Al Toufaan War : Intellectual and Strategic Conclusions
By Nasser Kandil
Introduction
Many think that wars are decided on the field just as their most intense, dramatic, decisive and bloody moments are, but wars are actually decided in minds. The greater and more important wars become, their fields ramify and their power becomes more entrenched, rendering their resolution impossible except in the minds, with the task of the field becoming the transmission of electric nerve impulses announcing victory or defeat.
When one of the most prominent war theorists Carl Von Clausewitz said that war is a continuation of politics by other means, he did not only imply that new balances of power resulting from war would undoubtedly impose their imprint on politics after the war, or that changes in the balance of power will no longer be able to co-exist with existing politics which in turn causes war, but also and more importantly that war in its course and rapid momentum is a school in which populations and leaders learn, modes of thinking change, and some philosophical tenets fall and others rise. Historically, the value of any war is defined by the extent to which it produces increased knowledge and ingrains new forms of thought, and gives more weight to tales and visions which would not have received such status and interest had it not been for what the war said about them.
Al Toufaan War Overhauls Cognitive Constructs
Over the last 6 months and counting, the world has been living by the tempo of events in Palestine and the region. This has been evidenced by statistics on the demonstrations which
Al Toufaan drew out from cities and capitals, statistical comparisons between declarations and positions of leaders and politicians across the world about Palestine and its war, and their declarations or stances about any other domestic or foreign issue, and the graph of such declared positions and the changes they have undergone during the months of the war, and what such graphs reveal in terms of trends related to the positions of those countries, their leaders, and their positioning vis a vis both sides of the conflict, namely Palestine and the occupying entity, the degree of warmth pulsating from such positions, and changes in the level of confidence in the capability and endurance of each side.
Further evidence of the centrality of Al Toufaan and its worldwide impact is a comparison of the shifting trend in world public opinion about Palestine, and other headlines revealed by
Al Toufaan, such as Yemen, not only in terms of thoughts, sentiments, and a change in its assessment and stance towards them, but more importantly the quest for discovery and learning. The Toufaan has had an eye opening effect on multitudes seeking to learn about Palestine’s history, the history of its name, scrutinizing of the Zionist narrative, researching Yemen’s history, what never having succumbed to invasion or occupation implies and the reasons for it, the source of its power to resist, the role of Islam in instilling reassurance and quietude in the souls of the people of Gaza, the meaning of Al Hamdu li Allah ( Praise to Allah) despite all that has befallen, the role of Islam in planting courage and the spirit of challenge, contemplation, and skill in Yemenis, where they derive their certainty about victory from, and how the support of Hamas by Hizballah and Ansar Allah to the degree of threat to their own existence became the headline for the crash of the mammoth lie of sectarian (Sunni-Shia) strife. What resulted was a greed for knowledge about this Islam, and a search for sources for such knowledge incompatible with sources which emerged around ISIS, Wahhabism, and the Muslim Brotherhood.
It can be stated with a clear conscience that the body of human knowledge is reconstructing concepts of politics and war, and their meaning in relation to the duality of moral right and power, from Al Toufaan’s gateway. Through Al Toufaan’s portal, the peoples of the world are rediscovering their politicians and their politics, their media and media corps, their cultures and intellectuals, with Al Toufaan giving birth to a worldwide laboratory in which the dismantling and reconstruction of concepts is taking place. Like the French Revolution which took place three centuries ago, an international cultural revolution has unfolded, in which a comprehensive re-evaluation of governing concepts hitherto practically accepted as existent, factual or true is occurring, and new perspectives on old forgotten issues are being formulated, with such new formulations acting like a compass directing information and viewpoints.
Palestine today occupies this status in the worldwide collective consciousness, with the Arab and Islamic public opinion being part of this transformation, albeit at varied speed and rate of responsiveness. A prime example is the shift from former Arab injurious misjudgment of Yemen and their distorted view about the war waged against it, to rediscovery of the oppression against Yemen, and more judicious redefinition of Yemen’s relation to Arabism, all this by virtue of the new key to intellect offered by Al Toufaan.
All the aforementioned is occurring in a period of uncertainty being lived by mankind, during which intellectual and philosophical paradigms prevalent for centuries following the Age of Enlightenment have collapsed. Marxist ideology took a back step with the dismantling of the Soviet Union and the collapse of socialism in the member states of the Warsaw Pact, in favor of revolutions leading to liberalism, which in turn collapsed with their quest for sovereignty succumbing to a venture of national, religious and cultural dominance to an Anglo-Saxon Zionist axis seeking to subjugate nations, cultures, traditions, and languages, and have them acquiesce to standards which collided with their deeply rooted heritage.
