliphate, for he believes that a caliphate is necessary because “it is of advantage and keeps away damage in the world.” He stresses that a caliphate “is an indispensable institution of Muslim life.”[16]
The ijmaa of Muhammad’s companions has similar significance for the two groups. Both al-Ghazali and al-Qaradawi argue that the appointment of a caliph for the salaf was more important than the burial of Muhammad’s body.[17] Both sides show deference to tradition, this being important because, as pointed out by John Hawley, within all religions there are powerful traditions which emphasize stories, narratives, personalities, and lives instead of codes, precepts, and lectures.[18] Both traditional and contemporary Islamists adopted this methodology to elaborate their ideas, and their writings are embellished with stories and narratives of the salaf.
Sovereignty and Authority
Though the exact definition of sovereignty has varied across history, it has the core meaning of supreme authority within a territory. A government is sovereign in that its institutions have the power to set the laws and regulations in the territory it rules as it wishes, within the context of previous state law. It is at this point that the modern concept of sovereignty clashes with notions of sovereignty as understood by Islamists. Islamists such as Mawdudi, Qutb, Khomeini and Shari’ati have argued that “the basic distinction between Western polity and Islamic polity is that while the former places sovereignty in either the state or in man through the notion of popular sovereignty, the latter places it absolutely in God.”[19] Modern-day Islamists assert that all sovereignty stems from God, and the contemporary use of the concept of God’s sovereignty started after the clash between the then Egyptian and Pakistani authorities and the representatives of the Islamist movements, such as Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
However, the concept of the sovereignty of God is not something new in the Islamist lexicon and has been used by traditional Islamists for centuries.
Traditional Islamists: Al-Ghazali stresses the concept of the absolute sovereignty of God, and he considers the sovereignty of God to be even more important than God’s unity.[20] Yet he was not the only one to use the concept of sovereignty, for after the collapse of the Abbasid Caliphate in 1258, it was no longer possible for Islamists, like Ibn Taymiyya, to promulgate the fiction of the obligatory nature of a universal caliphate as his predecessors had done. Therefore, Ibn Taymiyya sought a new foundation for the state, starting from the basis that absolute sovereignty belongs to God. For Ibn Taymiyya, the only source of sovereignty and authority is God. According to this doctrine, Muslims consider God to be the absolute leader because, as Ibn Taymiyya argues, the will of God was passed to Muhammad through a revelation and so must be treated as a divine law. Thus, God is the sole bearer of sovereignty.[21]
Contemporary Islamists: Mawdudi has stated the view that God is the sole sovereign over all creatures,[22] and he has subsequently been supported by Qutb who insists on “no sovereignty except God’s, no law except from God, and no authority of one man over another, as the authority in all respects belong to God.”[23] Furthermore, he suggests, “Without… the concept of a higher authority (God’s sovereignty), all values remain unstable.”[24] This approach to the concept of sovereignty, by Sunni Islamists, is identical to that of the Shi’a, the Iranian Shi’a leaders, even incorporating it into their national constitution, which states, “absolute sovereignty over the world and man belongs to God.”[25] The issue of sovereignty is very important to Muslim theologians. Ibn al-Muqaffa (724-759) insisted that if a government does not implement the requirements revealed in the Koran and Sunna, it does not merit obedience.[26] Indeed this question has been of central significance since the establishment of the Islamic faith, for instance during the turbulent debates between Mu’tazilis and Orthodoxies.[27] It reached a critical point, with Ibn Hanbal asserting that one “should only obey rulers who observe the correct religious regulations.”[28] Thereafter, Ibn Khaldun argued on similar lines; he stressed that if a religious state is not operating according to the rule of the Shari’a then subjects are under no obligation to give their allegiance to such a government.[29]
After nearly seven hundred years, Mawdudi used exactly the same argument against political authorities in the Indian subcontinent when he called on Muslims to disobey any laws that are not from God as He is the only legislator.[30] It has been argued that Mawdudi and Qutb were the first to use the concept of hakimiyya ilahiyya (God’s sovereignty), but this was clearly not the case, for as early as the reign of Ali (the fourth caliph, r. 656-661), the Khawarijis (literally “those who go out”)[31] were using the slogan “la hukm illa li-llah” (the judgment is God’s alone)–meaning that all political decisions must be based on the words of God.[32]
In light of the above discussion, it is apparent that the concept of God’s sovereignty was introduced and used by traditional Islamists long before its use by contemporary Islamists and for an almost identical political purpose.
Comprehensiveness and Universalism; the Superiority of Islam
In the religious context, universalism is a theological doctrine that all human beings eventually will be saved. For Islamists, salvation will come only by Islam. Islamists argue this because of their belief in Islam’s comprehensive nature. The question to be considered in this section is not the claim of the comprehensive nature of Islam but to determine whether both groups of Islamists have assumed that Islam incorporates the concepts of comprehensiveness and universality.[33] This will shed further light on the links between traditional and contemporary Islamist political theories.
Traditional Islamists: Ibn Taymiyya argues that Islam is superior to the other two revealed religions (Judaism and Christianity) because the latter proclaim religion without striving to achieve “the conditions necessary for its existence: power, jihad, [and] material resources.”[34] Furthermore, he believes that the political organization of the Muslim community “is superior to that of any state.”[35] Ibn Khaldun, like Ibn Taymiyya, believes in the superiority of Islam over other divinely revealed religions, and in his well-known book, The Muqaddimah, he states:
In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everyone to Islam either by persuasion or by force…. The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty to them, save only for the purpose of defence…. They [Christians and Jews] are merely required to establish their religion among their own people.[36]
Furthermore, Ibn Khaldun places Muslim religious laws above all other laws because he believes them to be more comprehensive, as they touch both worldly and spiritual affairs.[37] This notion of superiority was endorsed by Abd al-Wahhab (who can be considered a bridge between traditional and contemporary Islamists) who asserted that the Islamic umma (nation) represented the pinnacle of excellence in comparison to other religions.[38]
Contemporary Islamists: According to Mawdudi, Islam has defined and established essential universal rights not only for Muslims but for humanity as a whole. On this basis, then, he encouraged “revivalists” to initiate a universal movement. He pointed out that the aim of such a movement is to enable Islam to become a superpower and a cultural hegemonic force to capture the moral and intellectual political leadership of mankind.[39] In addition, neo-Islamists believe that Islamic principles and practices are capable of solving all of the problems of human life. They argue that the Islamic system extends into all aspects of life; it discusses all minor and major affairs of mankind; it provides order to human affairs; it is not only comprehensive and perfect, but also realistic and constructive.[40]
This comparison of the views of traditionalists and neo-Islamists demonstrates a strong link between early and contemporary Islamists in their approach to the concepts of universalism and comprehensiveness. The acceptance of the comprehensive and universalistic nature of Islam led them to believe in the superiority of their faith over all others. For example, Qutb insists that “all humanity is in need to us; to our beliefs; to our principles; to our laws and our system.”[41] He states that it is the duty of Islam to annihilate all other systems because they are not only obstacles in the way of universal freedom, but also other societies do not give Muslims any opportunity to organize according to their own methods.[42]
Similar arguments can be seen in the writings of leading Iranian Shi’a figure, Ayatollah Mutahhari, who sees Islam as superior to other religions. He dismisses Christianity as comprising merely a few moral teachings while Islam is “a religion that sees its duty and commitment to form an Islamic state. Islam came to reform society and to form a nation and government. Its mandate is the reform of the whole world.”[43] For Islamists, Islam is not only a religion, it is a comprehensive system to govern all public, social, and political life.
The Necessity of Islamic Government
Before exploring the links between traditional and contemporary Islamists in regard to the necessity of an Islamic government and social order, several points need to be clarified. First, this is a very important subject because it is one of the basic principles used by Islamists to politicize their faith. Second, it is essential to note that the terminology used by traditionalists and that used by contemporary Islamists is slightly different. For example, traditional Islamists used caliphate or imamate as the main political and religious institutions in the Islamic state, while contemporary Islamists have adopted modern terms such as “state” and “parliament.”
Traditional Islamists: Ali bin Muhammad al-Mawardi (974-1058) stated that “God… ordained the caliphate of the Prophet through whom He protected the people; and He entrusted government to him, so that the management of affairs should proceed [on the basis of] right religion… and affairs of common interest were made stable.”[44]
Regarding the necessity of government, Ibn Taymiyya (in his political treatise al-Siyyasa al-Shar’iyya) bases his argument on two verses in the Koran. The first verse reads, “Surely Allah commands you to make over trusts to their owners and that when you judge between people you judge with justice; surely Allah admonishes you with what is excellent; surely Allah is Seeing, Hearing.” The second verse is: “Oh you who believe! Obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority from among you; then if you quarrel about anything, refer it to Allah and the Messenger, if you believe in Allah and the last day; this is better and very good in the end.”[45]
For Ibn Taymiyya, governing the affairs of the Muslim community is a religious requirement, because religion–without control of government–cannot survive, and he believes that the exercise of authority is a religious function.[46] Enforcing Islamic law is seen by Ibn Taymiyya to be another reason for an Islamic form of government, and he bases this on the belief that God ordered the Muslim community to “enjoin the good and forbid evil.” He says, “People are in need of a book to guide them, and a victorious sword; the book represents justice and the sword represents force, and human life depends on both of them.”[47] Another traditionalist, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (1292- 1350)also argued that politics is part of religion, and government is founded on the justice of God and Muhammad.[48]
Contemporary Islamists: Fear of waning Islamic values and the need for Shari’a are seen by neo-Islamists as the main reasons for having an Islamic state. Without a state, Qutb argues, all values are unstable, and similarly the morals based on those values remain unstable.[49] More significantly, in regard to the links and similarities between contemporary Islamist political theory and traditional Islamist political ideas, al-Qaradawi and Abd al-Karim Zedan, two leading contemporary Islamist theoreticians, have used the same argument espoused by Ibn Taymiyya to justify the establishment of Islamic government (see above).[50]
It is clear from the above passages that both traditional and contemporary Islamists believe that the establishment of an Islamic state is vital because, as they claim, the existence of religion and the world are both dependant on the existence of a government, or more precisely, an Islamic order. This highlights another parallel between the political theory of traditional and neo-Islamists and is an indication that the process of politicization of Islam is an old phenomenon. In the next section this argument will be further illustrated.
State and Religion: Politicization of Islam
Both traditional and neo-Islamists believe in the inseparability of state and religion. In the following section this concept is not debated, however, their respective notions of state and religion, and the conditions that have been laid down for Islamic rule by both traditional and contemporary Islamists, will be examined for possible links.
Traditional Islamists: Al-Mawardi and Ibn Taymiyya identified the duties of the caliph as follows: to maintain the religion, to execute judgment between claimants, to protect the house of Islam, to implement Shari’a, to guard the frontiers, to undertake jihad, to appoint advisors, to collect taxes, to pay salaries, and to oversee community affairs personally, to lead the Friday prayer, the performance of pilgrimage, and the celebration of religious festivals.[51]
It is obvious that for traditionalists the caliph and the institution of the caliphate are seen to be the bearers of all state duties–legislative, executive, and judicial. It is noteworthy that of all these duties only a few are religious. Additionally, al-Ghazali adds as duties to be commander of the Muslim army and leader of all formal religious observances.[52] As regards the qualifications for being appointed caliph, most traditionalists have stressed that he should be a just person, possess religious knowledge, and be able to make independent judgments on points of law; in other words, to be mujtahid. Also, he has to be a mature male and a Muslim.[53]
In regard to the relationship between religion and state, in his major work on politics, al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyya (The Ordinances of Government), al-Mawardi conceives of the caliphate as a form of government that safeguards the ordinances of the Shari’a and its implementation. Moreover, al-Ghazali also argued that religion and power were, from the beginning, “indissolubly interrelated.” In a similar vein, Ibn Taymiyya insists that state and religion are inseparable, because their separation eventually leads to dissension.[54] By the same token, Abd al-Wahhab argues that Islam forbids “separating the religion from any matters of life, including politics and law.”[55]
Contemporary Islamists: Concerning the question of state and religion, the only difference between contemporary Islamists and traditionalists is that the former use the term “Islamic state” instead of “caliphate”; but they, too, list the above-mentioned duties of caliph, including the need to safeguard the Muslim community and to implement Shari’a.[56] Like the traditionalists, al-Qaradawi and al-Banna both argue that a Muslim ruler must be a scholar in Shari’a, and his knowledge of Islamic regulations needs to be equivalent to that of a mujtahid.[57]
Likewise, Mawdudi identifies the qualifications for rulers and office bearers. He suggests that they have to possess those qualities prescribed by Islam, such as to be a Muslim, male, adult, and a citizen of an Islamic state.[58] It is evident that the qualifications identified by contemporary Islamists are almost identical to those of traditional Islamists. However, it is relevant to point out that when Mawdudi says those “qualities prescribed by Islam,” he refers to the ones prescribed by traditionalists, because neither the Koran nor the Sunna defined the necessary qualities.
Jihad and Takfir
Takfir, or repentance, is the practice of declaring that an individual or a group previously considered Muslim(s) is/are in fact kufar (non-believers in God), and in some cases legalizing the shedding of their blood. Historically, takfir and hijra (migration) are terms that refer to when Muhammad considered the people of Mecca to be infidels, thus leaving the city and going to Medina instead. The recent use of these terms and concepts was introduced by an Egyptian radical organization, al-Takfir wal-Hijra (Repentance and Holy Flight), which accuses any society of being infidel if it does not follow the Shari’a–even if that society observes Islamic rituals. In the view of that organization, the only solution for believers is to flee the infidel community and call for jihad against it.
Traditional Islamists: The concept of jihad has been used since the earliest years of the religion. Indeed, the use of jihad and takfir precedes the appearance of jurists, ulama, and traditional Islamists. For example, shortly after Muhammad’s death, the Khawarijis justified their fight against Caliph Ali, whom they considered to be an infidel because, they said, he transgressed Islamic precepts. They considered all non-Khawarijis (and even those Khawarijis who had not joined their camp) as mushrikun (polytheists) and kuffar (infidels).[59]
A similar argument was developed by Ibn Taymiyya against the Tatars, for although that group had embraced Islam, he denounced them as apostates because they failed to implement fully the Shari’a. Ibn Taymiyya’s strict and literal interpretation of the Koran established him as the pioneer of Islamic extremism. He was one of the first Islamists to introduce the notion of migration from the House of Infidels to the House of Islam.[60] He also believed that all lawful warfare was essentially jihad, and since its aim was to assert the supremacy of God’s word, those who stood in the way of this aim must be fought.[61]
One of Ibn Taymiyya’s students, Ibn Qayyim, meticulously followed his teacher’s steps and, after the Khawarijis, was one of the first to introduce the concept of takfir and to set out a procedure for jihad. In his book Zad al-Mi’ad, he argues that:
God Commanded the Prophet Muhammad to migrate to Medina. After his arrival into Medina, he was given permission to fight. Then he was instructed to fight against those who fought him and to restrain himself from those who did not make war with him. Later he was commanded to fight the polytheists until God’s religion was fully established.[62]
For traditionalists, jihad could be against infidels or believers. Both al-Mawardi and Ibn Taymiyya divided jihad into two categories: jihad against unbelievers and jihad against believers. The latter were further divided into apostates (or innovators), rebels, and brigands.[63] In addition, he considered the Shi’a and those who doubted their version of Islam to be infidels. In a similar vein, Abd al-Wahhab argued that the Shi’a beliefs and worships were forms of infidelity. Indeed, in terms of takfir, no Islamist is as extreme as Abd al-Wahhab. In his major book Kitab al-Tawhid, he asserts that only those who subscribe to his version of religious orthodoxy are the true and faithful believers, and he dismisses almost everybody else–Muslims and non-Muslims alike–as infidels.[64] From the above remarks, it is clear that both jihad and takfir were central to Islamist political arguments, and they were justified against both believers and non-believers. The question now is how neo-Islamists approached these two concepts and how much they relied on traditional theories.
Contemporary Islamists: Qutb’s understanding of jihad is a precise copy of Ibn Qayyim’s approach (see above). Qutb stated that the Muslims were first restrained from fighting, then they were permitted to fight; later they were instructed to fight against the aggressors, and finally they were commanded to fight against all polytheists.[65] Furthermore, Qutb rejects any other understanding of the concept of jihad in Islam, describing those who say “jihadis a defensive war” as “narrow-minded” and “treacherous Orientalists.” He also believes that “striving through sayf (sword) is to clear the way for striving through preaching.”[66]
Justifying jihad against believers is evidence that the concept of takfir, as used by contemporary Islamists, is not new. It apparent from the above that al-Mawardi and Ibn Taymiyya legitimized war against believers by labelling them “innovators,” “rebels,” or “brigands.” The difference between traditionalists and contemporary Islamists is presumably the accused group’s position within the state. In early Islam, such groups were normally in opposition to the state, but today the accused groups normally support the state–and sometimes are the state itself.
This is the possible explanation for al-Banna and Qutb both calling for jihad against authorities. Indeed, Qutb adopted the extreme view that the nation of Islam ceased to exist once Muslims submitted the governance of his affairs to men. He argued that as long as a society does not live by the Shari’a, it is in a state of jahiliyya (ignorance), even if its members believe in God and observe the rituals of worship.[67] The influence of Ibn Taymiyya’s accusation against the Tatars provided Qutb with the ingredients to reject Egyptian society. Another similarity between traditional and neo-Islamists is that both groups have specified the stages of jihad, which they define as follows: first, an invitation to embrace Islam; second, if the invitation is rejected then jihad needs to be undertaken without warning; and third, they should be fought until they either convert to Islam or accept to pay jizya (poll tax).
The Status of Women and the Status of Non-Muslims
To identify links in the approaches and understandings of traditional and contemporary Islamists in regard to women’s rights is a difficult task, because traditionalists rarely mentioned this issue. Their silence on the subject may have been because it was not considered a matter worthy of comment or because they took for granted a subordinate status for women and did not feel any need to justify it. Either way, this can be understood best if it is considered in its historical context, for the world then was a man’s world only. In considering this matter, the status of non-Muslims will also be discussed to further highlight similarities between both traditional and neo-Islamist standpoints.
