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The United States has supported DICTATORS, right wing Governments as well as countries like Saudis Arabia and has overthrown governments like Iran for over 70 years.The countries the US supported as in Saudis Arabia from the 40s till now have subjected their people. As long as the US got oil and gas and other natural resources, they looked the other way as they subjugated their own people with money and weapons that the US used to prop these countries up.The ideology of Muslim terrorists are wahhabism. That version of Sunni Islamic was created in Saudis Arabia and exported around the world. Any other version of Islam was killed off.Go to any country and visit a mosque. If it says paid by the Saudis Government that it means the wahhabis ideology was taught there.AL QAEDA follows wahhabism that Osama bin laden has been a follower of.It was in the news that ISIS were using Saudis Arabian textbooks to teach their own children.[House Hearing, 115 Congress] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]    SAUDI ARABIA'S TROUBLING EDUCATIONAL CURRICULUM  =======================================================================   HEARING   BEFORE THE   SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE   OF THE   COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS  HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES   ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS   FIRST SESSION   __________   JULY 19, 2017   __________   Serial No. 115-46   __________   Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs     [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]    Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/   or   http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/   ______      U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE  26-312PDF WASHINGTON : 2017    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office,  http://bookstore.gpo.gov. For more information, contact the GPO Customer Contact Center,  U.S. Government Publishing Office. Phone 202-512-1800, or 866-512-1800 (toll-free).  E-mail, [email protected]                 COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS   EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida BRAD SHERMAN, California DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida TED POE, Texas KAREN BASS, California DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina AMI BERA, California MO BROOKS, Alabama LOIS FRANKEL, Florida PAUL COOK, California TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas RON DeSANTIS, Florida ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania TED S. YOHO, Florida DINA TITUS, Nevada ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois NORMA J. TORRES, California LEE M. ZELDIN, New York BRADLEY SCOTT SCHNEIDER, Illinois DANIEL M. DONOVAN, Jr., New York THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York  Wisconsin TED LIEU, California ANN WAGNER, Missouri BRIAN J. MAST, Florida FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida BRIAN K. FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania THOMAS A. GARRETT, Jr., Virginia   Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director   Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director    ------    Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade   TED POE, Texas, Chairman JOE WILSON, South Carolina WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts DARRELL E. ISSA, California LOIS FRANKEL, Florida PAUL COOK, California BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania DINA TITUS, Nevada LEE M. ZELDIN, New York NORMA J. TORRES, California BRIAN J. MAST, Florida BRADLEY SCOTT SCHNEIDER, Illinois THOMAS A. GARRETT, Jr., Virginia    C O N T E N T S   ----------   Page   WITNESSES  Ms. Nina Shea, director, Center for Religious Freedom, Hudson   Institute...................................................... 4 David A. Weinberg, Ph.D., senior fellow, Foundation for Defense   of Democracies................................................. 14 The Honorable Frank Wolf, distinguished senior fellow, 21st   Century Wilberforce Initiative (former U.S. Representative).... 34 Douglas Johnston, Ph.D., president emeritus, International Center   for Religion and Diplomacy..................................... 40   LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING  Ms. Nina Shea: Prepared statement................................ 7 David A. Weinberg, Ph.D.: Prepared statement..................... 16 The Honorable Frank Wolf: Prepared statement..................... 37 Douglas Johnston, Ph.D.: Prepared statement...................... 42   APPENDIX  Hearing notice................................................... 62 Hearing minutes.................................................. 63 David A. Weinberg, Ph.D.: Material submitted for the record...... 64 The Honorable Frank Wolf: Material submitted for the record...... 72     SAUDI ARABIA'S TROUBLING EDUCATIONAL CURRICULUM   ----------     WEDNESDAY, JULY 19, 2017   House of Representatives,    Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade,   Committee on Foreign Affairs,   Washington, DC.   The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:15 p.m., in  room 2200 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ted Poe (chairman  of the subcommittee) presiding.  