Under the banner of globalization, this axis aimed to turn whole nations into colonial backyards and take hostage and enslave humankind under this uni-polarity. What followed was the failure of liberal economy and the suicide of globalization presented as replacing olive trees, representative of identity, with Lexus cars symbolizing prosperity: a project which carried at the head of its actual agenda the impoverishment of the poor and the enrichment of the wealthy, either through programmed bankruptcies, or harsh financing conditions tied to changes in culture and identity, or by transforming central countries on which the project relied into environments rife with internal division and fragmentation leading to civil war based on color and race. Enter Al Toufaan presenting to peoples the opportunity for an approach to tackle uncertainty by returning to the philosophy of moral right and human values, and reexamining everything on such basis, and presenting humanity with a new pure creed compatible with and respectful of the essence of Heaven’s messages and calling for meeting at the table of its values, as well as the harsh judgement of obsolete cultural claims through the re-examining of their humanity and their worthiness of the term “culture” as long as they justify bloodshed of children and women and genocidal racist warfare, and find excuses for stalling and withholding support, while bragging about their system based on interests, which is quickly unmasked as not being based on the national interests of a country, but on a system of interests of a corrupt pack managed by lobbies of extremism and hatred, arms enterprises, and deceptive media manipulating facts to the level of falsification and fraud.
New Cultural and Strategic Facts
Among the new facts is that victory and defeat in wars is not determined by a classic balance of power related to numbers, munitions, money, and weapons, but rather the decisive factor in victory and defeat goes back to the fighting spirit and the ability to tolerate sacrificing blood, both only granted by a clear moral right, and only possessed by the truthful and sincere faithful. America, thus found, and with it “Israel”, that dominance of financial prowess and fire power surplus do not bring about victory, nor do they avoid defeat.
What Al Toufaan said is that intelligent timing is half the war, with the element of surprise being half the component of timing, while the other half is the capture of the moment of strategic retreat on the enemy front. America has reached old age, heavily wounded from its losing wars, and in steady decline on all international platforms of competition: military, economic, and strategic. “Israel” is living its worst days in the heart of an existential dilemma, with an army which has experienced a number of defeats in Lebanon and Gaza, and failed to restore its power of deterrence, not even one single time. Part of the intelligent timing was launching Al Toufaan in the shadows of the Ukranian war, after the ammunition has been depleted, which will reveal how much of it “Israel” will require to face Al Toufaan, a tribute to the intelligent timing.
Among the results of Al Toufaan is that creativity and thinking outside the box is a magical game changer, as was Al Toufaan and the Red Sea battle, two new unexpected and dazzling elements, with their utter brilliance becoming a component of victory. Such equestrian feats require a great deal of courage and risk taking, albeit calculated risk. Thus, despite the fierceness of fighting, Gaza stands steadfast with its inhabitants refusing surrender and displacement, and a Resistance capable of continuing to fight for a long time despite the woundedness, while Yemen expands its circle of confrontation, and proves capable of remaining faithful of its original commitment to exhaust and deplete the American, British, and Israeli until they become convinced that their only way out of the bottle neck is to stop the aggression against Gaza.
Among Al Toufaan’s strategic results is that the international strategic picture drawn on the seas over which American dominance has remained unshaken since World War II, now finds Yemen singlehandedly undertaking shaking such dominance by the challenges it has been posing in the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, up to the Cape of Good Hope, and as the Iraqi resistance gets ready to undertake a parallel responsibility in the Mediterranean Sea. This implies cutting off smooth lines for Western communication and control between Europe and the East on one side, and between America, the East, and Europe on the other, with resultant dangerous implications of large magnitude on America’s international status and its competition with Russia and China, especially in the shadows of the Ukranian war and the conflict over Taiwan. The strength and legitimacy in what Yemen started and is proceeding in is derived from the cause of oppression in Gaza, where the formula of clear moral right in face of the criminality, bestiality, and clear debauchery which arose between Gaza and “Israel” became between Yemen and America, each in support of a camp, Yemen supporting the entirety of moral right, and America in support of all evil.
Of the facts related to the new world emerging with Al Toufaan is the media and how to win public opinion. Palestinian youths, young males and females, with humble equipment consisting of their personal phones, succeeded in defeating the giant Western media machinery which dedicated its dominance, along with the dedication of heads of states and governments, to the promotion of the Zionist narrative to win hearts and minds. The war narrative which Gaza fought and won, taught us that a new era is beginning, in which it is possible for popular media resistance to defeat giant media armies, just as it has been proven that the popular armed resistance is capable of victory over giant military forces. The formula is that the truth and moral right are complimentary and not in opposition, and those in possession of both can win the media war in an era of the collapse of media monopoly and the intelligence communication revolution, and the spread of communication which was designed to produce the consumer as the model for the individual in the 21st Century, now transformed in the hands of free peoples into war winning arms.