Traditional Islamists: Al-Mawardi argues that it is possible for a non-Muslim to hold high office (such as vizier, minister) in an Islamic state as long as his duties are of the tanfiz (executive) category.[68] However, Ibn Taymiyya had a different view; as a strict follower of salaf, he demanded the application of the regulations set by Umar (the second caliph, r. 634-644), which barred non-Muslims from any political or military positions.[69] In fact, most traditionalists, such as al-Ghazali and Muhammad ibn Ibrahim Ibn Jama’a (1241-1333), stressed that the requirements for being a caliph or imam are to be male and a Muslim.[70] In other words, the caliph should not be a female or a non-Muslim. This is as far as women’s status and rights were defined, however, as noted above, non-Muslims were certainly not treated equally and were required to pay jizya as the price for their protection by the Islamic government. For example, Abd al-Wahhab asserts that if non-Muslims refuse the call of the Muslim Commander to Islam, he must order them to pay the jizya or else fight them.[71]
Contemporary Islamists: Mawdudi argues that Islam seeks to eliminate discrimination based on color, race, nationality, blood, and lineage; but on the question of religion, he divides human beings into two parties: “the party of God” who are Muslims, and “the other party” who are non-Muslims.[72] In addition, he says that Islam prescribes two types of citizenship: Muslims and dhimmis (non-Muslims), and only Muslims have the right to hold “the post of the head of the Islamic state,” to be a “member of parliament,” or to occupy “key positions.”[73] Moreover, Mawdudi and Zedan name those who are not eligible to vote in an Islamic state, and they include non-Muslims with children and the mentally ill.[74] It is relevant to point out that Zedan uses the term “crazy” in place of “mentally ill,” and in so doing he thus categorizes non-Muslims with “crazy” people. Al-Banna suggests that the authority of a Muslim state should not be entrusted to non-Muslims, because this would enable them to gain general power.[75]
The Islamist view on non-Muslim participation in parliament is similar to the view on women, whom they consider to be second-class citizens unworthy of holding any leading political post, such as that of president or prime minister. They insist that parliamentary seats for both non-Muslims and women should be limited in number, and that non-Muslims should be excluded from judicial matters.[76] For contemporary Islamists, women’s main responsibility is to bring up children, as suggested by Qutb, and if a society permits women to work in a job outside the home then that community should be considered jahiliyya.[77]
Under the pressure of current changes in the Islamic world regarding reform and democratization, al-Qaradawi approaches the role and the status of women in society more diplomatically. He is aware that he cannot deny them basic rights, such as nomination to public office and government, but he still marginalizes them and limits other rights so that they remain second-class citizens in society. Al-Qaradawi’s view is that women should be allowed to be elected to parliament, but their numbers should not exceed those of men; as long as men have the majority they need not worry about women overpowering male authority.[78]
As stated above, it is difficult to discern similarities between traditional and contemporary Islamists in regard to the status of women. However, contemporary Islamist denial of women’s rights could be linked to their disregard by traditionalists. Moreover, in relation to the status of non-Muslims, there are clear links between the views of the two groups as examined above.
The significance of identifying the theoretical links and/or parallels between the ideologies of past and present Islamists is in showing to be incorrect the argument that Islamism is a new phenomenon, as proposed by Ayubi, Amin, and Tibi (see above), and that the process of politicization of Islam goes back to the first centuries of Islam, especially after the emergence of the first traditional extremists.
Extremism in Islam: Past and Present
It is worth noting that not all Islamists (traditional or contemporary) hold extreme views. Following is an examination of this point, with particular focus on the most prominent writers. The emphasis will be on three well-known traditional Islamists, Ibn Hanbal, Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim. Of contemporary Islamists, the focus will be on the ideas of Qutb, by far the most extreme. The attention will be on two interesting influences on their extreme ideas, as a response to personal persecutions and invasions.
Persecution of Islamic Thinkers and Extremism in Islam
Throughout history the relations between Islamic rulers and ulama and jurists (including Islamists) have generally been good. The Islamists’ main political role has been to justify and legitimize the ruler’s authority.[79] However, there have been exceptions, and some Islamists have paid a heavy price for their beliefs and their political and theological standpoints, several suffering imprisonment, persecution, and torture. Such experiences seem to have had profound impacts on their views.
Traditional Islamists: In 833, the Abbasid Caliph,
Abdallah al-Ma’mun ibn Harun (786-833), officially supported the theological doctrine of the creation of the Koran. The debate as to whether the Koran was eternal or temporal and created had led to fierce disputes and to the persecution of adherents of the opposing positions.[80] The Mu’tazila, a Muslim theological sect influenced by the rationalist methods of Hellenistic philosophy, taught that God was an absolute unity admitting of no parts. This rationale was brought to bear on the problem of God’s word, the Koran, because the word is God and not a part of Him; that is, the Koran, as a written expression and thus a material thing removed from God, had to be created by God in order to be accessible to man. In contrast to this view, traditionalists, such as Ibn Hanbal, held that the Koran was uncreated and external, that it had existed along with God since the beginning of time. The debate led to the persecution of Ibn Hanbal and his followers. Hanbal was beaten and imprisoned by Abbasid authorities, though later released under pressure from his supporters.[81]Another prominent traditionalist was Ibn Taymiyya. Born in Harran in 1263, he lived through one of the most turbulent periods in Muslim history. At the age of six his father took refuge in Damascus after the community was displaced by Mongols. However, they were under constant threat, and internal dissent was destabilizing their religion. Repeatedly imprisoned because of his stance against invasion, he spent his last two years in jail, where he was actively involved in writing until deprived of pens and papers by his jailers.[82]
More importantly, Ibn Taymiyya and most extremist Islamists were born into sociopolitical situations where Muslims in general, and Islamists in particular, suffered greatly. Ibn Taymiyya was born when the Abbasid Caliphate had just been defeated by Mongol invaders. At that time, the Muslim community suffered defeat and humiliation (see next section), and jurists and ulama were subjected to torture and imprisonment, especially those who called for the end of invasion–among them the leading figures Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim.
Contemporary Islamists: In relation to jihad, in Nahwa Mujtama Islami (Towards an Islamic Society), Qutb argues that “it is not the ambition of Muslims to oblige others to follow Islam, but its object is that Muslims should be free to preach Islam and let others have the freedom of belief.” In the same book, penned prior to his imprisonment and torture, he wrote that “the aim of jihad is to push away hostility without aggression.” He concludes that the general principle is “no war” and war is only “with attackers.” Furthermore, he stresses that Islam will not fight, boycott, or set itself against “polytheists.”[83]
However, In Ma’alim fi al-Tariq (Milestones), he branded those who understood jihad as a “defensive war” as “narrow-minded” and “treacherous Orientalists.”[84] It is clear from these lines that he had moved from a position of moderation to one of extreme intolerance and belligerence, especially regarding jihad. It is quite possible that Qutb wrote Nahwa Mujtama Islami before his imprisonment and subsequent torture, because the language, tone, and approach to the concept of jihad is so profoundly bellicose in the later work. As a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1960s, Qutb suffered at the hands of the Egyptian authorities. Various witnesses reported the barbarism of the camp guards. Gilles Kepel writes, “It was then that he [Qutb] lost his last remaining illusion as to the Muslim character of Nasser’s [the Egyptian president] regime.”[85]
The suppression brought far-reaching changes to Qutb’s ideology and in the means adopted by the Muslim Brotherhood in their struggle with the Egyptian government. The example cited here is only one instance of the changes in tone and language in Qutb’s writings, and many others can be found by comparing his early and post-imprisonment works.
Both traditional and contemporary Islamists might have been pushed further because of what they experienced at the hands of authoritarian rulers. Many are drawn to political violence, as Dr. Jerrold Post, a political psychologist pointed out, “not purely from ideological consideration but also through personal and psychological factors.”[86]
Cultural and Military Invasion and Extremism in Islam
In Muslim history there are many examples of Islamist resurgence, whether by communities or individuals. Individuals and nations respond differently to cultural and military invasion, but in Muslims it has engendered waves of extremism.
Traditional Islamists: As a result of Mongol invasion and the collapse of the Abbasid Caliphate in 1258, religious institutions were destroyed and many jurists and ulama were either killed or dispersed.[87] Extremist Islamists view the destruction of the Abbasid dynasty as an important turning point in Muslim affairs. The significance of militant Islamic political thought which emerged in the wake of the Mongol invasion cannot be underestimated. Ibn Taymiyya dedicated his life to ending the Mongol occupation, and so obsessed was he that he declared jihad to be one of the pillars of Islam and more important than pilgrimage.[88] As a cultural example, the Mu’tazila trend in early Islam was considered by Islamists to be a symptom of undesirable foreign influences on Islamic values and culture.
Contemporary Islamists: Based on Ibn Taymiyya’s approach, al-Banna argues that “Muslims are under the yoke of foreigners and are subjugated by infidels” and “in such circumstances it becomes the duty of each and every Muslim to wage jihad.”[89] It is significant to point out that leading contemporary Islamists, such as Mawdudi, al-Banna and Qutb, lived in an era where most of the Islamic and Arabic world was dominated by Western powers. On the cultural front, a wide variety of examples can be cited, ranging from secular-oriented trends and movements (in some ways even Arab nationalism falls into this category) to Western films, books, and ideas about women’s rights. Perhaps, that is why al-Qaradawi says “social and cultural invasion is more dangerous and even worse than political and military invasion, because it flays the nation from itself.”[90]
CONCLUSION
Islamism is seen by some scholars as a reaction to modernism, Westernization, and industrialization, and therefore they argue that Islamism is a new phenomenon. By examining the views of Islamists from centuries ago–something contemporary Islamist thinkers have certainly done–we see, however, that this movement is a new wave in an old continuum.
Thus, contemporary Islamism is not a new phenomenon but one that has deep roots in the writings of traditional Islamists and in the experiences that both traditionalists and Muslim communities have encountered throughout history.
There are also, some significant differences. The point of departure between traditional Islamists and new Islamists is that the former often called for total obedience to authority in order to avoid fitna (strife). However, for the latter, authority is often perceived to be un-Islamic and so they view disobedience as a justifiable form of struggle against tyranny, despite the possible resulting strife.
For traditional Islamists, religio-political affiliation was often within the framework of existing units of the schools of law, but for contemporary Islamists affiliation was often with organized political parties. Traditional Islamist movements were not sophisticated in terms of organization, however, contemporary Islamist movements are well-organized, sometimes clandestine, and usually better equipped both ideologically and logistically. This is the result of modern technology and methods–the internet being one key example–which contemporary Islamists are quite willing to use.
Further research would be quite useful to explore and identify differences between traditional Islamists and Islamists.
* Sherko Kirmanj is a Ph.D. candidate and a tutor at the School of International Studies. He is the author of Politicisation of Islam: The Phenomenon of Islamism (Silemani, Iraq: Sardam House for Publishing and Printing, 2005), in Kurdish, as well as “The Clash of Identities in Iraq,” in Amatzia Baram and Ronen Zeidel (eds.), Iraq Past and Present, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), and “Islam Politics and Government,” in Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, Vol. 9, No. 1 (2008).
NOTES[1]. Montgomery Watt, Islamic Political Thought: The Basic Concepts (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1968); Ann K. S. Lambton, State and Government in Medieval Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981)
[2]. Hrair Dekmejian, Islam in Revolution: Fundamentalism in the Arab World (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995).
[3]. Antony Black, The History of Islamic Political Thought from the Prophet to the Present (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001).
[4]. John Esposito, Islam the Straight Path (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 160.
[5]. Bryan S. Turner, “Class, Generation and Islamism: Towards a Global Sociology of Political Islam,” British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 54, No. 1, (2003), p. 140.
[6]. Nazih Ayubi, Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 3.
[7]. Samir Amin, “Political Islam,” Covert Action Quarterly, No. 71 (2001), pp. 3-6; Bassam Tibi, The Challenge of Fundamentalism: Political Islam and the New World Order (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).
[8]. Ziad W. Munson, “Islamic Mobilization: Social Movement Theory and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood,” The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 4 (2001), pp. 487-510.
[9]. Nasr Abu Zaid, Naqid al-Khitab al-Dini (Cairo: Seena lil-Nashir, 1992), p. 53.
[10]. Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Fada’ih al-Batiniyya wa fada’il al-Mutazhiriyya (Cairo: al-Dar al-Qawmiyya lil-Tabi wal-Nashir, 1964), p. 171; see also Erwin I. J. Rosenthal, Political Thought in Medieval Islam: An Introductory Outline (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962), p. 39.
[11]. Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 156.
[12]. See Black, The History, p. 155.
[13]. Sayyid Abul A’la Mawdudi, A Short History of the Revivalist Movement in Islam (Kuala Lumpur: The Other Press, 2002), p. 43.
[14]. Qutb, Milestones, (New Delhi: Islamic Book Services, 1998), p. 22.
[15]. Al-Qaradawi, al-Sahwa al-Islamiyya: wa Hmum al-Watan al-Arabi wal Islami, (the place of publishing and the publisher are not stated, 1988), p. 90.
[16]. See Rosenthal, Political, p. 39.
[17]. Al-Ghazali, Fada’ih, p. 171; Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Min Fiqh al-Dawla fi al-Islam (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1996), p. 17.
[18]. Nimrod Hurvitz, “From Scholarly Circles to Mass Movement: The Formation of Legal Communities in Islamic Societies,” American Historical Review, Vol. 108, No. 4 (2003), p. 990.
[19]. Muqtedar Khan, “Sovereignty in Islam as Human Agency,” Ijtihad: A Return to Enlightenment, Vol. 1, No. 10 (December 30, 1999).
[20]. Lambton, State, p. 109.
[21]. Ibid, p. 145.
[22]. Sayyid Abul A’la Mawdudi, The Islamic Law and Constitution, (Lahore: Islamic Publications, 1969), p. 204.
[23]. Qutb, Milestones, p. 26.
[24]. Ibid, p. 29.
[25]. See Constitution of Islamic Republic of Iran, Article 56, http://www.iranonline.com/iran/iran-info/Government/constitution-5.html (last accessed August 13, 2007).
[26]. Lambton, State, p. 53.
[27]. The Mu’tazila was a rationalist school founded in Basra and Baghdad, which attempted to interpret religious texts in the light of human reason. They also advocated the doctrine of free will. However, the Orthodoxies believed in a literal interpretation of texts, their main disagreement with Mu’tazilis was regarding the notion of the created and uncreated of Koran.
[28]. Black, The History, p. 37.
[29]. Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, pp. 154-60.
[30]. Sayyid Abul A’la Mawdudi, “Political Theory of Islam,” in Mansoor Moaddel and Kamran Talattof (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Islam: An Anthology of Modernist and Fundamentalist Thought (NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), pp. 270-71.
[31]. Khawarijis is a term used to describe those Muslims who initially supported the caliphate of the fourth Caliph Ali, but later rejected him. They first emerged in the late seventh century.
[32]. Watt, Islamic, p. 54.
[33]. For the debate on comprehensiveness nature of Islam see Sherko Kirmanj, “Islam, Politics and Government”, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, Vol. 9, No. 1 (2008), p. 48.
[34]. Black, The History, p. 155.
[35]. Rosenthal, Political, p. 55.
[36]. Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, p. 183.
[37]. Ibid, p. 155.
[38]. Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab, Fadhl al-Islam (Riyadh: University of Imam Muhammad bin Sa’ud, 1791), pp. 207-10.
[39]. Sayyid Abul A’la Mawdudi, “Essential Features of the Islamic Political System,” http://www.islam101.com/politics/politicalsystem.htm (last accessed August 5, 2007); Mawdudi, A Short, p. 31.
[40]. Mawdudi, A Short, p. 16; Qutb, Milestones, p. 32; al-Qaradawi, al-Sahwa, p. 68.
[41]. Sayyid Qutb, Nahwa Mujtama Islami, (Dar al-Shruq, undated), p. 12.
[42]. Qutb, Milestones, p. 75.
[43]. Ayatullah Morteza Mutahhari, “Jihad: The Holy War of Islam and Its Legitimacy in the Quran,” http://www.al-islam.org/short/jihad/ (last accessed July 15, 2007).
[44]. Lambton, State, p. 85.
[45]. Koran (4: 58-59).
[46]. Rosenthal, Political, pp. 53-54.
[47]. Black, The History, p. 155.
[48]. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, al-Turuq al-Hukmiya fi al-Siyyasa al-Shar’iyya (Beirut: Dar al-Arqam bin Abi al-Arqam, 1999), pp. 39-40.
[49]. Qutb, Milestones, pp. 29-30.
[50]. Abdul Karim Zedan, al-Fard wal-Dawla fi al-Shari’a al-Islamiyya (Beirut: Mua’sasat al-Risalah, 1990), pp. 8-9; al-Qaradawi, al-Sahwa, p. 82; al-Qaradawi, Min Fiqh, p. 18.
[51]. Lambton, State, pp. 91-92, 147; Rosenthal, Political, p. 29.
[52]. Lambton, State, p. 111.
[53]. Al-Ghazali, Fada’ih al-Batiniyya, pp.180-81; Ali bin Muhammad al-Mawardi, al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyya (Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, undated), p. 7.
[54]. Lambton, State, pp. 127, 145.
[55]. Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab, Kitab al-Tawhid, http://www.islamicweb.com/beliefs/creed/abdulwahab/ (last accessed January 5, 2008), Chapter 37.
[56]. Mawdudi, The Islamic Law; Mawdudi, “Political Theory of Islam”; al-Qaradawi, Min Fiqh al-Dawla.
[57]. Hasan al-Banna, Selected Writings of Hasan al-Banna Shaheed (New Delhi: Millat Book Centre, 1999), p. 134; al-Qaradawi, Min Fiqh al-Dawla, p. 31.
[58]. Mawdudi, The Islamic, pp. 232-33.
[59]. See Farhad Daftary, “Diversity in Islam: Communities of Interpretation,” in Azim A. Nanji (ed.), The Muslim Almanac (Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1996), pp. 161-73.
[60]. Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya, Siyyasati Shar’i bo Salihbooni Sarkirda w jundi (in Kurdish), (Silemani: 2003), p. 98.
[61]. See Rudolph Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1996), pp. 47-49; Ayubi, Political, p. 15.
[62]. Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab, Mukhtasar Zad al-Mi’ad li Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, (Riyadh: University of Imam Muhammad bin Sa’ud, 1791), pp. 223-24; italics by author.