Mr. Poe. The subcommittee will now come to order.  Without objection, all members may have 5 days to submit  statements, questions, and extraneous materials for the record,  subject to the limitation in the rules.  The Chair will ask that the witnesses come forward and sit  in your designated positions.  The Chair has distributed to all members an expert from-- excerpts from current textbooks published by Saudi Arabia's  Ministry of Education. The Chair would ask and direct that the  staff furnish this material to all of the witnesses at this  time.  Saudi Arabia is an ally in the fight against terrorism.  Many of the same terrorist organizations that threaten the United States also desire to overthrow the Saudi Government and  break our partnership with the government. It is a key member of the Coalition to Fight ISIS, with its pilots flying alongside Americans since day one of the campaign in Syria.  Last year Saudi Arabia adopted strict laws prohibiting fundraising for terrorism, jointly designated support networks  for al-Qaeda and the Taliban.  However, the Saudis still have much more they need to do at home to counter the sources of extremism in the region. The  battle against terrorism will ultimately have to be fought and won on the battlefield of ideas. Saudi Arabia has simply not done enough to defeat extremist ideology.  The Kingdom is playing the role of both arsonist and  firefighter when it comes to Islamic extremism. Nowhere is this more evident than the textbooks Saudi Arabia produces to teach  young people. For too long, Saudi Arabia's education curriculum  has inspired the very ideology that is at the root of many terrorist organizations like ISIS and al-Qaeda. Saudi textbooks  are full of anti-Semitism, conspiracy theories, and calls to violence that have incited students both at home and across the  world.  This poisonous ideology has provided the groundwork for generations of extremism. In fact, ISIS adopted official Saudi textbooks for its schools in 2015 until that terrorist organization could publish its own textbooks. However, its  export of hateful material through Saudi-funded schools abroad  has helped spread the toxic ideology to more tolerant and open Muslim communities in countries such as Kosovo and Indonesia.  While the Kingdom has repeatedly pledged to remove  extremist content from its curriculum, troubling language  remains in many of the most recent editions of Saudi textbooks.  In 2006, the Saudis committed to eliminate all passages that promoted hatred toward any religion by 2008. Yet even today, years later, textbooks include content that discourages befriending infidels, claims the goal of Zionism is world domination, and encourages fighting any infidel who refuses to  submit to the supremacy of Islam. This intolerance is  unacceptable and directly contributes to the widespread  persecution of religious minorities that plague the Middle  East.  Another passage in a current Saudi textbook for middle school students states that ``the mujahideen who are doing good deeds for the sake of Allah . . . should be given transportation, weapons, food, and anything else that they may  need to continue their jihad.'' Messages such as this undermine  the Saudi's own counterterrorism efforts. By indoctrinating  children into the belief that the people of other faiths are inferior or that are a threat to Islam, Saudi Arabia is ensuring future generations of extremists that will join the  ranks of terrorist groups.  This is not to ignore that some positive steps have been taken. In recent years, the Kingdom has introduced passages that denounce terrorism and encourage dialogue with other faiths. But these steps only send mixed messages to easily  influenced young minds so as long as those more extreme  messages remain.  The State Department has previously in other  administrations, failed to hold Saudi Arabiacounterparts to past pledges. The Saudi--the State Department has even refused to publish reports that shed light on these troubling textbooks  for fear of embarrassing our Saudi partners, information that they have in the possession of the State Department. This is  troubling.  While we appreciate Saudi Arabia's contribution to our  overall counterterrorism efforts in the region, we must hold  them accountable for their role in fueling the very extremism that we are both trying to combat. It is in both of our countries' interests in the fight against terrorism. We all  need to be on the same page. And that is just the way it is.  I will yield from the gentleman from Massachusetts Mr. Keating, the ranking member, for his opening statement.  Mr. Keating. Thank you, Chairman Poe, for holding this  hearing. And thank you to our witnesses for being here. Mr.  Wolf, welcome back.  We have dedicated a lot of time in this subcommittee with talks of countering terrorism and violent extremism. Our last  hearing addressed that very issue in Europe, in light of the  many attacks carried out against so many innocent civilians across the region.  We are here to discuss the issue in the context of Saudi Arabia's school curriculum, and in particular, reforms that  have been made to ensure children just going to school are not  being trained in intolerance and violence but, also  importantly, to identify what work still must be done. The  spread of extremist ideologies and instances of individuals being inspired to commit acts of terrorism has forced us to learn much, much more about the factors that make individuals vulnerable to committing acts of violence and taking human  lives.  