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In this mailing:
* Con Coughlin: The Return of ISIS is a Challenge Biden Must Not Ignore
* Raymond Ibrahim: "Confess Your Crime in Writing": The Persecution of Christians, January 2021
* Amir Taheri: Ghosts that Haunt President Biden


** The Return of ISIS is a Challenge Biden Must Not Ignore ([link removed])
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by Con Coughlin • February 14, 2021 at 5:00 am
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* A recent United Nations Security Council report concluded that ISIS currently controls more than 10,000 fighters, organized in small cells in Syria and Iraq.
* To date most of the Biden administration's policy announcements have been aimed at reducing tensions with Iran, such as freezing arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states and easing restrictions on the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
* By concentrating the new administration's foreign policy resources on reviving the Iran deal and restoring relations with the Palestinian leadership, however, President Biden risks overlooking the extremely significant threat posed by the fanatical supporters of ISIS which, if left unchecked, could once again wreak havoc across the Middle East.

The most recent manifestation of the deadly effectiveness of the Islamic State (ISIS) was demonstrated last month when it carried out a double suicide bombing at a Baghdad street market that killed 32 people and wounded 75 others. Pictured: The scene of the double suicide bombing in Baghdad on January 21, 2021. (Photo by Sabah Arar/AFP via Getty Images)

As the Biden administration prepares to implement its new policy on the Middle East, it is vital that its preoccupation with reviving the Iran deal does not result in the White House overlooking the considerable threat the Islamist fanatics of ISIS continue to pose to global security.

Since taking office, the main priorities of President Joe Biden's newly-appointed foreign policy team, so far as the Middle East is concerned, have been to consider the prospects of reopening negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear programme, and to establish a dialogue with Palestinian leaders, who spent the past three years boycotting President Donald Trump over his decision to relocate the US Embassy to Jerusalem.

By taking this somewhat narrow view of the numerous challenges facing the region, there are mounting concerns that the Biden team will not pay sufficient attention to the mounting threat posed by ISIS terrorists.

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** "Confess Your Crime in Writing": The Persecution of Christians, January 2021 ([link removed])
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by Raymond Ibrahim • February 14, 2021 at 4:30 am
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* "Everything is affected... Your work, income, social status, identity, mental health, satisfaction with yourself, your life, your place in society, your independence.... And as a woman it's even harder to remain patient and endure, in a society so opposed to women and femininity, though crying out for them both." — Iranian Christian convert Fatemeh (Mary) Mohammadi, articleeighteen.com, January 21, 2021; Iran.
* "The killing of Abida and Sajida in such a merciless way is not an isolated case, but the killing, rape and forced conversion of Christian girls have become an everyday matter and the government has denied this and therefore is doing nothing to stop the ongoing persecution of Christians. Unfortunately, such cases happen very often in the country, and nobody pays any attention – even the national media – as Christians are considered inferior and their lives worthless." — Nasir Sayeed, Director of the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement in the UK, January 11, 2021; Pakistan.
* Sweden: Twice in four days, an 800-year-old church in Stockholm was firebombed..... Attacks against churches have become a familiar sight in Sweden. Last year alone, a number of churches... were subjected to various types of attacks and vandalism, including those in Gottsunda, Uppsala and Rosengård, Malmö."
* Muslim terrorism has been on the rise in the Philippines, the population of which is 86% Christian. — The Christian Post, January 2021; The Philippines.
* Pakistan: On Jan. 5, a Muslim man severely beat his Christian employee because he had taken leave to attend a Christmas Day prayer service. Even though Ansar Masih had compensated for the missed day of work by working on the following Sunday, his manager was abusive. "When I argued with him, he called four other staffers to teach me a lesson...." — International Christian Concern, January 10, 2021.

Twice in four days during January, the 800-year-old Spånga Church in Stockholm, Sweden (pictured) was firebombed. (Image source: Udo Schröter/Flickr, cc by-sa 2.0)

The following are among the abuses inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of January, 2021:

Attacks on Apostates and Evangelists

Uganda: A Muslim man beat his 13-weeks-pregnant wife, causing her to miscarry, after he learned that she had converted to Christianity. On Jan. 13, Mansitula Buliro, the 45-year-old woman in question and mother of seven, was preparing for Muslim evening prayers with her husband when she began to have Christian visions. On the following day she secretly visited a Christian neighbor, prayed with her, and put her faith in Christ. Right before she left, a Muslim man knocked on the Christian neighbor's door and said, "Mansitula, I thought you were a Muslim—how come I heard prayers mentioning the name of Issa [Jesus]?" When Mansitula returned home, her husband informed her that he had been told that she had become Christian. "I kept quiet," Mansitula later explained in an interview:

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** Ghosts that Haunt President Biden ([link removed])
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by Amir Taheri • February 14, 2021 at 4:00 am
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* The slogan "diplomacy is back" is equally meaningless.... Diplomacy is a method of pursuing the goals of a policy. So if those goals are wrong and unjust, pursuing them through diplomacy would be a way of paving the road to hell.
* The key question is whether Biden regards China as an enemy or just a competitor that breaks some rules.
* On Yemen, Biden forgets that the war started during Obama's presidency with full US support and endorsement by the United Nations, with the aim of restoring that country's legitimate government. Biden does not make it clear whether or not he still subscribes to that aim, or if he does, what he intends to do about it.
* Burma is a tale of how cynical jackboots sold the Obama-Biden team a bill of goods to gain time for a brutal comeback.

Will President Joe Biden be able to shake off the ghosts of his predecessors and develop a foreign policy that goes beyond shibboleths to feed the mainstream media? Pictured: President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama at Biden's inauguration on January 20, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Even before Joe Biden was sworn in as President, speculation was rife regarding the direction that US foreign policy might take under his command. Some observers speculated that he would simply return to the path traced and tested by his former boss, President Barack Obama.

Others, reminding us that as a lifelong foreign policy wonk, Biden wouldn't be satisfied with doing an Obama, that is to say dodging issues, leading from behind, and, as Hillary Clinton once observed, making a speech each time there was a crisis.

One thing everyone agreed upon, however, was that Biden would do his utmost to show that he intends to distance the US from the path traced by his predecessor, President Donald Trump.

To signal that intention, Biden used the catchphrase "America is back! Diplomacy is back!" to bolster the claim that under Trump, the US had deviated from the American way of doing things and ditched diplomacy in favor of confrontation and violence.

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