[63]. Al-Mawardi, al-Ahkam, p. 70; Lambton, State, pp. 211-12.
[64]. Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab, Risala fi al-Rad ala al-Rafidha, (Riyadh: University of Imam Muhammad bin Sa’ud, 1791), p. 29; Abd al-Wahhab, Kitaab At-Tawhid, Chapters 1-64.
[65]. Qutb, Milestones, p. 53.
[66]. Ibid, pp. 63-65.
[67]. Mohamed Selim el-Awwa, “A Return to the Centre,” al-Ahram Weekly, No. 459 (1999).
[68]. Al-Mawardi, al-Ahkam, pp. 28-29.
[69]. Lambton, State, p. 206.
[70]. Al-Ghazali, Fada’ih al-Batiniyya, p. 180; Rosenthal, Political Thought, p. 44.
[71]. Abd al-Wahhab, Kitab al-Tawhid, Chapter 60.
[72]. Sayyid Abu A’la Mawdudi, al-Islam wal-Jahiliyya (Beirut: Mu’asasat al-Risala, 1975), pp. 40-41.
[73]. Mawdudi, The Islamic, pp. 235-36.
[74]. Zedan, al-Fard, p. 30; Mawdudi, “Essential Features.”
[75]. Al-Banna, Selected Writings, p. 9.
[76]. Al-Qaradawi, Min Fiqh, pp. 194-95.
[77]. Qutb, Milestones, p. 98.
[78]. Al-Qaradawi, Min Fiqh, p. 165.
[79]. See Sa’d Khalaf al-Hinitti, al-Faqih wal-Sultan (Amman: Dar al-Bayariq, 1999).
[80]. Nasr H. Abu Zaid, “The Modernization of Islam or the Islamization of Modernity,” in Roel Meijer (ed.), Cosmopolitanism, Identity and Authenticity in the Middle East (England: Curzon Press, 1999), pp. 71-86.
[81]. Lambton, State, p. 41.
[82]. Ibid, pp. 143, 154.
[83]. Qutb, Nahwa, pp. 101-20.
[84]. Qutb, Milestones, pp. 53-76.
[85]. Gilles Kepel, Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), p. 28.
[86]. Benjamin Orbach, “Usama bin Ladin and al-Qa’ida: Origins and Doctrines,” Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 5, No. 4 (2001), p. 55.
[87]. Black, The History, p. 140.
[88]. Ibn Taymiyya, Siyyasati, p. 13.
[89]. Al-Banna, Selected Writings, pp. 47-48.
[90]. Al-Qaradawi, al-Sahwa, p. 12.
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King Abdullah’s Illness and the Saudi Succession
King Abdullah’s Illness and the Saudi Succession
By Joshua Teitelbaum *December 25, 2010We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. When processing your donation through PayPal please indicate in the “Special Instructions for Seller Box” for GLORIA Center. By check: “American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line. Mail: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Floor, NY, NY 10003.
- If King Abdullah dies, the Saudi succession will go smoothly, with Prince Nayif most likely becoming crown prince after current Crown Prince Sultan assumes the throne.
- Nayif is a conservative, which does not bode well for reform, although King Abdullah, who is a reformer (on a Saudi scale), also had a reputation as a conservative.
- The succession struggle will then focus on Nayif’s potential crown prince. The most likely candidates are King Abdullah’s son, Prince Mit’ib, and the son of King Faysal, Prince Khalid Al Faysal. Prince Salman, a full brother of Crown Prince Sultan, is a less likely candidate, although still a contender.
- Although every ruler brings his own nuance, the West can be assured that Saudi Arabia will experience no major upheavals as a result of a succession to the throne.
The so far not-so-sensational revelations from the WikiLeaks cables (for instance, that Gulf state leaderships really do want the U.S. to take any action necessary to stop Iran‘s drive for a nuclear weapon)1 have overshadowed what is the most significant Saudi news story of the past several years: the sudden illness of King Abdullah and the implications for the Saudi succession and the stability of the Saudi state.
With a few hiccups along the way, all twentieth and twenty-first century successions in Saudi Arabia have gone smoothly because the Al Saud family values unity over everything else. No one wants to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. King Faysal (d. 1975) set the tone by balancing the succession between competing family factions, while rewarding key princes with lucrative positions in key ministries and the bureaucracy. These they could use to pad their pockets, build power bases, and spread resources to relatives and supporters.
Abdullah Is Taken Ill
On November 12 the Saudi Arabian Royal Court announced2 that King Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz (aged 87) had been ordered by his doctors to rest after being diagnosed with a herniated disc. An inkling of the king’s indisposition occurred earlier in the week on November 8, when the weekly cabinet meeting was chaired by Abdullah’s half-brother,3 Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Prince Nayif bin Abd al-Aziz (aged 77). On November 13 the king also delegated Nayif to oversee the annual hajj ceremonies in his stead.4 At the time of the announcement, Crown Prince, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense and Aviation Prince Sultan bin Abd al-Aziz was said to be on holiday in Morocco, where he had been since August. Prince Sultan (aged 86) is widely believed to be suffering from a serious illness.
The royal family went into high gear to assure its subjects that all was well and that the Al Saud were still firmly at the helm. A picture of Crown Prince Sultan in Morocco was shown, noting that he was engaging in official business.5 Then the king himself was shown using a cane6 and talking with reporters about his back.7
But something was clearly afoot. Apparently, the “back pain” was more serious than previously announced, and several events ensued in quick succession. On November 17 Abdullah named his son, Prince Mit’ib bin Abdullah (aged 57), to succeed him as Commander of the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG).8 Mit’ib, who had long been expected to take over this position from Abdullah, was also made Minister of State, a cabinet-level position. SANG, the American-trained personal power base of Abdullah and his sons, is a 260,000-strong force that was slated to receive an upgrading of its minimal air assets as part of the $60 billion arms package for the kingdom which passed Congress in mid-November.9
On November 19 the palace admitted that the king was told to continue resting due to a new outbreak of pain,10 which was now accompanied by a “blood clot,” and on November 21 Saudi officials told the press that the king would fly to the United States on November 22 for treatment.11
Saudi media announced at the same time that Crown Prince Sultan would be returning from Morocco.12 Before he left for New York-Presbyterian Hospital, the wheelchair-bound king, seen with an IV tube sticking out of his hand, appointed Sultan to “administer the nation’s affairs” in his absence.13 The king underwent back surgery on November 24, and a few days later was reported to be convalescing well,14 according to statements by his half-brother Prince Nayif and the king’s son, Prince Mit’ib.
Meanwhile, on November 23 it was announced that Prince Salman bin Abd al-Aziz15 (aged 74), Governor of Riyadh Province and a full brother to Sultan and Nayif, had also returned from Morocco (with Sultan) and had “resumed his duties.”
To unseasoned observers, this royal dance may have seemed like an orderly state of affairs, but in reality it was a well-choreographed display of jockeying for power. As suited to a family that names a country after itself, the first priority was to assure a concerned populace that matters were under control. Abdullah prided himself on his transparency, but his subjects were probably made uneasy by just a bit too much information on his condition. Yet people were made to understand that all the key players were in place. The king was away, but the crown prince had returned, and Prince Salman had resumed his duties.
But just as the family as a whole wanted to assure a nervous public that nothing was amiss, each of the princes was keen to assert his position in the line of succession and thereby signal to his supporters and networks that they had nothing to worry about. Likewise, the West, particularly the United States, which always worries about Saudi stability, was an audience for this dance.
“Tribalistic” Politics: The Factionalization of the Saudi Royal Family
Saudi Arabia is a highly tribalistic society. The term “tribalistic” signifies that while tribes as discrete social units have dropped in importance with urbanization and modernization, tribal modes of behavior – most notably kinship-based behavior – play a key role in the social and political organization of the kingdom. When King Abd al-Aziz, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, bore over 30 sons from an untold number of wives, with so many sons it was inevitable that tribal-like factions would develop, coalescing either among sons who shared a mother (full brothers) or around the descendants of a particular son. These factions are numerous, but the most prominent are the following, all of which have, so to speak, some “skin in the game” when it comes to who rules Saudi Arabia:
- The sons of Hassa bint Ahmad al-Sudayri: Full brothers, the offspring of Hassa bint Ahmdad al-Sudayri and King Abd al-Aziz and often identified by their filial sobriquet, Sudayri. The most prominent of these was King Fahd who led the faction until his death in 2005. Other key members are Sultan, Nayif, and Salman. Although they support each other against princes outside this large faction, each son himself forms, with his sons, another competing faction. The sons of Sultan and Nayif are particularly important. Sultan’s key sons are Bandar bin Sultan (born 1950), legendary former ambassador to the U.S., head of the National Security Council since 2005; and Khalid bin Sultan (born 1949), commander of forces in Operation Desert Storm, and Assistant Minister of Defense and Aviation since 2001. Nayif’s key son is Muhammad bin Nayif (born 1959), who is Assistant Minister of Interior for Security Affairs and the architect of the government’s counter-insurgency program.
- The sons of King Faysal (the Al Faysal): King Faysal had no full brothers. Three of his sons are important players: Sa’ud (born 1940), Minister of Foreign Affairs; Turki (born 1945), former head of intelligence and ex-ambassador to London and Washington; and Khalid (born 1940), Governor of Mecca.
- The sons of King Abdullah: Most prominent is Mit’ib (born 1953), Commander of the National Guard.
All those mentioned above are possible candidates for king, sooner or later. There may be others as well. The most prominent feature of these groups is that the sons most often go into the father’s line of work, personal fiefdoms handed down from father to son. They are groomed for office, and each faction forms a power center to distribute favors and influence. As the sons of founder King Abd al-Aziz grow older, the likelihood that one of their sons will be crown prince or king increases.
The internal bargaining that goes on between factions is a fairly opaque business to Saudi Arabians and Western outsiders. Caveats are in order when delving into this arcane process. The main goal is to preserve family unity by advancing those most qualified within the leading groups, while at the same time not leaving anyone too disgruntled.
Octogenarians and Septuagenarians: The Aging Line of Succession
The most prominent feature of the succession constellation in the wake of King Abdullah’s illness is that the current ruling bunch is quite old and infirm. Abdullah is in his mid-80s and is now hospitalized. Crown Prince Sultan is around the same age and has often spent huge amounts of time abroad recovering from a serious illness, widely rumored to be a form of cancer.
If Abdullah predeceases Crown Prince Sultan, the crown prince may face a challenge from other contenders, particularly Nayif, who might logically argue that the country should not be subject to a quick succession since Sultan was already in his 80s and not in good health. He would face opposition, of course, from Sultan and his sons, but not at the expense of family unity. Nayif might be mollified by an immediate announcement by Sultan appointing Nayif his crown prince.
In the event that Sultan dies before Abdullah, Prince Khalid bin Sultan might make a play for the position of crown prince, arguing that the position should go to Sultan’s son, as the father never received a chance to rule. In this case, Nayif, who is more senior in the family, would oppose him.
Nayif Gets in Line
In either case, most money is on Nayif reaching the coveted crown prince position. The move would accord with the principle of balance, since it could be argued that Sudayri Sultan never really got to rule very long or at all, so it would only be fair to replace him with his full brother Sudayri Nayif. But there is no doubt that all the main players are now lining up their pieces.
Prince Nayif bin Abd al-Aziz has been Interior Minister for over 30 years. He is a conservative, and together with his powerful son, Muhammad, has led a fairly successful battle against al-Qaeda in the kingdom, using a tribalistic combination of carrot and stick to put down an insurgency which began in 2003. This achievement is to his credit, and while it has not endeared him to radicals, it has earned him the support of the Wahhabi religious establishment, which he has enlisted in his campaign.
In March 2009 he was appointed Second Deputy Prime Minister, a move widely assumed to position him next in line for the throne.
Nayif may disappoint those who seek a reforming leader. He is on record as opposing female municipal council officials,16 and indeed opposed elections to these councils. He seems to be a paranoid sort, who blamed the 9/11 tragedy on the Jews.17 But observers might recall that before his accession to the throne in 2005, King Abdullah was touted as conservative and anti-Western. In fact, he has proven the biggest reformer since King Faysal, albeit on a Saudi scale, which columnist Maureen Dowd has compared to “a snail on Ambien.”18
Still, it seems likely that Nayif will slow down reform even further. Westerners are not likely to be pleased with that.
Who Will Be Nayif’s Crown Prince?
Although candidates for Nayif’s crown prince are numerous, we should mention a prominent few. We have already mentioned Sultan’s son Khalid, who is well known in the West, although not considered much of a success. Nayif would likely be tempted to promote his son Muhammad, who has successfully countered the al-Qaeda insurgency and became popular when he survived an assassination attempt in August 2009 – by God’s will, the Saudis would say. Yet these are all Sudayris, as is Nayif’s full brother and Governor of Riyadh Province, Prince Salman.
In the name of balance and family harmony, it therefore appears probable that the Al Saud may prevail on Nayif to appoint a non-Sudayri. If the Sudayris prevail, however, Prince Salman, if he remains healthy19 (he had spinal surgery in the U.S. in August 2009), would be the leading candidate.
Khalid Al Faysal: The Intellectual Man of Letters
The two most prominent non-Sudayris who come to mind are Prince Khalid Al Faysal and Prince Mit’ib bin Abdallah. Both appear to be in good health (unlike Khalid’s brothers, Prince Sa’ud Al Faysal and Prince Turki Al Faysal).
In general, the Al Faysal (as was their father, King Faysal) are considered some of the more worldly members of the Al Saud. Many have long experience abroad, as well as in the more cosmopolitan region of the Hijaz, rather than the more traditional central area of Najd. Khalid has had long experience in government, ruling the province of Asir for many years, and, from 2007, governing the all-important province of Mecca. He is known to be intelligent, a painter, a poet, and a patron of the arts – and a personal friend of another crown prince, Charles of Wales. Prince Khalid has hosted Charles in Asir. Prince Khalid was featured in a WikiLeaks cable from November 8, 2006,20 in which a Western businessman describes the prince’s love of painting, including that of figures, a practice frowned upon by Wahhabi Islam. The prince was reported to hold a majlis, a sort of personalized town hall meeting, that was well-attended by people from all walks of life. Prince Khalid is widely believed to be respected in the family,21 many of whom might appreciate his combination of both modern and traditional sensibilities.
Prince Mit’ib bin Abdullah: Commander of His Father’s Army
Prince Mit’ib’s status comes from being his father’s right-hand man in the SANG. He is a graduate of Sandhurst and has been involved with SANG for most of his adult life. Since SANG has been trained by the Americans since the 1970s, it is likely that American military officials have some assessment of his abilities. Mit’ib, with his father’s help, will be presiding over the expansion of SANG, due to the new arms deal discussed above. The new positions created by the deal and the prestige of owning so much modern hardware will strengthen his position in the family and among the all-important tribes which make up SANG.
To sum up the issue of potential crown princes after Prince Nayif assumes the throne, if the Sudayris get their way and Prince Salman remains healthy, he might get the job. If they don’t, and the principle of balance between factions is maintained, Prince Khalid Al Faysal looks like the most probable winner.
* * *
Notes
1. Although readers might be interested to know that during a March 15, 2009, meeting with White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan in Riyadh, King Abdullah suggested that released Guantanamo Bay detainees might be tracked via an implanted microchip. This was done with horses and falcons, the king said. Brennan replied, “Horses don’t have good lawyers.” See “U.S. Embassy Cables: Saudi King’s Advice for Barack Obama,” Guardian, November 28, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/198178
2. “King Abdullah Advised Rest – Saudi Royal Court,” Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, November 13, 2010, http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=23021
3. “Saudi King Suffers Herniated Disc,” AFP, November 12, 2010, http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hK7wm4CBGfjgDhw4dj862YlpXflg?docId=CNG.cb80a1df49e6851ae06101076385e499.4d1
4. “Saudi King Delegates Deputy PM to Oversee Hajj,” Reuters, November 13, 2010, http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101113/wl_nm/us_saudi_king_1
5. David Kenner, “The Saudi Succession Battle Spills into the Press,” Foreign Policy, November 16, 2010, http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/11/16/the_saudi_succession_battle_spills_into_the_press
6. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/files/fp_uploaded_images/101116_abdullah.JPG
7. “Saudi King ‘Fine’ after Slipped Disc,” AFP, November 17, 2010, http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101117/wl_mideast_afp/saudipoliticsroyaltyhealth_20101117130640
8. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/17/AR2010111704919.html
9. “U.S.-Saudi Arms Deal on Track,” AFP, November 19, 2010,
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hEpfzlrQpi9X7GsuhZRzYLgNdLIg?docId=CNG.8c5f2dfbc93f860bb2d7e6b1038b6113.141
10. “Saudi King Has More Medical Tests, Told to Rest,” Reuters, November 19, 2010,
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101119/wl_nm/us_saudi_king_health_1
11. “Saudi King Is Heading to U.S. for Medical Care,” Reuters, November 21, 2010,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/22/world/middleeast/22saudi.html
12. Ibid.
13. “Saudi King Arrives in U.S. for Medical Tests,”
AP, November 23, 2010,
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5igtxekkWc6ACqkUVS3r2agSYMb8A?docId=5c5cbcb988784974b346d40094da03f4
14. Nawwaf Afit, “King Recuperating after Surgery: Mit’eb,” Saudi Gazette, November 28, 2010,
http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=2010112988212
15. “Prince Salman Resumes Duties at Governorate,” Arab News (Saudi Arabia), November 23, 2010,
http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article199149.ece
16. “Prince Nayef One of Most Powerful Saudi Princes,” Reuters, November 21, 2010, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AK17R20101121
17. Ibid.
18. Maureen Dowd, “A Girl’s Guide to Saudi Arabia,” Vanity Fair, August 2010, http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/08/maureen-dowd-201008
19. Asma Alsharif , “Saudi King to Seek Medical Treatment in U.S.,” Reuters, November 21, 2010,
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101121/wl_nm/us_saudi_king
20. http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2006/11/06JEDDAH700.html
21. Simon Henderson, “Bandar Is Back,” Foreign Policy, October 21, 2010, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/10/21/bandar_is_back?page=0,1
* * *
Joshua Teitelbaum, Ph.D., is Principal Research Fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He holds research positions at the GLORIA Center, Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, and visiting positions at the Hoover Institution and the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, both at Stanford University.