We realize that the messages these individuals are exposed to can change the course of their lives and push them to carry out heinous crimes of their own in their own communities, and  in those communities they may have never known, but their  actions have led to dehumanization, and they actually come to believe legitimate targets of violence are their victims.  These materials that our future generations spend every day of the most formative years of their lives learning from are  therefore very important. Texts that dehumanize and condone violence against others simply cannot be tolerated.  Saudi Arabia is an ally of the United States in fighting terrorism. And if there is ever to be a lasting peace and security in the Middle East it will require every country in the region stepping up and being a leader in eradicating  extremism and promoting the institutions and rule of law needed to ensure that such hatred and violent ideologies are never again permitted to take root or to spread.  Today I hope to learn more from our witnesses about the reforms and progress the Kingdom has already made, what existing challenges lie before us and, specifically, how we in Congress can support progress in this regard. Every year that  goes by children are being taught intolerance. And that  compounds the challenges we will face in creating a safer world for them to grow up in going forward.  So, I am looking forward to today's hearing about the steps that can be made sure to take these materials molding our future generations and bringing them forward, not only in Saudi  Arabia but in communities around the world. We all have forms of intolerance, and we all must work to remove these from our own countries. This must be achieved as quickly as possible, however. We cannot afford to be patient while intolerance that  promotes or condones violence in any form is not only shared but taught and continues to undermine our collective efforts to  protect communities from terrorism and violent extremism.  Again I would like to thank our witnesses and I yield back.  Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts.  Do any other members wish to be recognized?  [No response.]  Mr. Poe. Seeing none, without objection all witnesses'  prepared statements will be made part of the record. I ask that each witness please keep your presentation to no more than 5 minutes. If you see a red light that appears before you, that means stop. And we do have your statements and all members have had access to those statements for some time.  I will introduce each witness and then give them time for their opening statements.  Ms. Nina Shea is the director of the Center for Religious  Freedom at the Hudson Institute. Previously she was appointed by the United States House of Representatives to serve seven terms as a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International  Religious Freedom.  Dr. David Weinberg is a senior fellow at the Foundation for  Defense of Democracies. Prior to joining the FDD, he served as Democratic professional staff member at the House Committee on  Foreign Affairs.  The Honorable Frank Wolf served, God bless you, 17 terms in the United States House of Representatives. His now a distinguished senior fellow at the 21st Century Wilberforce  Initiative.  And Dr. Douglas Johnston is the president emeritus and  founder of the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy.  Prior to his current position he served as vice president and COO of Center for Strategic and International Studies.  Ms. Shea, we will start with you. You have 5 minutes.   STATEMENT OF MS. NINA SHEA, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR RELIGIOUS   FREEDOM, HUDSON INSTITUTE   Ms. Shea. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the  committee.  This is an important hearing. It comes at a critical time  when Saudi Arabia itself is expressing a new vision for itself  of reform. And many thoughtful voices after 9/11 made a  connection between the fact that most of the perpetrators and  the mastermind behind those attacks were from Saudi Arabia, and  that their educational system could have a lot to do with what  happened that day.  The Saudis--the Saudi King--back in 2003 convened his own  panel to examine the Saudi textbooks and they confirmed some of  our worst fears. And they found that the Saudi Kingdom, and I  am quoting, ``religious studies curriculum encourages violence  with others and misguides the people into believing that in  order to safeguard their own religion they must violently  repress and even physically eliminate the others.''  For 15 years after 9/11 Saudi Ministry of Education  textbooks still teach an ideology of hatred and violence  against Jews, Christians, other Muslims such as Shiites, Sufis  and Amadiyyas, Hindus, Baha'is, Yezidis, animists, sorcerers,  and infidels of all stripes, as well as other groups with  different beliefs. The most objectionable passages are from the  upper grades' religious textbooks.  