Al-Julani's Plan

As has been published, Al-Julani is the founder of Hiat Tahrir Al-Shams, which means something like "The Front for the Liberation of the Levant". It's a radical Islamist offshoot of Al-Qaeda and ISIS that aims to conquer Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel. Their leadership is putting on a moderate front, but that's all it is, a front. However, putting on this friendly face indicates that their leader is intelligent, crafty, and wise, and has strategic vision.

The following is my assumption as to what his plan is.

Stage 1

Consolidate power and territorial control. Build up institutions. Gain international recognition and legitimacy.

Stage 2

Draw in international investments and build up the economy and military.

Stage 3

Destabilize the neighbors by supporting and arming radical groups. Lebanon is divided with the largest group being Christians and Shiites and Sunnis being about equal with around 28% each, and the Shiites are still well-armed and organized, so the main target will most likely be Jordan, which is ruled by a tiny and unpopular minority, with almost the entire country being Sunni. It should be relatively easy to topple the regime and place a puppet on the throne.

Stage 4

Destabilize Israel by smuggling weapons through the border. Israel's longest border is the one it shares with Jordan.

Stage 5

Once Israel falls into chaos and is sufficiently vulnerable, invade from all sides.

Stage 6

Once Israel has fallen and its population has been ethnically cleansed, perform "reunification" with Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel.

Stage 7

Formally announce that Syria is the Islamic caliphate and that its leader is the Caliph, but this time from the position of being an internationally-recognized legitimate state.

Comments

Shame in K-Pop Demon Hunters

In K-Pop Demon Hunters (KPDH), patterns are a mark of demons, but what they mark is the shame that the demon feels. Rumi, as the child of a demon, also has marks. Throughout her life, these marks keep growing. When she was a small child, these marks were tiny: As she grew older, the marks kept growing: As she got closer and closer to the moment she was going to seal the Golden Honmun and supposedly get rid of her demon marks, the marks kept spreading, until they reached her throat, and she lost her voice: It was only when she was with Jinu, when she started to feel more at ease about having demon patterns, that her voice returned. But why were the marks growing in the first place? Rumi had nothing to be ashamed of. She never did anything wrong. She dedicated her life to protecting the world from the demons. It was Celine. Celine believed that having a demon for a father, that having demon patterns, was something to be ashamed of. Rumi originally didn't feel this way and wanted to s...

Game Review: Learn Japanese To Survive! Hiragana Battle

Following the previous game review, I bought several Japanese language-learning games on Steam and tried out a few of them. The one I ended up sticking with the most is Learn Japanese To Survive! Hiragana Battle. It's a cute game with mechanics that remind me of Chrono Trigger. When navigating the world map or inside a specific region, the player has a top-down view of the world and his character. Battles are turn-based with a side view. The story of the game is that an evil Japanese wizard has come to conquer your country by using Japanese-based magic, and the only way to counter this magic is by using Japanese yourself. A Japanese emissary teaches you the language, guides you on your journey, and fights as part of your team of four. The main challenge comes from fighting the Hiragana warriors, enemies that are characters in the Japanese. They are everywhere and you keep bumping into them, and the only way to damage them is by saying which character they are. That is the main dif...

Learning Japanese, Part 2

It's been almost a year since I started my daily study of Japanese, and about 10 months since my previous post about it. So how's it going? Apps I ended up dropping almost all the apps due to them either being too restricted in the free tier, not fun enough, or not effective enough, or not having enough time and energy to do them in addition to the ones I felt to be part of my core routine. I'll focus here on the few that I do feel are part of the core routine, and the few extras that I feel are almost but not quite there. DuoLingo The main strong point with this app is how it gets me to consistently maintain my streak, which means maintaining a daily study habit. The way that it's gamified and the fact that it's very forgiving help me avoid falling off completely. It's also okay in terms of drills and introducing new vocabulary, but it feels very slow and based on doing repetitive exercises rather than giving instructions or moving forward with new material. ...

Yman

Search This Blog