Hizbullah’s Throne of Bayonets
Hizbullah’s Throne of Bayonets
By Jonathan Spyer *December 25, 2010We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, upper-right hand corner of this page. When processing your donation through PayPal please indicate in the “Special Instructions for Seller Box” for GLORIA Center. By check: “American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line. Mail: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Floor, NY, NY 10003.
It is obvious that given the true balance of power in Lebanon, the special tribunal investigating the murder of former prime minister Rafik Hariri is largely a virtual exercise. As Michael Young pointed out in a column in the Beirut Daily Star this week, tribunal prosecutor Daniel Bellemare is currently on his end of year vacation and left without submitting draft indictments. This means that indictments cannot be issued before mid-January at the earliest.
Once they are issued, they will not be made public, but rather will be subject to the perusal of a pre-trial judge, Daniel Fransen. This process is likely to take up to a further two months, meaning that the very earliest a trial could begin would be late March or April.
At that point, if Hizbullah members are indicted, the movement will declare its nonrecognition of the court, and in real world terms, that is likely to be that.
But if this is the case, and it is, why is the Iran/Syria/Hizbullah camp so clearly jittery and worried by the events surrounding the tribunal? Why the wishful thinking in the newspapers evident this week, when the pro-Hizbullah Al-Diyar published a statement by Saad Hariri apparently abandoning the tribunal, which turned out to be entirely fictional?
More importantly, why the stark and repeated threats from Hizbullah and Iranian officials regarding the consequences if the Tribunal is not abandoned?
Hizbullah this week reiterated its promise to “cut off the hand” of anyone trying to arrest members of the movement. Many analysts saw the recent visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Lebanon as an act of preemptive intimidation. He was reminding Hizbullah’s opponents just how strong it is, and just how determined its backers.
Even Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei descended this week from his lofty heights to issue a fatwa regarding the tribunal. “This tribunal is receiving orders from elsewhere,” he said in a meeting with the emir of Qatar, before pronouncing “any ruling it hands down” as “null and void.”
Hizbullah immediately hailed his words, interpreting them in the most unambiguous terms as supporting its war to the end on the tribunal. A Hizbullah MP, Walid Sucarieh, said that the statement was meant to “tell those who seek strife through the indictment: stay right there. We won’t stand idle while the fire is burning our homes.”
SO WHAT is the reason for the very obvious concern of the pro-Iranian axis regarding the tribunal, even though there is no way that its indictments or rulings can be enforced?
Firstly, it is important to differentiate in this regard between the stances of Syria on the one hand, and Iran and Hizbullah on the other.
The Iran-Syria alliance serves the purposes of both parties and is in no danger of fraying. This does not mean, however, that the interests of the parties are at all times identical.
Syria is currently engaged in a convoluted diplomatic process with Saudi Arabia to try to find a solution on the issue of the tribunal. The Syrians hope to make diplomatic gains by playing all sides against the middle, in their usual fashion.
The indications are that Syria itself has nothing to fear from the indictments, despite the near certainty that its officials were involved in the murder of Hariri, even if Hizbullah men were contracted to carry out the deed. Syria stands to pay no price. It looks likely to continue to be aligned with Iran, and courted by the West and the Arab states whatever the outcome of the tribunal issue.
But the serious project under way in Lebanon is not that of the Syrians.
Hizbullah is a long-term project undertaken by the Islamic Republic of Iran, with the intention of generating legitimacy and popularity for Teheran by engaging in a never-ending war with Israel.
For this purpose, Iran established Hizbullah, and has over time built it into a political-military juggernaut of a potency rarely seen in the Arabic-speaking world.
Hizbullah today is the de facto dominant force in Lebanon.
But to serve its purpose for its creator, it is not enough for Hizbullah merely to be powerful. A Hizbullah which dominates Lebanon through pure coercion cannot play the role intended for it by its patron. It must also appear legitimate.
That is to say, to perform its task for its Iranian masters, Hizbullah must appear to be simultaneously Shi’ite and pro-Iranian, but also authentically Arab. It must be seen as the sole force able to make Arab dreams of victory over Israel once more look feasible. The Hariri tribunal in no way offers a threat to the real power of Hizbullah.
The movement can defeat any combination of its domestic opponents, if it comes to a fight.
But if such a fight takes place, even though Hizbullah would win it, the ambiguity regarding its true nature would be gone. It would be revealed as a powerful, alien force, made possible by the money and guns of non- Arab Iran, and holding power purely by coercion. It is for this reason that Hizbullah has been so desperate to change the subject back to Israel in recent weeks.
In this way, it hopes to portray the part of its identity which the Arab world finds attractive – the “resistance” – as opposed to the part that threatens to be revealed by the tribunal indictments – the alien, Shi’ite, Iran-created force.
The latest events in Lebanon thus help to lay bare the contradictions of the Iranian project in the region. This means nothing in power terms. Hizbullah still dominates.
Its local opponents remain disarmed and helpless.
But it apparently matters enough to Iran and its local proxy to cause them to mobilize the heavyweights to stop the tribunal in its tracks.
So it remains likely that the special tribunal on Lebanon will be the proverbial mountain that gives birth to a mouse. But careful observation of the current events surrounding it show the inherent limitations of Shi’ite, non-Arab Iran’s ambition to emerge as the dominant force in the region. As former Russian president Boris Yeltsin once put it in a rare moment of clarity, “You can make a throne of bayonets, but you can’t sit on it for long.”
Dr. Jonathan Spyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Herzliya, Israel
“This is worse than a crime, it’s a blunder”: Understanding Incompetent Western Policies
From Rubin Reports.Blogspot.Com
“This is worse than a crime, it’s a blunder”: Understanding Incompetent Western Policies
Posted: 25 Dec 2010 03:26 PM PST
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By Barry Rubin
Some of my readers are always bothered when I say that mistakes in Western Middle East policy are caused by stupidity and ignorance—abetted by ideology—and want to argue that the shortcomings are due to deliberate sabotage or evil intentions (often against Israel).
I can certainly understand why people think such things. But almost forty years of studying the Middle East and Western policy toward it have shown me hundreds of times that foolishness, misunderstanding, wishful thinking, and naivete are powerful forces in international affairs. As the great statesman Charles Maurice de Talleyrand put it almost two centuries ago, “This is worse than a crime, it’s a blunder.”
Remember that we are dealing here with people (policymakers, journalists, academics) trying to function across cultural, experiential, historical, linguistic, and usually religious lines. And what is their biggest handicap at present? Why, the very denial that such lines exist! Once you accept the assumption that everyone is basically alike in their thoughts, dreams, goals, and world view, you have no hope whatsoever of understanding anyone who has a different standpoint.
True, sometimes these decisionmakers and opinionmakers (especially the academics and European journalists) have taken up partisan positions. Yet this is far less true for politicians and policymakers who must keep in mind both their own personal and their country’s national interests. We tend to focus on extreme exceptions—who certainly exist—but they are a minority.
Ideology, of course, is also a powerful deceiver. It sets up preconceptions that often dominate even when the facts go against them. Central here is the sad reality that we are living at a time when ideology rather than pragmatism dominates the Western intellectual and political debate to a greater extent than has happened within living memory.
The academic world has broken down to an astonishing extent in terms of its ability to tell truth from falsehood. The mass media has followed this pattern, albeit to a lesser extent and with more exceptions. Thus, the Western world has been deprived of its two greatest sources for “reality checks.” That’s devastating.
“Since the masses are always eager to believe something,” said Talleyrand, “for their benefit nothing is so easy to arrange as facts.”
But what’s even worse is the domination of governments by forces that cannot even acknowledge that the great struggle of the time is between revolutionary Islamism and other radical forces–as in not only North Korea, Venezuela, etc., but in the West as well!—and traditional liberal, Enlightenment, democratic, freedom of speech, Western civilization, and family values.
In Talleyrand’s words, “To succeed in the world, it is much more necessary to possess the penetration to discern who is a fool, than to discover who is a clever man.”
Of course, a number of Western governments do things that favor the wrong side in terms of domestic policies. It is easier to believe that on domestic affairs there is a hidden agenda, that is an ideologically dicated series of goals concealed because the public would reject them if it understood what was really going on.
Yet when it comes to foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, many Western leaders think they are buying peace and stability when they are actually undermining it precisely because they don’t understand their enemies. Often, they no longer seem to understand the foundations of statecraft either. Perhaps this is symbolized by people being able to obtain a degree in “conflict resolution” but not learning about the uses of force, deterrence, and credibility.
Having said all this, though, I want to stress an often-ignored factor in such matters: the power of alternative explanations. These explanations may transgress logic and reality but that doesn’t mean people don’t believe them, especially when they match up with their prejudices.
Let me give two examples. Consider the Tea Party movement. Whatever one thinks of it, how can anybody not understand that it is motivated by a very simple platform: less government, lower taxes, less regulation? Their argument is that this would preserve freedom and allow the economy to grow much faster and more certainly.
Again, one could debate these ideas. But that’s the point: the avoidance of a debate by the movement’s enemies. Instead, the bulk of the establishment, mass media, and academia says it is mystified: what can these people possibly want? They must be just a group of racists and extremists. This alternative explanation probably satisfies at least 40 percent of the American public, maybe more, as being true.
International affairs, of course, are far more arcane. But consider this little case study. The Obama Administration has messed up on Israel-Palestinian issues for two years, a story I can tell—and have in previous articles—in great detail. Recently, it proposed a three-month freeze of construction on West Bank settlements. If it had gotten precisely what it wanted this would have led to no gain at all for anyone.
The Administration reportedly promised Israel a great deal if it agreed to the proposal. The Israeli government responded cooperatively. Yet what was the U.S. government offering? Apparently, the Administration was so incompetent as to contradict itself to the point where Israel couldn’t figure out the supposed deal. Then the Palestinian Authority demanded more, and even if it was given concessions wanted to sabotage talks.
In short, the Obama Administration became increasingly entangled in seeking a goal that wasn’t worthwhile, offering more and more but in a confused, contradictory manner, and having to deal with a Palestinian leadership that refused to cooperate and an Israeli government coalition that conceivably might splinter over the issue.
So the Administration abandoned the whole mess. Yet to read the explanations available to average Americans or even opinionmakers one would never know any of this clearly. The alternative explanations, mostly just blame Israel, for Washington’s failure.
Indeed, after two years in which Israel has offered to negotiate with the Palestinians every day and the Palestinians have refused to negotiate with Israel almost every day, the ruling establishment, mass media, and academia generally persist in saying that the deadlock is Israel’s fault.
Now, if people are unable to understand the simplest points—due to preconceived ideology, failure to look at the facts, or inability to understand them—we are not dealing with a conspiracy but with what might be called intellectually structured blindness.
What is the way out?
First, keep explaining the truth since there’s a large portion of people open-minded enough to be persuaded if they only are allowed to see the ridiculous flaws in what they’ve been told. In other words, use the free marketplace of ideas to the greatest extent possible.
Second, let events (and the behavior of their enemies) teach people that their ideas, policies, and programs just don’t work; make them look like idiots; and lead to a loss of prestige and power. That has been clearly happening to an extent.
Third, develop and put into place a counter-elite that has a far better level of understanding about how the world works.
Having seen so many different and changing eras already, I’m confident that this combination will work. Hopefully, it will work faster so that fewer people will die and suffer, while the damage done already will be easier to reverse.
Or, to quote Talleyrand once again, “The art of statesmanship is to foresee the inevitable and to expedite its occurrence.”
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
Deuteronomy 17:14-20; The Choice of a King; After the laws which concerned subjects fitly followed the laws which concern kings; for those that rule others must themselves remember that they are under command; What advantage his religion would be of to him; Those that fear God and keep His commandments will certainly fare the better for it in this world; The greatest monarch im the world may receive more benefit by religion than by all the wealth and power of his monarchy; He shall prolong his days in his kingdom; We find in the history of the kings of Judah that, generally, the best reigns were the longest, except when God shortened them for the punishment of the people, as Josiah’s; To his family: his children shall also prosper; Entail religion upon posterity, and God will entail a blessing upon it. B.C. 1451
| The Choice of a King. | B. C. 1451. |
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Deuteronomy 17:14-20
14 When thou art come unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me; 15 Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the LORD thy God shall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother. 16 But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the LORD hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way. 17 Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. 18 And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites: 19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them: 20 That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel.
After the laws which concerned subjects fitly followed the laws which concern kings; for those that rule others must themselves remember that they are under command. Here are laws given,
I. To the electors of the empire, what rules they must go by in making their choice, v. 14, 15.
1. It is here supposed that the people would, in process of time, be desirous of a king, whose royal pomp and power would be thought to make their nation look great among their neighbours. Their having a king is neither promised as a mercy nor commanded as a duty (nothing could be better for them than the divine regimen they were under), but it is permitted them if they desired it. If they would but take care to have the ends of government answered, and God’s laws duly observed and put in execution, they should not be tied to any one form of government, but should be welcome to have a king. Though something irregular is supposed to be the principle of the desire, that they might be like the nations (whereas God in many ways distinguished them from the nations), yet God would indulge them in it, because he intended to serve his own purposes by it, in making the regal government typical of the kingdom of the Messiah.
2. They are directed in their choice. If they will have a king over them, as God foresaw they would (though it does not appear that ever the motion was made till almost 400 years after), then they must,
(1.) Ask counsel at God’s mouth, and make him king whom God shall choose; and happy it was for them that they had an oracle to consult in so weighty an affair, and a God to choose for them who knows infallibly what every man is and will be. Kings are God’s vicegerents, and therefore it is fit that he should have the choosing of them: God had himself been in a particular manner Israel’s King, and if they set another over them, under him, it was necessary that he should nominate the person. Accordingly, when the people desired a king, they applied to Samuel a prophet of the Lord; and afterwards David, Solomon, Jeroboam, Jehu, and others, were chosen by the prophets; and the people are reproved for not observing this law, Hos. 8:4: They have set up kings but not by me. In all cases God’s choice, if we can but know it, should direct, determine, and overrule ours.
(2.) They must not choose a foreigner under pretence of strengthening their alliances, or of the extraordinary fitness of the person, lest a strange king should introduce strange customs of usages, contrary to those that were established by the divine law; but he must be one from among thy brethren, that he may be a type of Christ, who is bone of our bone, Heb. 2:14.
II. Laws are here given to the prince that should be elected for the due administration of the government.
1. He must carefully avoid every thing that would divert him from God and religion. Riches, honours, and pleasures are the three great hindrances of godliness (the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life), especially to those in high stations: against these therefore the king is here warned.
(1.) He must not gratify the love of honour by multiplying horses, v. 16. He that rode upon a horse (a stately creature) in a country where asses and mules were generally used looked very great; and therefore though he might have horses for his own saddle, and chariots, yet he must not set servants on horseback (Eccl. 10:7) nor have many horses for his officers and guards (when God was their King, his judges rode on asses, Judg. 5:10; Judg. 12:14), nor must he multiply horses for war, lest he should trust too much to them, Ps. 20:7; Ps. 33:17; Hos. 14:3. The reason here given against his multiplying horses is because it would produce a greater correspondence with Egypt (which furnished Canaan with horses, 1 Kings 10:28, 29) than it was fit the Israel of God should have, who were brought thence with such a high hand: You shall return no more that way, for fear of being infected with the idolatries of Egypt (Lev. 18:3), to which they were very prone. Note, We should take heed of that commerce or conversation by which we are in danger of being drawn into sin. If Israel must not return to Egypt, they must not trade with Egypt; Solomon got no good by it.
(2.) He must not gratify the love of pleasure by multiplying wives (v. 17), as Solomon did to his undoing (1 Kings 11:1), that his heart, being set upon them, turn not away from business, and every thing that is serious, and especially from the exercise of piety and devotion, to which nothing is a greater enemy than the indulgence of the flesh.
(3.) He must not gratify the love of riches by greatly multiplying silver and gold. A competent treasure is allowed him, and he is not forbidden to be good husband of it, but,
[1.] He must not greatly multiply money, so as to oppress his people by raising it (as Solomon seems to have done, 1 Kings 12:4), nor so as to deceive himself, by trusting to it, and setting his heart upon it, Ps. 62:10.
[2.] He must not multiply it to himself. David multiplied silver and gold, but it was for the service of God (1 Chron. 294), not for himself; for his people, not for his own family.
2. He must carefully apply himself to the law of God, and make that his rule. This must be to him better than all riches, honours, and pleasures, than many horses or many wives, better than thousands of gold and silver.
(1.) He must write himself a copy of the law out of the original, which was in the custody of the priests that attended the sanctuary, v. 18. Some think that he was to write only this book of Deuteronomy, which is an abstract of the law, and the precepts of which, being mostly moral and judicial, concerned the king more than the laws in Leviticus and Numbers, which, being ceremonial, concerned chiefly the priests. Others think that he was to transcribe all the five books of Moses, which are called the law, and which were preserved together as the foundation of their religion. Now,
[1.] Though the king might be presumed to have very fair copies by him from his ancestors, yet, besides those, he must have one of his own: it might be presumed that theirs were worn with constant use; he must have a fresh one to begin the world with.
[2.] Though he had secretaries about him whom he might employ to write this copy, and who perhaps could write a better hand than he, yet he must do it himself, with his own hand, for the honour of the law, and that he might think no act of religion below him, to inure himself to labour and study, and especially that he might thereby be obliged to take particular notice of every part of the law and by writing it might imprint it in his mind. Note, It is of great use for each of us to write down what we observe as most affecting and edifying to us, out of the scriptures and good books, and out of the sermons we hear. A prudent pen may go far towards making up the deficiencies of the memory, and the furnishing of the treasures of the good householder with things new and old.
[3.] He must do this even when he sits upon the throne of his kingdom, provided that he had not done it before. When he begins to apply himself to business, he must apply himself to this in the first place. He that sits upon the throne of a kingdom cannot but have his hands full. The affairs of his kingdom both at home and abroad call for a large share of his time and thoughts, and yet he must write himself a copy of the law. Let not those who call themselves men of business think that this will excuse them from making religion their business; nor let great men think it any disparagement to them to write for themselves those great things of God’s law which he hath written to them, Hos. 8:12.