While the Saudi Government has made much of reform in the  early grades, those religious texts, like those for math or  English, have not been particularly problematic, though overall  critical thinking and ideas that conflict with the government- approved ones are banned.  Each academic year the Ministry of Education issues a new  edition of grades 1 through 12's religious textbooks. And they  are mandatory in all Saudi public schools. Each edition  reflects some changes in wording, content, and placement.  Nevertheless, over the past some 10 years, the content, that I  have been looking at these books, the content has continued to  retain violent passages and directives.  Christians, Hindus, and those practicing witchcraft are to  be fought and killed. The textbooks incite violence against  polytheists, a category that would of course include all non- monotheistic religions, but in Saudi Wahhabi teaching can  include monotheistic religions too, such as Christianity.  Christians are also considered infidels who must be fought  unless they have a protection contract with Muslims. Conspiracy  theories are taught as fact about the Freemasons, the Rotary  Club, the Lion's Club, the American University of Beirut, and  so on.  Dogmatic lessons in Saudi middle and high school textbooks  include that many--instruct that many Muslims should be killed  for their beliefs, including blasphemers, Christian converts,  and those who merely doubt the Prophet's truth, as well as  Shiites and Sufis, who are condemned as polytheists for praying  or even seen crying at gravesites.  No group, however, is more vilified than the Jews. The  problem is far deeper than that conveyed by the State  Department's characterization of it as simply stereotypical or  anti-Semitic language. Repeatedly Jews are demonized,  dehumanized, and targeted for violence. The textbooks instruct  that the Zionist aim is Jewish domination of the world and  controlling its destiny.  When I was in Saudi Arabia in 2011 with the U.S. Commission  on International Religious Freedom I had a chance to ask the  Saudi justice minister at the time why the Protocols of the  Elders of Zion, an infamously anti-Semitic fabrication from the  Russian revolution, is included in the textbooks on Hadith,  which is the traditions of Islam's Prophet Mohammed, where it  continues to be taught as historical fact. He responded that  the Protocols are treated as part of Islamic culture because it  is a book that has long been found in plentiful supply in Saudi  Arabia and that it was a book that his father had in his house.  In the interests of time I am going to refer to my written  testimony for specific examples. You have already cited a few.  But just to say that apostates are singled out for  punishment in this life, death unless they repent within 3  days.  Christians, again, are considered polytheists, and  polytheists are to be--is a reason to fight those who practice  it and to commit jihad against it, is another quote from these  books.  Homosexuals, the punishment is death.  Jihad is extolled and defined. Its first definition is  asserting effort in fighting unbelievers and tyrants.  And there are many more examples. And these are posted on  the Internet and shipped worldwide. And they have been linked  by our counterterrorism officials to growing extremism.  The Saudis, the one point I would like to make is that the  Saudis themselves have admitted that the textbooks need reform.  They do not deny it. Any Saudi that I talked to has agreed,  including the Saudi Minister of Education in 2011, but they  have not really finished it. They have never finished it. And  they have a long history of broken promises where they have  said that they did; either they did clean them up, as our  Ambassador to Washington, former Ambassador Turki al-Faisal  told us, or that the reform is just around the corner and that  it will be completed in 2 years or 5 years or 10 years. And  over this period it has not happened.  The government--U.S. Government--has failed to verify this.  And has even, as you mentioned, covered it up.  So, I will conclude my testimony there and urge you to  mandate that Congress, mandate--that Congress mandate the State  Department review the textbooks and highlight and detail the  troublesome portions of it. And to, even to make defense  contracts with Saudi Arabia contingent on the cleanup of these  textbooks and so that they are not in danger of hurting or  killing any American that might be a member of the groups that  are singled out for violence and dehumanization in these  reports.  Thank you.  [The prepared statement of Ms. Shea follows:]  [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]    ----------    Mr. Poe. Thank you, Ms. Shea.  Dr. Weinberg.   STATEMENT OF DAVID A. WEINBERG, PH.D., SENIOR FELLOW,   FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES   Mr. Weinberg. Chairman Poe, Ranking Member Keating, and  distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you on behalf  of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies for having me here  today. I will deliver an abridged version of my written  testimony.  As I explain in that text, encouraging Saudi Arabia to  remove incitement from its government-published textbooks for  its public education system is not just the right thing to do,  it is also a national security issue. Fighting terrorists  militarily can only achieve so much if Saudi textbooks and  other sources of incitement continue to provide fertile  intellectual ground for violent extremism.  