Among the fruits of Al Toufaan is the redefinition of the quorum necessary for victory away from the sorcery of prevalent democracy and the heresy of consensus, after the long accepted theory that winning a war of the dimensions of a confrontation with the occupying entity, and by derivative, with the West at its head America, needs more than a united Arab and Muslim consensus, but at least requires a consensus of their majority. What Al Toufaan exposed to us in its 6th month is that the consensus necessary for victory and sufficient to launch dynamics taking hold of it different. A small minority in the Umma, certainly not a majority in their countries, or that their countries necessarily are the majority of Arab countries, created through Al Toufaan other wars waged by similar minorities, all meeting conditions for victory related to certainty, cultural and ideological stamina, organization, perseverance, capacity building, quiet and long term preparedness, and investment in geographic and demographic advantages, and not related to being a majority or of a major country.
Of the fruits and realities of Al Toufaan is that the fourth Arab-Israeli war is the war of the living power in the Umma. In an event occupying the world for half a year and more, it is natural to ask about the whereabouts of the rich Arabs, the powerful Arabs, and the Arab achievers, and why they are devoid of achievements. What Al Toufaan has done is that it shot down givens and constants when taking the Arab condition in perspective. War as the most perilous of political events, in its 6th month, waged in the name of all Arabs, not by governments and armies of major Arab countries as was the case in the “ previous wars of 48, 67, and 73, but by a popular resistance, minority among Arabs, has achieved an excellence which the majority had failed to achieve, brought to the forefront the trio of Gaza, South Lebanon, and Yemen, along with the ability to draw a new Arab future, and create new power equations, after decades of bitter questions about pre-conditions for the rise of the Umma, which many intellectuals tied with major countries, their governments, and armies. What this has demonstrated and has demonstrated is the truth of the saying “I, and moral right, make a majority.”
Of Al Toufaan’s military lessons is the new picture it has drawn for 21st Century wars where drones, missiles, and infantry emerge as a dominating trio in the warfare of this new century, replacing tanks, fighter aircraft, and cannons which continue to be effective killing tools, but fail as combat elements. The display of the effectiveness of this new weaponry for this new century spread over the fronts of Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq. With each front according to its specific requirements and needs, the combat of the infantry emerged most radiantly in the valor of Gaza, with the front in Lebanon receiving a fair share of such radiant valor, while the radiant effective of drones and missiles emerged in the fronts of Yemen, Lebanon, and Iraq. Along with the conclusions from the war in the Ukraine, in which the combat of armed vehicles and air battles between fleets of fighter jets were absent, and where drones, missiles, and infantry dominated the battle scenes, Al Toufaan sets down the formula for 21st Century wars.
Among the fruits of Al Toufaan is the writing down of the decisive chapter on the decline of nations in what Ibn Khaldoun had theorized in his introduction about his understandings of history, where kingdoms reach their apex after which the maladies of old age set in and the time of decline arrives when armies become worthless accumulations, treasury draining spending occurs, the cost of controlling outer dominions exceeds accrued benefits making their relinquish more effective, shrinkage in the area of domination, increase in competition, decrease in services with increase in disgruntlement, rise of racial discrimination, prestige in the presence of ascending nations is put to the test, and wars to rehabilitate former status increase. Such and other indications can be easily observed in the state of American dominance over the world, except that what Al Toufaan has added is not insignificant, in that it has shown how the last signs of ascendancy transformed into mechanisms for decline.
The last stage of America’s ascendancy after the cold war coincided with three weighty manifestations, firstly the culture of globalization which glorifies the individual and prosperity while proclaiming the fall of collective identities, causes, and doctrines; secondly privatization based on the premises that the state is a failed businessman, with privatization reaching armies and engagement in warfare and business enterprises becoming the mainstay of war; and thirdly the information technology revolution and the emergence of social media as a means of entertainment and amusement, with the real objective being observation and identification of habits, tastes, and control of consumer demands on the one hand, while reshaping education to conform with the consumerist model for the 21st Century individual. Through Al Toufaan we came to identify how the globalization culture produced spiritless armies impotent in fighting people of conviction; and how great nations ended without ammunition since the profit principle governs enterprises with profit margins taking precedence over national security needs; and how social media became platforms on which resistant populations fought their narrative war and won it.
This earthquake with its continuing aftershocks will write a great deal and teach a great deal, but its most important lesson has been about the science of leadership and organization. What
Al Toufaan, the first war of the Axis of Resistance, has said is that victory has numerous objective conditions which can be observed and their ripeness measured, but that victory also has individual conditions which are impossible to obtain on demand. Such conditions are embodied in a solid cohesive structure with an amalgam of a doctrine of certainty, an ardent spirit for achievement, concern about identity, belief in a cause, readiness for sacrifice, perseverance to reach mastery, and ethics, good ability to learn, and humility radiating light and fire upon crystallization, and the possession of implements for understanding reality, and reading with penetrating vision objective events and circumstances and contributing to their ripening. This has been the experience of the Axis of Resistance with its central constituent powers, particularly in Palestine, Lebanon, and Yemen, which have mastered how to lead the process through difficulties on the basis of interactive polarization, and how to move smoothly between the two equations of added value and power surplus.
*Text of presentation at the Palestine Conference, Sanaa, Yemen, April 1, 2024.