(2.) Having a Bible by him of his own writing, he must not think it enough to keep it in his cabinet, but he must read therein all the days of his life, v. 19. It is not enough to have Bibles, but we must use them, use them daily, as the duty and necessity of everyday require: our souls must have their constant meals of that manna; and, if well digested, it will be true nourishment and strength to them. As the body is receiving benefit by its food continually, and not only when it is eating, so is the soul, by the word of God, if it meditate therein day and night, Ps. 1:2. And we must persevere in the use of the written word of God as long as we live. Christ’s scholars never learn above their Bibles, but will have a constant occasion for them till they come to that world where knowledge and love will both be made perfect.
(3.) His writing and reading were all nothing if he did not reduce to practice what he wrote and read, v. 19, 20. The word of God is not designed merely to be and entertaining subject of speculation, but to be a commanding rule of conversation. Let him know,
[1.] What dominion his religion must have over him, and what influence it must have upon him.
First, It must possess him with a very reverent and awful regard to the divine majesty and authority. He must learn (and thus the most learned must by ever learning) to fear the Lord his God; and, as high as he is, he must remember that God is above him, and, whatever fear his subjects owe to him, that, and much more, he owes to God as his King.
Secondly, It must engage him to a constant observance of the law of God, and a conscientious obedience to it, as the effect of that fear. He must keep all the words of this law (he is custos utriusque tabulae–the keeper of both tables), not only take care that others do them, but do them himself as a humble servant to the God of heaven and a good example to his inferiors.
Thirdly, It must keep him humble. How much soever he is advanced, let him keep his spirit low, and let the fear of his God prevent the contempt of his brethren; and let not his heart be lifted up above them, so as to carry himself haughtily or disdainfully towards them, and to trample upon them. Let him not conceit himself better than they because he is greater and makes a fairer show; but let him remember that he is the minister of God to them for good (major singulis, but minor universis–greater than any one, but less than the whole). It must prevent his errors, either on he right hand or on the left (for there are errors on both hands), and keep him right, in all instances, to his God and to his duty.
[2.] What advantage his religion would be of to him. Those that fear God and keep his commandments will certainly fare the better for it in this world. The greatest monarch in the world may receive more benefit by religion than by all the wealth and power of his monarchy. It will be of advantage, First, To his person: He shall prolong his days in his kingdom. We find in the history of the kings of Judah that, generally, the best reigns were the longest, except when God shortened them for the punishment of the people, as Josiah’s. Secondly, To his family: his children shall also prosper. Entail religion upon posterity, and God will entail a blessing upon it.
- Matthew Henry Commentary
Deuteronomy 17:8-13; The Authority of the Judges; The design of punishment that others may hear and fear, and not do the like; From this law the apostle infers the greatness of the punishment of which those will be thought worthy that trample on the authority of the Son of God, Heb. 10:28, 29. B.C. 1451
| The Authority of the Judges. | B. C. 1451. |
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Deuteronomy 17:8-13
8 If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates: then shalt thou arise, and get thee up into the place which the LORD thy God shall choose; 9 And thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and enquire; and they shall show thee the sentence of judgment: 10 And thou shalt do according to the sentence, which they of that place which the LORD shall choose shall show thee; and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee: 11 According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do: thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall show thee, to the right hand, nor to the left. 12 And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the LORD thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel. 13 And all the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously.
Courts of judgment were ordered to be erected in every city (ch. 16:18), and they were empowered to hear and determine causes according to law, both those which we call pleas of the crown and those between party and party; and we may suppose that ordinarily they ended the matters that were brought before them, and their sentence was definitive; but,
1. It is here taken for granted that sometimes a case might come into their court too difficult for those inferior judges to determine, who could not be thought to be so learned in the laws as those that presided in the higher courts; so that (to speak in the language of our law) they must find a special verdict, and take time to advise before the giving of judgment (v. 8): If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, which it would be no dishonour to the judges to own the difficulty of,–suppose it between blood and blood, the blood of a person which cried and the blood of him that was charged with the murder which was demanded, when it was doubtful upon the evidence whether it was wilful or casual,–or between plea and plea, the plea (that is, the bill or declaration) of the plaintiff and the plea of the defendant,–or between stroke and stroke, in actions of assault and battery; in these and similar cases, thought the evidence were plain, yet doubts might arise about the sense and meaning of the law and the application of it to the particular case.
2. These difficult cases, which hitherto had been brought to Moses, according to Jethro’s advice, were, after his death, to be brought to the supreme power, wherever it was lodged, whether in a judge (when there was such an extraordinary person raised up and qualified for that great service, as Othniel, Deborah, Gideon, &c.) or in the high-priest (when he was by the eminency of his gifts called of God to preside in public affairs, as Eli), or, if no single person were marked by heaven for this honour, then in the priests and Levites (or in the priests, who were Levites of course), who not only attended the sanctuary, but met in council to receive appeals from the inferior courts, who might reasonably be supposed, not only to be best qualified by their learning and experience, but to have the best assistance of the divine Spirit for the deciding of doubts, v. 9, 11, 12. They are not appointed to consult the urim and thummim, for it is supposed that these were to be consulted only in cases relating to the public, either the body of the people or the prince; but in ordinary cases the wisdom and integrity of those that sat at the stern must be relied on, their judgment had not the divine authority of an oracle, yet besides the moral certainty it had, as the judgment of knowing, prudent, and experienced men, it had the advantage of a divine promise, implied in those words (v. 9), They shall show thee the sentence of judgment; it had also the support of a divine institution, by which they were made the supreme judicature of the nation.
3. The definitive sentence given by the judge, priest, or great council, must be obeyed by the parties concerned, upon pain of death: Thou shalt do according to their sentence (v. 10); thou shalt observe to do it, thou shalt not decline from it (v. 11), to the right hand nor to the left. Note, It is for the honour of God and the welfare of a people that the authority of the higher power be supported and the due order of government observed, that those be obeyed who are appointed to rule, and that every soul be subject to them in all those things that fall within their commission. Though the party thought himself injured by the sentence (as every man is apt to be partial in is own cause), yet he must needs be subject, must stand to the award, how unpleasing soever, and bear, or lose, or pay, according to it, not only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. But if an inferior judge contradict the sentence of the higher court and will not execute the orders of it, or a private person refuse to conform to their sentence, the contumacy must be punished with death, though the matter were ever so small in which the opposition was made: That man shall die, and all the people shall hear and fear, v. 12, 13. See here,
(1.) The evil of disobedience. Rebellion and stubbornness, from a spirit of contradiction and opposition of God, or those in authority under him, from a principle of contempt and self-willedness, are as witchcraft and idolatry. To differ in opinion from weakness and infirmity may be excused and must be borne with; but to do so presumptuously, in pride and wickedness (as the ancient translations explain it), this is to take up arms against the government, and is an affront to him by whom the powers that be are ordained.
(2.) The design of punishment: that others may hear and fear, and not do the like. Some would be so considerate as to infer the heinousness of the offence from the grievousness of the penalty, and therefore would detest it; and others would so far consult their own safety as to cross their humours by conforming to the sentence rather than to sin against their own heads, and forfeit their lives by going contrary to it. From this law the apostle infers the greatness of the punishment of which those will be thought worthy that trample on the authority of the Son of God, Heb. 10:28, 29.
- Matthew Henry Commentary
Deuteronomy 17:1-7; The Punishment of Idolatry; Concerning the purity and perfection of all those animals that were offered in sacrifice; Concerning the punishment of those that worshipped idols; What sentency must be passed and executed; So great punishment as death, so great a death as stoning, must be inflicted on the idolater, whether man or woman, for the infirmity of the weaker sex would be no excuse. B.C. 1451
D E U T E R O N O M Y
CHAPTER 17
The charge of this chapter is, I. Concerning the purity and perfection of all those animals that were offered in sacrifice, ver. 1. II. Concerning the punishment of those that worshipped idols, ver. 2-7. III. Concerning appeals from the inferior courts to the great sanhedrim, ver. 8-13. IV. Concerning the choice and duty of a king, ver. 14, &c.
| The Punishment of Idolatry. | B. C. 1451. |
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Deuteronomy 17:1-7
1 Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the LORD thy God any bullock, or sheep, wherein is blemish, or any evilfavouredness: for that is an abomination unto the LORD thy God. 2 If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant, 3 And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; 4 And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel: 5 Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die. 6 At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death. 7 The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So thou shalt put the evil away from among you.
Here is, I. A law for preserving the honour of God’s worship, by providing that no creature that had any blemish should be offered in sacrifice to him, v. 1. This caveat we have often met with: Thou shalt not sacrifice that which has any blemish, which renders it unsightly, or any evil matter or thing (as the following word night better be rendered), any sickness or weakness, though not discernible at first view; it is an abomination to God. God is the best of beings, and therefore whatsoever he is served with ought to be the best in its kind. And the Old-Testament sacrifices in a special manner must be so, because they were types of Christ, who is a Lamb without blemish or spot (1 Pet. 1:19), perfectly pure from all sin and all appearance of it. In the latter times of the Jewish church, when by the captivity in Babylon they were cured of idolatry, yet they were charged with profaneness in the breach of this law, with offering the blind, and the lame, and the sick for sacrifice, Mal. 1:8.
II. A law for the punishing of those that worshipped false gods. It was made a capital crime to seduce others to idolatry (ch. 13.), here it is made no less to be seduced. If the blind thus mislead the blind, both must fall into the ditch. Thus God would possess them with a dread of that sin, which they must conclude exceedingly sinful when so many sanguinary laws were made against it, and would deter those from it that would not otherwise be persuaded against it; and yet the law, which works death, proved ineffectual. See here,
1. What the crime was against which this law was levelled, serving or worshipping other gods, v. 3. That which was the most ancient and plausible idolatry is specified, worshipping the sun, moon, and stars; and, if that was so detestable a thing, much more was it so to worship stocks and stones, or the representations of mean and contemptible animals. Of this it is said,
(1.) That it is what God had not commanded. He had again and again forbidden it; but it is thus expressed to intimate that, if there had been no more against it, this had been enough (for in the worship of God his institution and appointment must be our rule and warrant), and that God never commanded his worshippers to debase themselves so far as to do homage to their fellow-creatures: had God commanded them to do it, they might justly have complained of it as a reproach and disparagement to them; yet, when he has forbidden it, they will, from a spirit of contradiction, put this indignity upon themselves.
(2.) That it is wickedness in the sight of God, v. 2. Be it ever so industriously concealed, he sees it, and, be it ever so ingeniously palliated, he hates it: it is a sin in itself exceedingly heinous, and the highest affront that can be offered to Almighty God.
(3.) That it is a transgression of the covenant. It was on this condition that God took them to be his peculiar people, that they should serve and worship him only as their God, so that if they gave to any other the honour which was due to him alone that covenant was void, and all the benefit of it forfeited. Other sins were transgressions of the command, but this was a transgression of the covenant. It was spiritual adultery, which breaks them marriage bond.
(4.) That it is abomination in Israel, v. 4. Idolatry was bad enough in any, but it was particularly abominable in Israel, a people so blessed with peculiar discoveries of the will and favour of the only true and living God.
2. How it must be tried. Upon information given of it, or any ground of suspicion that any person whatsoever, man or woman, had served other gods,
(1.) Enquiry must be made, v. 4. Though it appears not certain at first, it may afterwards upon search appear so; and, if it can possibly be discovered, it must not be unpunished; if not, yet the very enquiry concerning it would possess the country with a dread of it.
(2.) Evidence must be given in, v. 6. How heinous and dangerous soever the crime is, yet they must not punish any for it, unless there were good proof against them, by two witnesses at least. They must not, under pretence of honouring God, wrong an innocent man. This law, which requires two witnesses in case of life, we had before, Num. 35:30; it is quoted, Matt. 18:16.
3. What sentence must be passed and executed. So great a punishment as death, so great a death as stoning, must be inflicted on the idolater, whether man or woman, for the infirmity of the weaker sex would be no excuse, v. 5. The place of execution must be the gate of the city, that the shame might be the greater to the criminal and the warning the more public to all others. The hands of the witnesses, in this as in other cases, must be first upon him, that is, they must cast the first stone at him, thereby avowing their testimony, and solemnly imprecating the guilt of his blood upon themselves if their evidence were false. This custom might be of use to deter men from false-witness bearing. The witnesses are really, and therefore it was required that they should be actually, the death of the malefactor. But they must be followed, and the execution completed, by the hands of all the people, who were thus to testify their detestation of the crime and to put the evil away from among them, as before, ch. 13:9.
- Matthew Henry Commentary
The unchangeable welcome to the weary
2 Samuel 14:22
To-day thy servant knoweth that I have found grace in thy sight, my Lord, O King, in that the king hath fulfilled the request of his servant.
Personal acceptance comes first. We must be “accepted in the Beloved” before we can look to be answered through the Beloved.
Is there a doubt about this, and a sigh over the words? There need not be; for now, at this moment, the old promise stands with its unchangeable welcome to the weary: “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”
Then if you come, now, at this moment, on the strength of His word, you cannot be rejected; and if not rejected, there is nothing but one blessed alternative – “accepted.” – F.R. Havergal
What liberty in prayer is inspired by the assurance of our personal acceptance in the Beloved. Let us lay hold of our standing in Christ by faith and we shall pray better and with more joy and blessing. The assurance that we are ourselves accepted will inspire the confidence that our prayers are also accepted. If we are not accepted how can our prayers be?
- Daily Meditations for Prayer.
The most important day in America in 50 years
The Most Important Day in America in 50 Years
| WARNING: | What you are about to see is controversial, and may be offensive to some audiences. Viewer discretion is advised. |
Hello. My name is Porter Stansberry.
A little over ten years ago I founded Stansberry & Associates Investment Research. It has become one of the largest and most recognized investment research companies in the world, serving hundreds of thousands of subscribers in more than 120 countries.
You may know of our firm because of the work we did over the last several years – helping investors avoid the big disasters associated with Wall Street’s collapse.
We warned investors to avoid Fannie and Freddie, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and General Motors and dozens of other companies that have since collapsed. We even helped our subscribers find opportunities to profit from these moves by shorting stocks and buying put options. To my knowledge, no other research firm in the world can match our record of correctly predicting the catastrophe that occurred in 2008.
But that’s not why I created this letter.
I reference our success and experience with Wall Street’s latest crisis because we believe there is an even bigger crisis lurking – something that will shake the very foundation of America.
And that is why I’ve spent a significant amount of time and money in the past few months preparing this letter.
In short, I want to talk about a specific event that will take place in America’s very near future… which could actually bring our country and our way of life to a grinding halt.This looming crisis is related to the financial crisis of 2008… but it is infinitely more dangerous, as I’ll explain in this letter.
As this problem comes to a head, I expect there to be riots in the streets… arrests on an unprecedented scale… and martial law, enforced by the U.S. military.
Believe me, I don’t make this prediction lightly and I have no interest in trying to scare you.
I’m simply following my research to its logical conclusion.
I did the same when I tracked Fannie and Freddie’s accounting. The same with General Motors. And Bear Stearns and the rest. And when I began giving this warning in 2006 no one took me very seriously… not at first. Back then, most mainstream commentators just ignored me.
And when I presented my case and exposed the facts at economic conferences, they got angry. They couldn’t refute my research… but they weren’t ready to accept the enormity of its conclusions either.
That’s why, before I go any further, I have to warn you…
What I am going to say is controversial. It will offend many people… Democrats, Republicans, and Tea Partiers, alike. In fact, I’ve already received dozens of pieces of hate mail.
And… the ideas and solutions I’m going to present might seem somewhat radical to you at first… perhaps even “un-American.”My guess is that, as you read this letter… you’ll say: “There’s no way this could really happen… not here.”
But just remember:
No one believed me three years ago when I said the world’s largest mortgage bankers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would soon go bankrupt.
And no one believed me when I said GM would soon be bankrupt as well… or that the same would happen to General Growth Properties (the biggest owner of mall property in America).But again, that’s exactly what happened.
And that brings us to today…
The same financial problems I’ve been tracking from bank to bank, from company to company for the last five years have now found their way into the U.S. Treasury. I’ll explain how this came to be. What it means is critically important to you and every American…
The next phase in this crisis will threaten our very way of life.
The savings of millions will be wiped out. This disaster will change your business and your work. It will dramatically affect your savings accounts, investments, and retirement.
It will change everything about your normal way of life: where you vacation… where you send you kids or grandkids to school… how and where you shop… the way you protect your family and home.
I’ll explain how I know these events are about to happen. You can decide for yourself if I’m full of hot air. As for me, I’m more certain about this looming crisis than I’ve been about anything else in my life.
I know that debts don’t just disappear. I know that bailouts have big consequences. And, unlike most of the pundits on TV, I know a lot about finance and accounting.
Of course, the most important part of this situation is not what is happening… but rather what you can do about it.
In other words: Will you be prepared when the proverbial $@*% hits the fan?
Don’t worry, I’m not organizing a rally or demonstration. And I’ve turned down every request to run for political office.Instead, I want to show you exactly what I’m doing personally, to protect and even grow my own money, and how you can prepare as well.
You see, I can tell you with near 100% certainty that most Americans will not know what to do when commodity prices – things like milk, bread and gasoline – soar. They won’t know what to do when banks close… and their credit cards stop working. Or when they’re not allowed to buy gold or foreign currencies. Or when food stamps fail…
In short, our way of life in America is about to change – I promise you. In this letter I’ll show you exactly what is happening.
You can challenge every single one of my facts and you’ll find that I’m right about each allegation I make.
And then you can decide for yourself.
Will you act now to protect yourself and your family from the catastrophe that’s brewing right now in Washington?
I hope so. And that’s why I wrote this letter.
I’m going to walk you through exactly what I am doing personally, and what you can do as well. I can’t promise you’ll emerge from this crisis completely unharmed – but I can just about guarantee you’ll be a lot better off than people who don’t follow these simple steps.
But I’m getting ahead of myself just a bit.
Let me back up and show you in the simplest terms possible what is going on, why I am so concerned, and what I believe will happen in the next 12 months…
The Greatest Danger
America Has Ever Faced?
In short, I believe that we as Americans are about to see a major, major collapse in our national monetary system, and our normal way of life.Basically, for many years now, our government has been borrowing so much money (very often using short-term loans), that very soon, we will no longer be able to afford even the interest on these loans.