This past May I published a long list of intolerant  statements in Saudi textbooks from the most current school  year, which I will draw from extensively here. I have included  all of these passages in their original Arabic as an appendix  to my written testimony.  I found that Saudi textbooks still recommend killing people  for many acts that U.S. law would characterize as personal  choices. That included adultery, anal sex, converting from  Islam, or purported acts of sorcery.  The textbooks are also rife with anti-Christian and  particularly anti-Semitic inciting, often framed as anti- Zionism. One book called Christianity an invalid, perverted  religion. Another accused Zionism of plotting a global Jewish  government. And a third called Zionism an octopus that it  accused, falsely, of trying to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque and  the entire Islamic creed.  A fourth book taught that befriending infidels is  forbidden, citing a Quranic verse that says not to take  Christians or Jews as allies. That textbook called such  infidels enemies of Muslims and of God, and taught that Muslims  must abhor them, quite literally teaching hatred.  These are all examples from current textbooks used in the  2016 to 2017 Saudi school year.  According to a forthcoming report by Human Rights Watch,  the textbooks also repeatedly refer to well-known stereotypes  of Shiite or Sufi Muslim rituals as horrendous examples of  polytheism. This is particularly important, because a passage I  found in a current Saudi textbook called for fighting such  polytheists except under a handful of extenuating  circumstances.  That book also teaches that there are four types of  infidels, and that if a non-believer doesn't happen to fit into  one of the first three categories--diplomats, peoples with whom  Muslims have a non-aggression treaty, or people who agree to  pay a special tax associated with second class status--then  they are combatant whom it says Muslims are commanded to fight.  Saudi Arabia has made some positive changes to its  textbooks in recent years but not enough. A few passages  condemning terrorism or racism and permitting kind treatment to  peaceful non-believers have been added. Direct calls to  violence or hatred are somewhat less common.  By the way, I would like to share a little bit of news with  you today. Seventeen minutes after this hearing was scheduled  to start the Saudi Embassy posted on Twitter that, ``The  Ministry of Education has finalized a round of textbook  revisions in line with the objectives of the national  transformation plan.'' This is particularly puzzling because in  an interview with the Wall Street Journal earlier this year  Saudi Arabia's education minister seemed to suggest that the  broader change involving incitement and other issues in its  curriculum would have to wait until 3 years, up to 3 years from  now when the Kingdom would move to tablets in the classroom.  Saudi officials routinely oversell the success and ambition  of their efforts to reform these books to date. In 2005 Saudi  Arabia said it had removed all the problematic passages from  its textbooks. When Nina Shea proved that that was incorrect,  the Saudis assured the U.S. that all intolerant passages would  be removed by 2008. They missed that deadline, as well as  others they had pledged for 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016. Even  some of the textbooks they claim to have fixed in recent years  still contain incitement.  U.S. policy on this issue has not been up to the task. For  example, the State Department issued the country reports on  counterterrorism today. And while there are several lines in  there about the Saudi curriculum, there is only half, less than  a full sentence on what incitement still remains.  But there is much that Congress can do to help. The U.S.  Commission on International Religious Freedom called on the  executive branch this year to ``undertake and make public an  annual assessment'' of Saudi textbooks to ``determine if  passages that teach religious intolerance had been removed.''  Congress should help by passing legislation that requires the  administration to issue such a yearly report, and allocates the  resources of it to do so, no later than 90 days after the start  of the Saudi school year so such findings are actually still  valid for diplomats. And such a report should quote all such  passages that could be seen as encouraging violence or  intolerance for public scrutiny.  There are a number of other recommendations that I include  in my written testimony. But in the interests of time, I will  leave off there.  [The prepared statement of Mr. Weinberg follows:]  [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]    ----------    Mr. Poe. Thank you, Dr. Weinberg.  The Chair will now recognize Congressman Wolf.   STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE FRANK WOLF, DISTINGUISHED SENIOR   FELLOW, 21ST CENTURY WILBERFORCE INITIATIVE (FORMER U.S.   REPRESENTATIVE)   Mr. Wolf. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the  committee.  The issue of Saudi educational curriculum as a means of  promoting intolerance and inspiring terrorism is not a new one.  