Again… I say these things as an expert in accounting and financial research.
You may not think things are THAT BAD in the U.S. economy, but consider this simple fact from the National Inflation Association:
Even if all U.S. citizens were taxed 100% of their income… it would still not be enough to balance the Federal budget! We’d still have to borrow money, just to maintain the status quo.
That’s absolutely incredible, isn’t it?
Yet I’ve never seen this fact reported anywhere else.
Normally I study these kinds of numbers when I’m looking at a business to invest in or to recommend to my readers. But lately I’ve spent most of my time looking into our national balance sheet, because as the banking system collapsed in 2008, all of the bad debts were absorbed by the world’s governments.
For example, when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapsed in the summer of 2008, the U.S. government responded by simply guaranteeing all of their outstanding debt.
Since then these companies have recorded hundreds of billions of losses – all of which were passed along to the government. Yes, you can still get mortgages today. And yes, Freddie and Fannie are still in business. But costs associated with these programs are piling up at the U.S. Treasury – and they are enormously expensive.
These losses and trillions in other private obligations are now the responsibility of the U.S. government.
The problem is, even before this crisis, our government was deeply in debt. With each additional commitment we sink further and further into debt… closing in upon the moment that we can simply no longer afford even the interest payments on our obligations.
According to even my most conservative calculations (using numbers provided by the Congressional Budget Office) a debt default by the U.S. government would be inevitable – were it not for one simple anomaly… the one thing that has saved the United States so far.
I’m talking about our country’s unique ability to simply print more money.
You see, the U.S. government has one very important weapon to use in this crisis: It is the only debtor in the world who can legally print U.S. dollars. And the U.S. dollar is what’s known as “the world’s reserve currency.”
The dollar forms the basis of the world’s financial system. It is what banks around the world hold in reserve against their loans.
That’s a secret that most politicians don’t understand:
As things stand now, the U.S. government can’t go broke in any ordinary sense of the word because it can simply print dollars to pay for its bad debts. (It’s been doing so since March of 2009).That might sound pretty good at first. Since we can always just print more money, what is there to worry about…?
Well, let me show you…
You see, as things stand today, America is the only country in the world that doesn’t have to pay for its imports in a foreign currency.
Let’s say you’re a German and you want to buy oil from Saudi Arabia. You can’t just pay for your oil in German marks (or the new euro currency), because the oil is priced in dollars.
So you have to buy dollars first, then buy your oil.
And that means the value of the German currency is of great importance to the German government. To maintain the value of its currency Germans must produce at least as much as they consume from around the world, otherwise the value of its currency will begin to fall, causing prices to rise and its standard of living to decline.
But in America…?
We can consume as much as we want without worrying about acquiring the money to pay for it, because our dollars are accepted everywhere around the word. In short, for decades now, we haven’t had to produce anything or export anything to get all the dollars we needed to buy all the oil (and other goods) our country required.
All we had to do was borrow the money.
And boy did we. Take a look at this chart…
Even as late as the 1970s, America was the world’s largest creditor. But by the mid-1980s we’d become a debtor to the world. And since the late 1990s we’ve been the world’s LARGEST debtor.Today, our government owes more money to more people than anyone else in the world.
And that was before the financial crisis!
In short, with all of these bad debts piling up, we’ve had to begin repaying our debts by printing trillions of new dollars. The impact of this is only just now beginning to be felt.
And once our creditors figure out what’s happening, they’re going to be very angry.
I believe they will either completely stop accepting dollars in repayment… or greatly discount the value of these new dollars. I’m sure you think that sounds crazy, but as I’ll show you, it is already happening.
And that will make our consumption-led way of life impossible to afford.
Just think about the price of oil…
Access to cheap oil has been America’s #1 gift of owning the world’s reserve currency.
This has made gas cheaper in the U.S. than almost anywhere else in the developed world. I know you may think gas prices have skyrocketed in recent years… but look at how much less we pay than other developed nations…
- United States: $2.72 a gallon on average
- Oslo, Norway: $7.41…….. (172% higher)
- Berlin, Germany: $6.82…. ( 151% higher)
- London: $6.60…………….(143% higher)
- Rome, Italy: $6.40…………(135% higher)
- Paris, France: $6.04………..(122% higher)
- Tokyo, Japan: $5.40……….(98% higher)
- Toronto, Canada: $3.81……(40% higher)
And here’s the thing…
If oil is no longer priced in dollars, the price of oil for Americans will skyrocket immediately. It will change our lives, overnight.
Airline travel will get much more expensive. The cost to ship goods by truck to grocery stores around the country will get much more expensive. Farming itself will get a lot more costly… so will commuting to work… taking a taxi… just about everything we do will suddenly get much more expensive.
And just remember: In order for prices to start skyrocketing, all that has to happen is that other countries start preferring payments in something besides U.S. dollars.
The U.S. dollar has been the world’s currency for decades now… so most Americans don’t have a clue about what the repercussions are of losing this status.
You might think this could never happen… but it happens all the time when countries get too far in debt or when they consume too much or produce too little.
In fact, the same thing happened to Great Britain in the 1970s.
Most people don’t know this, but British Sterling was the reserve currency for most of the world for nearly 200 years… for most of the 18th and 19th centuries.
It continued to play this role until after World War II, when America was forced to prop up Britain’s economy with foreign aid – remember the famous Marshall Plan, when we gave billions to help European countries rebuild?
Unfortunately though, Britain pursued a socialist national agenda. The government took over all of the major industries. Like Barack Obama, Britain’s leaders wanted to “spread the wealth around.” Pretty soon the country was flat broke.
The final straw for Britain came in 1967, when things got so bad the Labour Party (the socialists) decided to “devalue” the British currency by 14%, overnight. They believed this would make it easier for people to afford their debts.
In reality, what it did was make anyone holding British sterling 14% poorer, overnight, and it made everything in Britain, much, much more expensive in the coming years.
And for the country as a whole, it ushered in one of the worst decades in modern British history.Most Americans don’t know about Britain’s “Winter of Discontent” in the late 1970s, when the government put a freeze on wages. There were continuous strikes in nearly every sector… grave diggers, trash collectors… even hospital workers. Things got so bad at one point that many hospitals were reduced to accepting emergency patients only.
In 1975, inflation in Britain skyrocketed 26.9%… in a single year!
The government also imposed what was known as the “Three Day Week” in 1974. In short, businesses were limited to using electricity for only three specified consecutive days’ each week and they were prohibited from working longer hours on those days. Television companies were required to cease broadcasting at 10.30pm… to save electricity.
The extreme problems in the economy led to Britain being nicknamed, “the sick man of Europe.”
Just how bad were things, exactly?
Well, listen to several Brits tell of their experiences. Their stories were collected recently by the BBC television channel…
John Blackburn, from Wetherby said:
“I was a control engineer at Huddersfield Power Station at the time and part of my duty was to switch off the supply to various substations around the town, according to an official rota. On many an evening shift I would have to switch off the power to my own home before going back for a candle-lit supper!”Richard Evans, from London, recalls:
“My mother had to cross a picket line to get into the maternity hospital (they told her she couldn’t come in….). My Grandmother had to bring in food for her to eat, and clean towels and bedding.”David Stoker, Guildford, said:
“I lived in the North East near Newcastle and I vividly remember my grandmother and I walking from one shop to another in search of candles to buy. All were sold out. Innovatively, butchers placed string down cartons of drippings which we bought… These worked although the smell and risk of fire made them less practical than candles.”Imagine… Britain was a global superpower for 150 years. But when they started intentionally devaluing their currency, things went straight down hill.Maybe you don’t think something similar can happen here… but I’m telling you… it’s already underway!
In fact, the exchange value of the U.S. dollar has fallen about 8% so far this year. And its rate of decline is accelerating.
What happened to the British currency is now happening to the U.S. dollar.Not only will the price of gas, oil, and other commodities skyrocket in America, almost EVERYTHING we consume will immediately get more expensive. All the clothing, furniture, and household goods we import from China.
All the food we get from Central and South America… all the electronics, televisions, computers, and cars we get from Asia and Europe.
In fact, it’s happening, right now before our eyes: The price of gold is up 85% since the financial crisis. Oil prices have doubled. Soy beans are way up. Copper prices are up more than 170% since 2009. Cotton prices are up 80%… in just the past few months, since July of this year!
As Wesley Card, the head of a clothing company that includes brands like Dockers and Anne Klein, recently said: “It’s really a no-choice situation. Prices have to come up.”
The chart below shows how much a few key commodities have skyrocketed in price, just since the beginning of 2009…
Of course, skyrocketing commodity prices are just the beginning.There are other disastrous consequences to the U.S. dollar losing status as the world’s currency…
For example, there would be much less demand for U.S. dollars around the globe, so interest rates will skyrocket. Instead of getting a mortgage at today’s incredibly low rates of 4.5%, it might cost you 8% or even 10% or 15%.
Imagine what that would do to housing prices!
Stock prices will likely plummet by at least 40% in a matter of weeks as a result of this event in the currency markets.
It will cost every American business A LOT more money for supplies and materials. No one will be able to get a loan… and no bank will want to make loans.
In short, when the U.S. dollar loses its spot as the world’s ‘reserve currency,’ it will cause a brutal downturn in the economy, which I expect will be about 10-times worse than the mortgage crisis of 2008.You see, what will also happen as a result of this currency crisis, and the end of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency, will be massive inflation, the likes of which we have never seen before.
When everyone is trying to get rid of their dollars, the government is printing more and more to pay debts, and no one wants to own them, the crisis will reach epic proportions.
Just look for example, at what happened to one European country that faced this type of crisis in the 1990s…
This is what happens during a major hyperinflation in the real world.
By the early 1990s, the national government of one European nation had spent nearly all its savings. So what did they do next? Simple… they began to steal the savings of private citizens by limiting people’s access to their money in government-controlled banks.
And of course, to finance the daily operations of maintaining their basic infrastructure, they started printing money, big time. Even so, the country’s basic infrastructure began to fall apart. There were potholes in the street, broken water pipes… elevators that never got repaired… and entire construction projects that simply shut down, before being completed.
At this point, the unemployment rate was more than 30%.
Not too bad, right?
But it got worse… much worse.
You see, once you start down the dangerous road of printing money, things can get extremely bad, very quickly.
As San Jose State University Economics Professor Dr. Thayer Watkins, an expert on countries that try to inflate their way out of big debts, wrote on this particular disaster:
“The government tried to counter the inflation by imposing price controls. But when inflation continued, the government price controls made the price producers were getting so ridiculously low that they simply stopped producing. bakers stopped making bread… slaughterhouses refused to sell meat to the stores… other stores closed down”
So what did the government do next to try to curb inflation?
Well, one bright idea they had was to force stores to fill out government documents every time they increased prices. They thought that this would slow down price increases, because the paperwork would take so much time!
But like many government plans, this one had terrible, unintended consequences.
Since stores had to dedicate an employee to do nothing but register this paperwork, and since the process took so long, stores began to raise prices on basic goods at even higher rates, so that they didn’t have to come back and file more paperwork!
Incredible, isn’t it?
Then, of course the government did what all governments do during periods of hyperinflation: They created a new currency… which basically removed six zeroes from the old one. So 100,000,000 old units were soon worth 100 new units. Of course, this didn’t work either… it never does.
Between October of 1993 and January 1995, prices increase by, get this: 5 quadrillion percent. That’s…
5,000,000,000,000,000%
In other words, a loaf of bread that cost $1 in 1993, suddenly cost$50,000,000,000,001
Yes, that’s $50 TRILLION.I know, it’s laughable… but I can guarantee that the people of this once proud European country weren’t laughing one bit, especially those living on a fixed income.
Of course, at this point, the country completely fell apart. As Dr. Thayer Watkins wrote:
“The social structure began to collapse. Thieves robbed hospitals and clinics of scarce pharmaceuticals and then sold them in front of the same places they robbed. The railway workers went on strike and closed down the country’s rail system.”
At this point, businesses and citizens across the country basically refused to take the local currency.
Instead, everyone started dealing in German Marks. Keep in mind, the daily rate of inflation was nearly 100%.
Can you imagine the panic in a society when the price of just about everything doubles… every single day? It was absolute pandemonium, and the economy basically came to a grinding halt. It was like living in a war zone. Truckers stopped delivering goods. Stores, restaurants, and gas stations all shut down.
In fact, the only way to get gas was to buy it on the side of the road, from someone selling it out of a plastic can. Steve Hanke, an Economics professor at Johns Hopkins, wrote that:
“People couldn’t afford to buy food in the free market – they kept from starving by either waiting in long lines at state stores for irregularly supplied rations of low-quality staples, or by relying on relatives who lived in the countryside.
For long periods, all [the] gas stations were closed, with the exception of one station that catered to foreigners and embassy personnel. People also spent an inordinate amount of time at the foreign-exchange black markets, where they traded huge piles of near-worthless money for a single German mark or US dollar note.”
The number of operating busses dropped by 60%… and busses were so crowded that drivers couldn’t even collect fares. Government ordered blackouts left people without heat and electricity for long periods of time.
In another ridiculous government move, they actually made it illegal to NOT accept a personal check.
Imagine… you could write a check… and in the several days that it typically takes for a check to clear, inflation would wipe out almost all of the cost of covering your check.
Of course, as is typical, the government took none of the blame. As Dr. Thayer Watkins reported, the government’s official position was that the hyperinflation occurred “because of the unjustly implemented sanctions against the people and state.” Again… I know what you are thinking… “just because it happened in Europe doesn’t it mean it can happen here, right”?
Well guess what…
The same thing that happened in this European country – Yugoslavia – also just happened in Iceland and Greece, but on a less dramatic scale. Of course, the only reason the situations in Greece and Iceland weren’t worse is because of giant foreign bailouts. Yes… that’s right… more debt to solve the problem of already existing, insurmountable debts.
It’s all going to come to a head soon. Much sooner than most people think.
Remember too that in roughly the past 100 years this type of debt crisis has reared its ugly head in Germany, Russia, Austria, Poland, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Poland, the Ukraine, Japan, and China.
And I believe it will soon happen right here in the United States.
Don’t believe me?
Well, the truth is that it’s already happening at the local and state levels. Take a look…
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington, D.C.-based think-tank, at least 46 states face huge budget shortfalls for 2011, on top of the deficits they still haven’t completely figured out for 2010.
The center reports that the total state budget shortfall could reach $160 billion.
And although many states got federal help over the past year, that aid is now gone.
So what are these desperate governments trying to do?
You probably won’t believe their proposals…
* SELL EVERYTHING: The state of Arizona, for example, announced earlier this year that it is selling $735 million worth of government-owned buildings, but will still occupy them by paying a 20-year lease. The government is selling the legislative buildings, the House and Senate, the State Capitol Executive Tower, the state fairgrounds, even prisons.
* RELEASE PRISONERS: In California, the state has taken the radical step of opening its prison doors and releasing thousands of inmates. About 11% of the state budget ($8 billion) goes to the penal system (more than they spend on higher education).
So California is slashing the number of inmates by 6,500 next year. In other words, they are cutting loose about 4% of the prison population.
Incredibly, other states, including New York, may soon do the same thing.
* LIFE INSURANCE: In Georgia, the government is proposing taking out “dead peasant” policies on state employees. When these folks die, the money won’t go to the dead person’s family… but to the state coffers, to help pay for more programs, insurance, and pension liabilities!It’s simply incredible, isn’t it?
State and municipal governments are so broke, and so desperate, that they are taking unprecedented steps to at least temporarily avoid bankruptcy. Nearly every state in the union is talking about legalizing some form of gambling, to boost tax revenue. California still wants to legalize marijuana, even though it was defeated in the recent election.
Of course, none of these ridiculous steps will work on the long run.
And the truly amazing thing is that the U.S. Federal government is in even worse shape than the local governments! The only reason we haven’t seen the full brunt of this crisis yet on the federal level is because we’ve just continued to pile on more and more debt.
The states can’t print money… but the Federal government can (at least for now). And for the moment, this is all that is preventing a currency collapse of unprecedented proportions.
And this is the important point: What most people don’t realize is that the U.S. government can only continue printing dollars… as long as the U.S. dollar remains the world’s reserve currency. In other words, this is all going to fall apart much sooner than people think. In fact, it’s already happening…
The first steps are already well underway. It is happening right now… before our very eyes.
I can’t stress this enough: You need to act now in order to protect your assets, and grow your savings in the next few years. In the next few minutes, I’m going to show you exactly how I’m protecting my own money, and what I recommend doing with your own.
But first, let me show you what exactly is going on right now…
“America… must be very worried”
Like I said, most Americans don’t believe the U.S. dollar could ever lose its spot as the world’s reserve currency.But I am here to tell you… this process is already well underway.
For example, although it went almost completely unreported in the U.S. press, last fall, a group of the world’s most powerful countries, including China, Japan, Russia, and France, got together for a secret meeting – WITHOUT the United States being present or even knowing about the meeting.
Veteran Middle East report Robert Fisk reported on this even in the Britain’s Independent newspaper:
“In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese Yen, Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.” Fisk also interviewed a Chinese banker who said:
“These plans will change the face of international financial transactions. America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate.” And sure enough, after Fisk published the details of this secret meeting, U.S. officials and central bankers from around the globe denied these plans.
But as the old central banking adage goes… how do you know exactly when a currency will be devalued?
The answer: Right AFTER the head of the central bank goes on television to adamantly deny that any such transaction will occur. (And guess who just went public in recent weeks with a statement about how the U.S. will “not devalue its currency”? Yes, you guessed it… U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.)You see, the last thing a central banker wants to do in the midst of a devaluation is to give people a warning BEFORE he can devalue. So they have to deny, deny, deny. After the announcement is made, it’s too late for citizens and investors to get out.
Like I said, what’s incredible is that this story of a secret meeting among most of the major powers besides the U.S. was greatly under reported in the American press.
But you know what… the way I see it, it’s much more telling to look at actions rather than government press releases.
For example, here is what is happening, right now in the real world.
When you read these facts, I think you’ll agree with me that the U.S. dollar’s days are numbered, as far as remaining the world’s reserve currency.
China is getting out
Cheng Siwei, a former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee, said that China is going to stop putting so much money into U.S. dollars, and will instead look to the Japanese Yen and the Euro.