This topic hit close to home in 2003, when Ahmed Omar Abu Ali  was arrested while in class at the Islamic University of Medina  for an attempted plot to assassinate President Bush. Before  attending the University of Medina, Mr. Abu Ali attended and  was a valedictorian at a high school which was located here in  northern Virginia, the Islamic Saudi Academy. Mr. Abu Ali was  ultimately sentenced to life in prison and is currently serving  out his sentence in a supermax in Colorado.  The reason I would like to highlight this particular case  in particular is due to the fact that concerns were raised  regarding the educational material being used by the Islamic  Saudi Academy over and over. Not only was the school funded by  the Saudi Arabian Embassy, which meant it fell under the Saudi  Ministry of Education, but the Saudi Ambassador to Washington  led the board of directors. He literally led the school.  In 2007 when asked by the United States Commission on  International Religious Freedom to make textbooks publicly  available, the school refused to comply. We got copies from a  professor that gave us one on the side. One letter from USCIRF  on the issue stated, ``Based on past documentation, significant  concerns remain about whether the Saudi textbooks used at the  ISA Academy explicitly . . . hate, intolerance and human rights  violations, and in some cases violence, which may adversely  affect the interests of the United States.''  In 2008, I wrote Secretary Rice on five different occasions  regarding the concerns held by the Commission regarding the  content of the textbooks. At that time I requested a meeting be  convened between relevant State Department officials, USCIRF  representatives, and expert analysts commissioned by USCIRF to  translate the textbooks in order to determine what was being  taught by the Academy. Such meeting never took place.  Generally, the State Department has been weak on this issue  in both Republican and in Democratic administrations.  During this time, USCIRF was finally able to obtain copies  of some of the textbooks being used by the Islamic Saudi  Academy. After a thorough analysis, the Commission concluded  that the textbooks contained very troubling passages that did  not conform to international human rights standards, including  vilification of those who adhere to Christianity, Judaism,  Baha'i'ism, Ahmadism, and Shia Islam and others. I have  submitted for the record some of those statements.  And in 2009 I sent a letter, again, to Secretary of State  Clinton, urging the State Department monitor and report on the  textbooks published by the Saudi Government. In that letter I  acknowledged, ``To date, we have had only vague assurances on  the part of the State Department and the school that the  curriculum has been reformed. But these assurances are  insufficient, particularly when they are utterly at odds with  USCIRF's findings, and may be indicative of wider problems,  namely, the status of Saudi commitments made in 2006 to conduct  a comprehensive revision of textbooks and educational curricula  to weed out . . .''  While it is impossible to say that Mr. Abu Ali was directly  radicalized by the textbooks used at the Islamic Saudi Academy,  the use of the books that promote religious discrimination and  the justification of violence toward non-believers cannot be  tolerated, certainly not in Fairfax County, not in Virginia,  not in America, but quite frankly, anywhere around the world.  Consider that if this is the academy's curriculum in the  United States, just imagine how prolific the problem has been  across Saudi-affiliated academies, funded programs in other  countries around the world, especially in some countries in the  Middle East.  While the Ahmed Omar Abu Ali case is now almost a decade  old, Saudi Arabia has continued to promote and export radical  Wahhabism. In the wake of the Orlando shooting just last year,  Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton stated, ``It is  long past the time for the Saudis, the Qataris and the Kuwaitis  and others to stop their citizens from funding extremist  organizations. And they should stop,'' she said, ``supporting  radical schools and mosques around the world that have set too  many young people on the path toward extremism.''  And, unfortunately, by funding top American university  research centers, the Saudi Government has been able to  minimize voices of those in academia who you would have thought  otherwise would have had the best means for researching the  effects of radical Wahhabism.  While there are many concerns regarding the influence of  Saudi Arabia, more specifically radical Wahhabism, on countries  around the world, it would be remiss not to acknowledge that  very recently some small improvements have been made to the  educational material. In the latest report by USCIRF they said,  ``In February 2017 Saudi officials stated that the final stage  of revisions to high school texts was underway. During its  visit, USCIRF obtained some textbooks currently in use and  found some intolerant content remained in high school texts,  though at a reduced level.''  They go on to explain while there has been progress in  terms, there is still concern that some of the teachers may be  promoting a more radicalized version of Islam.  Some recommendations: One, the USCIRF has some very good  recommendations. Undertake and make public and annual  assessment.  