China holds more U.S. dollars than anyone else on the planet. But China is getting out of the U.S. dollar as fast as they can without crashing their own economy.
Look at this chart…
It shows that China’s holdings of U.S. dollars peaked in 2009, but China is unloading as many dollars as they can, as quickly as possible.And this is just one sign of the end of the U.S. dollar standard.
There are many more…
The dollar is no longer good here
As I am sure you are aware, for years the U.S. dollar has been accepted almost universally around the globe.
Heck, many times when I’ve traveled, I never even bothered to convert to the local currency, because I knew everyone would take my dollars.
Well, that’s simply not the case anymore…
HSBC, one of the largest banks in Mexico, no longer allows you to deposit U.S. dollars into their banks. They’ve done this on the heels of money-laundering allegations, but we suspect they also simply don’t want to be stuck with tons of U.S. dollars, as the currency continues to decline.
This move would have been unfathomable 10 years ago… that a big bank in Mexico would no longer accept U.S. dollars for deposit. But today it is the harsh reality.
And Mexico is not the only place this is occurring…
Reuters reports that the same thing has happened in 2008 in one of Europe’s most popular tourist spots…
Currency exchange outlets in Amsterdam have been reportedly turning away customers who want to exchange their U.S. dollars for Euros.
As one traveling American told the Reuters news agency: “Our dollar is worth maybe zero over here,” said Mary Kelly, an American tourist from Indianapolis, Indiana, in front of the Anne Frank house. “It’s hard to find a place to exchange. We have to go downtown, to the central station or post office.”
In India, the country’s tourism minister said in 2008 that U.S. dollars will no longer be accepted at the country’s heritage tourist sites, like the Taj Mahal. And the U.S. dollar is no longer good anywhere in Cuba.
The New York Times reports that: “now, many shops in China no longer accept dollar-based credit cards issued by foreign banks… and foreigners cannot convert American dollars into renminbi beyond a given quota.”
Iran, of course, has already moved all of its reserves out of U.S. dollars, and Kuwait de-pegged it’s currency from the dollar a few years ago:
Bloomberg News recently reported that China and Russia plan to start trading in each other’s currencies to diminish the dollar’s role in global trade. “Given the risk to the dollar and U.S. assets from their fiscal position, they want to reduce their dependence on the dollar as an invoicing currency,” said Bhanu Baweja, of UBS bank.
It’s even happening here in the USA
Most Americans don’t know that some states in the Mid-West are already using “alternative currencies”…
An NBC News affiliate in Michigan reports that
“new types of money are popping up across Mid-Michigan and supporters say, it’s not counterfeit, but rather a competing currency. Right now, for example, you can buy a meal or visit a chiropractor without using actual U.S. legal tender.”
What most Americans don’t realize is that this is all totally legal.
The U.S. Treasury Dept web site says that, according to Coinage Act of 1965: “There is… no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services.”
I saw one report that says there are now 150 of these alternative local U.S. currencies being accepted around the country!
USA Today reports that the largest of these local currencies is a currency called “Berkshares,” which are being used in the Berkshires region of western Massachusetts.
According to the paper:
“Since its start in 2006, the system, the largest of its kind in the country, has circulated $2.3 million worth of BerkShares.”And even in places that do not yet have local currencies, store owners may now actually prefer foreign currencies rather than U.S. dollars…
In Washington, DC, just 25 miles from my office, some stores have begun accepting euros. Of course, the euro isn’t much more stable than the dollar right now. But my point is that most people don’t understand there is NO FEDERAL REQUIREMENT in the United States for a private store to accept dollars for non-debt transactions.
You see, no matter what the government decides, stores and businesses will accept whatever they believe is a strong currency.
As Texas Representative Ron Paul wrote recently:
“If you walk into a 7-11 to buy a soda, the clerk doesn’t have to accept your dollars, he could demand euros, silver, or copper. But because legal tender laws backing the dollar have caused the dollar to drive other currencies out of circulation, [right now] it is easier for stores to accept dollars.” Well, all that is quickly changing…
Many places in Texas now accept Mexican pesos for payment. “Euros Accepted” signs are popping up in of all places: Manhattan. And not only Manhattan, but in New York’s favorite summer playground… the Hamptons.
There, an art gallery assistant was quoted by The Real Deal: “I wouldn’t want to discourage a sale in any way because of a currency issue.”
And it’s not just small stores that are accepting other methods of payment besides U.S. dollars.
The Chicago mercantile exchange the world’s largest futures and commodities exchange board), now accepts gold to settle futures contracts. Until recently, the exchange typically accepted only U.S. treasuries and bonds as payment.
These guys obviously see the writing on the wall.
This would have all been completely unthinkable 10 years ago, but today it’s a reality. And this trend is going to keep moving incredibly fast.
That is why…
The smartest investors are taking action…
Bill Gross, who probably knows as much about currencies and debt as anyone in the world, runs the world’s biggest bond fund. He was quoted by Bloomberg:
“We’ve told all of our clients that if you only had one idea, one investment, it would be to buy an investment in a non-dollar currency. That should be on top of the list.” Jim Rogers, one of the world’s most successful multi-millionaire investors writes:
“The dollar is not just in decline; it’s a mess. If something isn’t done soon, I believe the dollar could lose its status as the world’s reserve currency and medium of exchange, something that would lead to a huge decline in the standard of living for U.S. citizens like nothing we’ve seen in nearly a century.” I know… you probably still don’t believe it can happen here in the United States. But think about it…
Are we as Americans really immune to the laws of economics and finance?
I don’t think so.
And every circumstance I know of, in which a government has tried to inflate its debts away, has ended in disaster. It will happen here too.
As Jim Rogers says:
“History teaches us that such imprudent monetary and fiscal behavior has always led to economic disaster.” This is why World Bank president, Robert B. Zoellick, in a speech at the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, recently said: “The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar’s place as the world’s predominant reserve currency. Looking forward, there will increasingly be other options to the dollar.”
And this is why the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently published a paper calling for a new global world currency.
A paper entitled “Reserve Accumulation and International Monetary Stability,” written by the Strategy, Policy and Review Department of the IMF, recommends that the world adopt a global currency called the “Bancor” with a global central bank to administer the currency.
The report is dated April 13, 2010… and no, unfortunately this is not just a bad rumor.
This is a deadly serious proposal in an official document from one of most powerful institutions in the world.
Do you see where this is all heading?
As Brazilian economist and strategist Ricardo C. Amaral wrote recently:
“The US dollar served its purpose since the end of WW II and became the major foreign exchange reserve currency… [but] the days of the US dollar playing that special role… has reached the end of the line, since today that system is very sick and it is dying a slow death…
Mr. Amaral added that we will soon see: “the major collapse of the US dollar creating the biggest international monetary crisis the world has ever seen…” This is why gold and silver prices are soaring:
It’s not a matter of “if” the U.S. dollar will lose its status as the world’s reserve currency… it’s simply a matter of “when.”Investors know there are serious, serious problems with the U.S. dollar, so they are fleeing to precious metals, which have historically been very reliable when a country has major currency problems.
In short: It’s not hard to see why people are no longer accepting U.S. dollars… and why many foreign countries are pushing for a new world reserve currency.
The good news is, no matter what happens, I’ve found several ways for you to protect your savings – and you could even make 3- to 5-times your money over the next few years.
I’ll show you exactly what to do in a moment. But first let me explain why the collapse of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency could happen much sooner than most people expect…
The REAL State
of the U.S. Economy
I know many of my friends, colleagues, and family members are still in serious denial.In the world of psychology, they call this the “normalcy bias.”
You see, the normalcy bias actually refers to our natural reactions when facing a crisis.
The normalcy bias causes smart people to underestimate the possibility of a disaster and its effects. In short: People believe that since something has never happened before… it never will. We are all guilty of it… it’s just human nature.
The normalcy bias also makes people unable to deal with a disaster, once it has occurred. Basically… people have a really hard time preparing for and dealing with something they have never experienced.
The normalcy bias often results in unnecessary deaths in disaster situations. For example, think about the Jewish populations of World War II…
As Barton Biggs reports in his book, Wealth, War, and Wisdom:
“By the end of 1935, 100,000 Jews had left Germany, but 450,000 still [remained]. Wealthy Jewish families… kept thinking and hoping that the worst was over…
Many of the German Jews, brilliant, cultured, and cosmopolitan as they were, were too complacent. They had been in Germany so long and were so well established, they simply couldn’t believe there was going to be a crisis that would endanger them. They were too comfortable. They believed the Nazi’s anti-Semitism was an episodic event and that Hitler’s bark was worse than his bite. [They] reacted sluggishly to the rise of Hitler for completely understandable but tragically erroneous reasons. Events moved much faster than they could imagine.” This is one of the most tragic examples of the devastating effects of the “normalcy bias” the world has ever seen.
Just think about what was going on at the time. Jews were arrested, beaten, taxed, robbed, and jailed for no reason other than the fact that they practiced a particular religion. As a result, they were shipped off to concentration camps. Their houses and businesses were seized.
Yet most Jews STILL didn’t leave Nazi Germany, because they simply couldn’t believe that things would get as bad as they did. That’s the normalcy bias… with devastating results.
We saw the same thing happen during Hurricane Katrina…
Even as it became clear that the levee system was not going to work, tens of thousands of people stayed in their homes, directly in the line of the oncoming waves of water.
People had never seen things get this bad before… so they simply didn’t believe it could happen. As a result, nearly 2,000 residents died.
Again… it’s the “normalcy bias.”
We simply refuse to see the evidence that’s right in front of our face, because it is unlike anything we have experienced before.
The normalcy bias kicks in… and we continue to go about our lives as if nothing is unusual or out of the ordinary.
Well, we’re seeing the same thing happen in the United States right now.We have been the world’s most powerful country for nearly 100 years. The U.S. dollar has reigned supreme as the world’s reserve currency for more than 50 years.
Most of us in America simply cannot fathom these things changing. But I promise you this: Things are changing… and faster than most people realize.
For a moment, just look at a tiny fraction of the evidence around us….
** 13% OF POPULATION ON FOODSTAMPS
Did you know that there are now nearly 42 million Americans on food stamps? That’s nearly 13% of the entire population. Those numbers are up 17.5% from last year… and the number of Americans on food stamps has gone up every month for 19 months.
Can a country really be in good shape when 13% of the population can’t even afford to buy food?
Or how about this…
** SHANTY TOWNS COMING TO YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
Although it’s gone almost completely unreported in the mainstream press, in a dozen or so cities across the nation (like Fresno, Sacramento, and Nashville), there are hundreds of people living in modern-day, Depression-era shanty towns.
The Fresno shanty town has received the most publicity, after a visit by Oprah Winfrey. There, about 2,000 residents are homeless. They even have a security desk at the shelter, because the encampment has gotten so large. City officials say they have three major encampments near downtown, and smaller settlements along two local highways.
Also…
** 43% OF AMERICAN FAMILIES ARE ESSENTIALLY BROKE
According to a recent article on MSN Money, about 43% of the American families spend more than they earn each year.
Look at this chart… it’s unbelievable..
The average household carries $8,000 in credit card debt… and personal bankruptcies have doubled in the past decade.How in the world can we possibly spend our way out of the current crisis?
We certainly can’t do it with savings… the only answer is to print more money, which will hasten the fall of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
** THE MYSTERY OF DISAPPEARING JOBS
There’s simply no one better at bending statistics than the U.S. government. Take the unemployment rate, for example. Back in the 1930s, anyone without a job but not retired was considered “unemployed.”
Today, however, the government calculates unemployment mainly by counting the number of people receiving unemployment benefits. So when people’s benefits expire, they are no longer counted… and the unemployment rate actually falls! Ridiculous… I know.
But the reality is, the true unemployment rate is much, much higher than what the government is reporting.
If you don’t believe me, look at two recent job postings I read about last week..In Long Island City, an estimated 2,000 people waited in line at the local employment office – some for as long as four days! – to apply for 100 elevator mechanic apprenticeship positions.
And in Massillon, Ohio, 700 people recently applied for a single janitorial job… paying $16 an hour, plus benefits!
The point is, our country is not growing jobs, because the government makes it harder and harder for businesses. With current regulations in place, our country will never experience the type of growth necessary to dig our government out of the hole they’ve put themselves in.
I’m sure you think I’m exaggerating, but just look at what the CEO of one of America’s most important companies said just a few weeks ago..
Intel CEO Paul Otellini said in a recent speech: “I can tell you definitively that it costs $1 billion more per factory for me to build, equip, and operate a semiconductor manufacturing facility in the United States”
He said that 90% of the additional costs are not from higher labor rates… but from higher taxes and regulatory charges, which other nations simply don’t impose.
Cypress Semiconductor CEO T.J. Rodgers agreed that the problem is not higher U.S. wages, but anti-business laws. He was quoted in an interview with CNET News: “The killer factor in California for a manufacturer to create, say, a thousand blue-collar jobs is a hostile government that doesn’t want you there and demonstrates it in thousands of ways.”
Few Americans today realize that we have the second highest corporate tax rate in the world. And since Japan’s new prime minister just announced that he plans to reduce the country’s corporate tax rate by 15%… the U.S. will soon have THE highest corporate tax rate in the world.
Why would anyone want to start a business here, when they can do it for less money…and keep more of the money they make… by locating elsewhere?
It’s just another good reason to avoid the U.S. dollar…
So is this:
** DEBT-RIDDEN U.S. COMPANIES
Did you know that in 1979, there were 61 American companies that earned a top-level AAA credit rating from Moody’s?
Today, there are only four: Automatic Data Processing, Exxon, Johnson & Johnson, and Microsoft
Does this sound like an economic recovery to you… when only four companies in the entire country are stable enough to earn a triple-A credit rating?
Me neither. But it’s nothing compared to what’s going on in the housing sector…
** A CRAZY LAS VEGAS ECONOMICS STORY
You want to know how crazy things are in the U.S. right now…
Consider the bizarre state of the Las Vegas housing market, where The New York Times reports that building is booming again in a city where nearly 10,000 new houses are empty, thousands are in foreclosure, thousands of regular people have simply stopped paying their mortgages and average prices are down more than 60% since 2006.
What could possibly be driving this building mania?
Well, it turns are that buyers don’t want homes that were built during the boom, because they sit in neighborhoods that look like ghost towns, and because many of these never-occupied houses are filled with cockroaches and other critters.
So local builders are doing the worst possible thing they could be doing in Las Vegas right now… building more homes! Similar scenarios are taking shape in Phoenix and other U.S. cities.
Of course, this might look good for economic numbers, but all it does is make the situation much, much worse in the long run.
Want to see another crazy trick some businesses are using to artificially boost their earnings numbers?
This is just incredible to me…
** OUR HOPE FOR THE FUTURE: NEW JERSEY’S HOMELESS
If you’ve been reading my work at all over the past few years, you know that I am extremely bearish on the “for profit” education sector, such as University of Phoenix.
What could possibly be wrong with these institutions that offer inexpensive education to tens of thousands of students across the country?
Well, to me it’s just another symptom of how distorted and crazy our economy and country has become. Here’s what I mean…
One of the crazy practices institutions employ is to actually enroll homeless people into their programs.
You probably think I’m making this up… but even Business Week recently ran a report on this practice.
Why would they do this?
Well, because these folks qualify for federal grants and loans used to pay for college tuition fees. According to reports I read, the University of Phoenix, for instance, relies on federal funds for more than 85% of its revenues.
At another for-profit school, Drake College of Business, almost 5% of the student body at its Newark, N.J., campus is homeless, Business Week recently reported.
Of course, the majority of these students will never be able to repay their loans. But the colleges certainly don’t care… that’s the government’s problem… not theirs.
Once again, it’s the taxpayers like you and me who will be left holding the bag.
And here’s another good reason why investors are afraid of holding dollars right now…
** IN THE STOCK MARKET, IT’S 1937 ALL OVER AGAIN
One of the most worrisome problems in the stock market right now is that we are basically repeating the exact same situation that occurred from 1937 to 1942.
Most Americans think we’ve had this amazing stock market recovery since the financial crisis of 2008… and we have to a certain extent.
But we are by no means out of the woods.
In fact, during America’s last real economic collapse, in the 1930s and 1940s, we saw a similar drop and recovery… before the markets crashed all over again.
In fact, the situation is eerily similar.
Look at this chart… it’s one of the scariest I’ve seen in a long time. It shows an overlay of what happened in the stock market in 1937 compared to 2008.
In both situations, we saw big crashes, of about the exact same magnitude… then a big recovery, again of about the same size.But what will happen next?
Well, if history is any guide, we could well have another big leg down in the stock market. That’s exactly what happened 70 years ago.
And with all of the problems left unresolved in our economy today, it could certainly happen again, especially if the U.S. dollar loses its reserve status.
As The Wall Street Journal reported:
“Over the last year the stock market has followed a path eerily similar to 1937. First, a strong, rapid run to a recovery high – same pace, same magnitude. Then a correction – again, the same. Will we continue on the path that led the correction of 1937 into a collapse in 1938? The point is, the cards are seriously stacked against us.
This looming currency crisis is inevitable.
Almost every state in the country is on the verge of bankruptcy. We have borrowed an impossible amount of money, which we’ll never be able to pay back.
Our economy is an absolute mess. Taxes are sky high already… and will certainly go much higher over the next few years. And nearly all of the world’s major financial players are preparing for an alternative to the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
To me, it is so obvious that we are about to experience a serious currency crisis, that I can’t believe people can deny this reality with a straight face.Again, if you don’t believe a currency crisis is coming, just take another look at the price of gold and silver compared to the U.S. dollar over the past decade.
It’s obvious that smart investors want to hold gold and silver, not U.S. dollars.Anyone with any sense or basic understanding of economics can tell that the U.S. dollar is doomed. And it’s going to have major repercussions, which the average American has not yet even considered.
So, what can you do?
Well, I’ve done a lot of research on this, and have found that there are a surprising number of simple things you can do to not only protect what you’ve currently got, but to also potentially make quite a bit of money as this currency crisis unfolds.
Here’s what I recommend…
What You Can Do to Protect
Yourself and Actually Make Money
So what should you do… to protect and possibly even grow your wealth in the next few years?Well, there’s a series of pretty simple financial moves I believe you should begin making, immediately.
And here’s something I want you to keep in mind: I’m really only going to talk about your finances here.
As far as protecting your family… well… it depends on your circumstances. If you live in an urban area, I recommend making sure you’ve got somewhere you can go in case there are riots or food and water shortages. I think there’s a very good chance we’ll see that in the next two years.
Wherever you’re going to wait out the chaos, I recommend you have basic food, water, and medical supplies to last you for at least six months.
Remember, you won’t be able to count on the government during this crisis. Think about it… if the government couldn’t even save the city of New Orleans during hurricane Katrina, how in the world will it save an entire country when all hell breaks lose?
And as I said earlier, the truth is, the government won’t even try to save individual American citizens… the government will be much more concerned with saving itself.
As far as taking care of your money – to make sure you don’t lose money and even use this situation to come out quite a bit ahead – well, that’s where I can help you.All of the moves I recommend are simple and fairly straightforward to implement – at least right now. If you wait to do these things, however, they will almost certainly get very expensive, difficult, and even impossible to do.
If you do these things now, not only will you be better prepared to weather the coming storm, I believe you could also make quite a bit of money over the next few years.
And if I’m wrong… well… that’s the best part… I think you’ll still make very good gains.
Even if all we get out of this crisis is a mild inflation, you will still be set up to do very, very well.
So here are the specific steps you should take…
STEP #1. GET SOME OF YOUR MONEY BEYOND THE REACH OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT (it’s perfectly legal, and a lot easier than you think) I know you probably don’t believe me when I tell you that the U.S. government is going to implement policies to save itself, which are unimaginable right now.
But remember, desperate governments will do very desperate things. That’s why they outlawed the ownership of gold 80 years ago.
That’s why they are already talking about “nationalizing” automatic 401(k) and retirement plans… and it’s why it might soon be against the law to open a foreign bank account, or to move your money overseas without paying outrageous taxes.
The good news is, I met recently with a man who is considered one of the top “asset protection” attorneys in America.
In short, I learned that there are four simple investments you can make right now, which you DO NOT have to report to the U.S. government.
Don’t get me wrong…
When and if you ever sell these things, years down the road, you are still required to pay taxes on your gains. But the great thing is, while you are holding these investments, so long as you play by the rules, neither you nor anyone else is required to report them to the government.
And this benefit should be obvious…
The less the government knows about where you have your money, the better. They simply will have a very hard time taking what they don’t know you have.
I am personally putting a fairly significant portion of my portfolio into one of these assets. And I plan to hold it for a long time. No matter what happens, I know I’ll have a significant amount of money that is beyond the government’s grasp.
I’m not going to tell you exactly what I’m doing here in this letter, but I will explain everything in full detail in my new report, called: The 4 Investment Assets You Do NOT Have to Report to the U.S. Government. And I will gladly send you a copy, free of charge.
In addition to explaining how I’m protecting my own money, I’ll show you three other places you can put your money, which you legally do not have to report to the U.S. government.
Of course, normally it would cost you thousands of dollars to meet with my asset protection attorney, and to take advantage of his best strategies. But I’ll reveal everything you need to know to get started in this report.Plus, I’d like to send you the information on…
STEP #2: HOW TO ACQUIRE THE WORLD’S SAFEST ASSETS, WHICH ARE LIKELY TO PERFORM BEST DURING THIS PERIOD. What I’m talking about here is buying as much gold and silver as you can reasonably afford. I know… gold has had a huge run, jumping more than 300% in the past decade.
But believe me, when the U.S. dollar loses its status as the world’s reserve currency, this early run is going to be a mere afterthought.
I will be surprised if gold does not reach $5,000 or $6,000 an ounce in the next few years.
The smartest money managers in the world, people like George Soros, David Einhorn, and John Paulson, have all recently taken huge positions in gold. And I think you are crazy to not do the same.
How should you do it?
There are many options. And my research firm has recently published a great book, called The Gold Investors Bible, which details in full all of the best ways to own and hold gold bullion.
In this volume, we reveal dozens of secrets about the gold industry… specifically the best ways to buy, sell, and store your gold. It explains whey some gold coins are better than others. How to buy gold with ZERO dealer markup. How to easily and safely store some of your gold overseas, very cheaply… where to hide it… and so much more.
Not regularly available for sale, this book is valued at $24. I’d like to send you a copy, totally free of charge.
And what about silver?
Well, I believe silver will serve a unique role during this currency crisis.
Let me explain…
For most of recorded history, the price of gold has been around 16 times the price of silver. This ratio – the so-called “silver ratio” – has fluctuated from time to time based on silver discoveries and attempts by governments to regulate the silver-to-gold ratio. But… in a free market, where demand for silver as money exists, I’d expect the natural supply and demand balance to lead to a silver price around 1/16 times the price of gold.
Based on the historical ratio, with the price of gold around $1,400, the price of silver should be around $87. It’s not, of course. Today, silver is trading around $27. Today then, gold is selling for more than 50-times the price of silver.
What explains the difference between hundreds of years of history and today? Why is silver still so cheap relative to gold?
When silver is “demonetized,” as it is now (meaning it’s not being used for money, but just for industrial purposes), supplies soar as people sell silver for gold and other currencies.
On the other hand, during periods of monetary crisis, demand for silver as money pushes the silver ratio heavily in silver’s favor.
For example, the ratio returned to its historic range (16) during World War I. It happened again in the early 1970s, when Nixon abandoned the gold standard. It also happened most famously in 1979-1980, when it seemed as if America was really entering a serious money crisis
Most people don’t know this, but silver is actually the best-performing asset of this century… not gold.
As my friend Chris Weber pointed out in his November 1st newsletter, Gold has risen from $256 to $1,365 since 2000. That is a rise of 433%. Silver has risen from $4.02 to $24.96. That is a rise of 521%.
And in the days that Chris has written this, silver has jumped another 7%!
In short, silver is the best hedge against a money crisis.
As the dollar fails, silver will once again be in demand as money.
And as this demand materializes, the free market price of silver will likely return to around 1/16 the price of gold. When gold hits $2,000 an ounce, and assuming the price of gold is 16 times the price of silver, silver should be worth about $125. My multimillionaire friend and currency expert, Chris Weber, believes silver will likely hit $187 an ounce.
If that happens, you could make gains of around 600% if you invest at today’s prices.
So what are the best ways to buy silver?
Well, my firm has done a ton of research on this precious metal. We have found great ways to hold the metal personally… to have it stored in a secure location in the United States or overseas… and more. We’ve put everything we know into a valuable guide called: Secrets of the Silver Market.
I’d like to send you this valuable resource, also free of charge. I’ll show you how to get it in a second.
But first let me get to the 3rd financial step I recommend you take right now:
STEP #3: LEARN THE STOCK MARKET “QUITTER’S” SECRET If you want the opportunity to make a lot of money during the coming crisis, one sure way to do it is to learn the intricacies of an unusual investment strategy that is now making some investors an absolute fortune.
At my research firm, we have been teaching readers this method for several years.
And get this: You don’t have to buy a single stock to begin using this strategy… and it has nothing to do with “shorting.”
In a nutshell, this is a secret that could enable you to safely extract gains of exactly 100% from the market, over and over again… without ever owning or touching a stock.
Keep in mind: the most you can make using this strategy is 100%… and as with all investments, there is some risk involved. Also, it’s important to note that this strategy will probably not be right for everyone…
But it can be so safe and easy, once you learn how it works, you might decide to never buy ordinary stocks, ever again.
Like these folks I taught this secret to in recent years…
Last March, for example, Peter Kos of Boise, ID quit stocks and used this secret instead. He says he now makes an average of $10,000 per month. Randy Bowman of Annapolis, MD, also quit stocks. So far he’s made over $87,500. Bernard Henderson of Carmel, IN, now collects an average of $100 a day. Another, Harold Welchik of New Brunswick, NJ, has made over $20,000.
Tim Hewitt from Sacramento probably put it best when he wrote me and said: “This has saved my portfolio.”
I repeat… to begin using this investment strategy, you DO NOT have to touch the stock market, and you don’t have to buy anything in the options market either.
That’s why financial author Lee Lowell writes: “I’ve been a professional trader for 17 years… but many people have never heard of a [this investment], let alone used this strategy. This is a great way to get your hands on instant cash.”
Pulitzer Prize winning author James Stewart learned this secret recently and said: “[These payouts] are so rich I consulted a colleague to make sure they were real.”
This seldom-understood strategy is how we’ve helped dozens of people make incredible gains, even in a terrible stock market. And in all likelihood, when the stock market gets really bad, as I expect it soon will, this will be incredibly lucrative and safe strategy.
I’ll show you exactly how this investment strategy works, and how you can take advantage of it immediately, starting today. Everything you need to know is in my new report called: The Stock Quitter’s Secret – The Easiest Way in the Markets to Make 100%.
As the stock market begins to unravel, this incredible technique will likely get more and more lucrative.
And that brings me to:
STEP #4: MAKE SURE YOU OWN THE ONE ASSET THAT CAN HELP SAVE YOU AND YOUR FAMILY, NO MATTER HOW BAD THINGS GET There’s no telling exactly how bad things are going to get as this crisis unfolds.
I firmly believe there could be riots, marches in the streets, bank runs, massive arrests, and periods of uncontrollable mayhem… at least for several months as things begin to unravel.
But the good news is that there is one asset you can own (now widely available in America), which should help protect you and your family from this chaos… and could also likely make you a fortune in the years to come.
I’m not talking about guns or bonds or gold or other precious metals… or anything like that. And of course this has absolutely nothing to do with the stock market.
What I’m talking about is a very powerful asset that wealthy families have used for centuries to protect themselves… and preserve and build their fortunes.
An index tracking this asset has absolutely crushed the stock market between 1991 and 2009, by returning about 430% more than stocks during that period.
Best of all, it provided these gains with almost no volatility. Just look at the chart below.
See how that blue line goes straight up, without any hiccups?
Multimillionaire investor Barton Biggs wrote that this type of asset, throughout history, “protected both your wealth and your life.”During World War II, for example, when millions of families lost their entire life savings through inflation or government seizure, this was the one asset that enabled some families to protect, preserve, and grow their money.
What the average American doesn’t realize is that many of the richest people in the United States have a significant ownership stake in this asset: The Walton family (of Wal-Mart fame), Bill Gates, Ted Turner, the Hilton family, Charles Schwab, Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, the Hunt family (of Texas oil fame), the Hearst family, the Ford family, and more
As I mentioned, you can easily make this investment today, here in America. Probably less than 1% of the population owns it today… but it is readily available, and fairly inexpensive.
I’ve written up all of the details on everything you need to know. My full report is called: The World’s Most Valuable Asset in a Time of Crises.
There are several ways to make this investment. I’ll show you what they are.
Like I said, this has nothing to do with stocks, bonds, precious metals, guns, medicine, or anything like that. Yet it could save your family… and make you very wealthy in the coming years.
As my multi-millionaire friend Doug Casey says, it’s the ONE THING you should own in the years to come.
I don’t want to say any more about it than that, here in this letter. The truth is, the fewer people who know about this investment secret, the better.
So how can you begin taking these simple steps, right away?
Well, my company, Stansberry & Associates Investment Research, is a financial research firm.
We have a staff of about 50 people, and our main objective is to find safe and profitable investment ideas that you are not likely to hear about anywhere else.
Since we started this business a decade ago, we have helped a lot of people make a lot of money…
Harold Thiessen from Montana wrote recently to say: “My IRA has gone from a low of $315,000.00 to the present high of $952,000.00. I can only thank [you] for changing my life so much.”
Dan Koffin, from San Diego, also contacted us recently to say: “Since joining, my portfolio has grown by several hundred thousand dollars. I look forward to a long and prosperous relationship.”
We even got an interesting note recently from a reader named Ulysses Reuter, who says he has been making a “small killing” – enough to buy a nice-sized boat and a house in Mexico. Here’s the photo he sent (below). He writes:
Mr. Reuter added: “We took delivery of her 3 weeks ago and are cruising the Bahamas. In October we will take her through the Panama Canal over to the Pacific side since I just bought a home in Mexico…”Then there was the nice note from Mitchell Donavan, from Ithaca, New York. He said: “I was working long hours with overtime to make a living when I joined you. The excellent results have allowed me to retire early.”
Believe me, nothing makes me feel better than receiving notes like these.
But I have to tell you, right now, I am really worried that a lot of our subscribers and many, many hard-working Americans are going to get caught totally by surprise when this inevitable crisis hits.
That’s why I created this letter, and that’s why I’d like to send you the full details on exactly how I believe this is all going to unfold… and exactly how to protect yourself and even prosper during this crisis.
Remember: The government is not going to save you:
If the government couldn’t save one small city from the disastrous news coming, then how is it going to save all of us when the [beep] really hits the fan?
You can either let things happen to you… or you can take a few simple steps and take charge of your family’s fate.
Please, just give the work I’ve done a look… and I believe you will have all the information you need at your disposal.
The best part is, you can take a look at my research, and receive everything I’ve mentioned here, at absolutely no risk or obligation.
Simply let me know you’d like to take a trial subscription to my monthly newsletter, called Stansberry’s Investment Advisory, and I will immediately rush you:
Research Report #1: The 4 Investment Assets You Do NOT Have to Report to the U.S. Government
Research Report #2: The Gold Investor’s Bible
Research Report #3: Secrets of the Silver Market
Research Report #4: The Stock Quitter’s Secret – The Easiest Way in the Markets to Make 100%
Research Report #5: The World’s Most Valuable Asset in a Time of CrisesAlso, on the first Friday of each month, I’ll send you my monthly newsletter, Stansberry’s Investment Advisory. I’ll keep you up to date on exactly what’s going on regarding this financial crisis, and I’ll show you some unusual and incredible ways to make money now and as it begins to unfold.
We have found some great ways to make a fortune as the government continues to try to bail out one failing industry after another.
I’ll also keep you up to date on what I am doing to protect myself. I’ll make sure you stay abreast of changes to the laws and government interventions.
And… every day the markets are open, I’ll send you my paid-subscribers-only e-mail called the Stansberry & Associates Digest.
In short, I report on all the work my firm is doing… the most interesting investment ideas… what we’re researching now… and what we expect to happen in the months to come.
So how much does my work cost… and how can you get started?
Well, a one-year subscription, including everything I mentioned here, normally costs $99 per year – that’s what many others have paid.
But right now, you can try my research, for HALF-OFF the normal rate. You’ll pay just $49.50 for an entire year.
Why so cheap?
Well, to be honest, our business really only works if our subscribers stick with us for the long-term. But we realize you’ve got to try our work first, to see if it’s right for you.
And that’s why, through this letter, we’re making it so cheap, and essentially risk-free to try. What I mean is, you’ll have the next four months to take a look at the Research Reports I’ve just described, plus the next four issues of my newsletter… and the next four months of my daily Digest reports.
If you decide for any reason my work is not right for you, just let us know and you can receive a full refund… and keep everything you’ve received so far.
In other words, by taking me up on this offer, you are agreeing only to TRY my work to see if you like it.
I hope you’ll consider this offer seriously. I know in my heart it will be one of the best financial moves you ever make.
To get started, simply click on the link below, which will take you to a secure order form. Your order will be processed immediately, and you’ll have access to all of my work in a matter of minutes.
Sincerely,
Porter Stansberry
Founder, Stansberry & Associates Investment Research
December 2010
Christmas cheer abounds in sunny Bethlehem
BETHLEHEM, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – A festive mood gripped a sunny Bethlehem on Friday as tourists flocked in record numbers to celebrate Christmas in the town where Christians believe Jesus Christ was born.
“It’s amazing. To be in the birthplace of Christ on Christmas, you can’t get better than that,” said Brady MacCarl, 22.
MacCarl was among thousands of people packed into Manger Square, awaiting the arrival of Latin Patriarch Fuad Twal, in unseasonably warm weather under clear blue skies.
At least 90,000 people were expected to flood the town over the Christmas period, according to Palestinian Authority figures, although the crowds were made up largely of Palestinians with a few tourists mixed in between.
Charlene, an American from California who declined to give her last name, said it was a religious experience for her to be in Bethlehem on the day Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus.
“It’s a crazy experience and it’s probably one that will only happen once in our lives,” she told AFP.
Crowds lined the square, most of them Palestinian Christians, but Muslim women sporting headscarves were also visible in the crowd.
Children, many clutching balloons and some dressed in Santa hats or full outfits, stood close to parents and jumped up and down at the sounds of drummers and bagpipers.
Palestinian security forces channeled visitors behind security barriers as troupes of scouts from Christian towns and villages across the West Bank marched through the city.
A group from Gaza was denied permission to enter the West Bank, Palestinian Authority officials said.
Manger Square is home to both the Church of the Nativity, built over the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born, and St Catherine’s Church, where the Christmas Eve midnight mass was to be delivered.
Twal arrived in the square at 1230 GMT and headed to St Catherine’s for prayers ahead of his midnight mass, expected to include a message of hope for peace but also sound a sombre tone after the October 31 massacre of worshippers in a Baghdad church.
In a pre-Christmas message, he offered solidarity to Iraqi Christians, who have been the target of repeated bloodshed, including the church attack that killed 44 worshippers and two priests.
“We were shocked and troubled by the massacre of Christians in Baghdad in the church,” Twal said.
“For the Iraqi Christians, we are with them in this bad situation,” he added, noting the sharp drop in the number of Christians in Iraq from about 800,000 at the time of the US-led invasion of 2003 to about 500,000 now.
He also lamented the failure of renewed direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, but urged the faithful not to give up hope.
“We continue to believe that on both sides, and in the international community, there are men of goodwill who will work and put their energies together in their commitment for peace,” he said in his address on Tuesday.
“We believe that nothing is impossible with God.”
Unlike in years past, when the spectre of unrest and violence kept visitors away from its 24 hotels, instead staying inside Israel, Bethlehem hoteliers were expecting many tourists to stay over on Friday night.
The Christmas season will cap a year of unprecedented tourism for Bethlehem and the Palestinian territories, where visitor revenues are sorely needed.
Bethlehem was to also host tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank and Arab Israelis, and several hundred from the tiny Christian community in Gaza who were able to secure rare Israeli entry permits for the holiday.