I believe you have to put this in the legislation. If you  just let the State Department or the American Embassy in Saudi  Arabia, they will always find a reason not to do it. So I think  it needs to be mandated that the relevant Ministry of Education  textbooks determine the passages that teach religious  intolerance have been removed.  Secondly, press the Saudi Government to denounce publicly  the continued use around the world of older versions of Saudi  textbooks and other materials that promote hatred and  intolerance. And make every attempt to retrieve and buy back  previously distributed textbooks that contain intolerance.  You know, even in America's schools sometimes you're in a  class there will be a textbook that is 10, 15 years old. These  are still in schools around, around the world.  And keep in mind, lastly, the Saudis funded almost all of  the madrasas that were up on the Afghan-Pakistan border that  helped lead to what took place in the Taliban. Mullah Omar, the  head of the Taliban, was a graduate of a Saudi-funded academy.  The issue needs more work.  And I want to thank the subcommittee and the members  because I kind of thought for a while this issue was kind of  forgotten about. Mandate it and put it in. If you take the  pressure off the Saudis they will slip back in and this will  come in. You keep the pressure on and you can make a tremendous  difference.  I thank you for the hearing.  [The prepared statement of Mr. Wolf follows:]  [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]    ----------    Mr. Poe. Thank you, Congressman Wolf.  Dr. Johnston.   STATEMENT OF DOUGLAS JOHNSTON, PH.D., PRESIDENT EMERITUS,   INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR RELIGION AND DIPLOMACY   Mr. Johnston. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you  for the honor of presenting to your committee some of the work  our center has been doing to try to help facilitate educational  reform in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We have a written  testimony that covers that comprehensively. I will just touch  on some of the highlights.  Before I do, though, I would like to just take 1 second to  honor the other witnesses here. Each is a champion of human  rights and religious freedom in their own right, and it is an  honor to be with them.  Our task, which I consider complementary to their own, has  been to take action to address the problem. And in 2011, we  received a grant from the State Department to develop  recommendations that would help facilitate reform efforts that  were already underway in the Kingdom. Toward this end, we  assessed all the textbooks for discriminatory content. And we  also tried to determine global dispersion of those textbooks.  It was a--from the start our approach was one of seeking to  be balanced, giving them credit for whatever progress had been  made, not only in that but in their deradicalization program,  but to be very unsparing in our detail of what yet remained to  be done. And there we completed a report, very comprehensive,  included 99 textbooks. I could go into great length on that,  but just suffice it to say that this report is just replete  with examples of the kinds of problems that have been cited  here with the other witnesses.  There is, at that point in time, this is 2011, sprinkled  throughout you would find direct license given for violent  behavior toward others who do not subscribe to that similar  brand of Islam. You would also find direct license for such  things as desecrating the tombs of the Sufi saints in Timbuktu,  which the extremists did before the French kicked them out. So,  lots of problems.  There were not only problems in the textbooks as a whole,  but even in the six grades that had already been thoroughly  revised we did find problems.  So, one of the things I would just point out, though, in  terms of looking at these things, I think it is important to  try to avoid using a western lens as we do so. By that I mean  what we try to do is hold their feet to the fire by comparing  what is in those textbooks to what is in the Holy Quran with  respect to that same subject area, what is in the Cairo  Declaration of Human Rights in Islam with respect to that. In  all cases, the Saudi textbooks were much more conservative than  the sources I just mentioned.  So, that is, that is a very important piece is just  understanding exactly where, how much freedom the Government of  Saudi Arabia has to really maneuver. There are so many wild  cards in the mix. There are charities through which textbooks  are distributed. There are maverick members of the royal  family. There are deep-pocketed Saudis who are not members of  the royal family. Lots of people with lots of agendas.  And one of the things that is also a bit of a constraint is  the fact that the original pact between the monarchy and the  Salafi Ulema called for education belongs to the religious  establishment. So one of the things that the Saudis were having  to do is to finesse that aspect, that obligation. They also  need to worry about the credibility that they maintain within  Islam itself as custodian of the two holiest sites. So this is,  this is not to forgive any of the textbook content, this is to  just explain why sometimes it may take a little bit longer than  we would like.  We established a comprehensive baseline for future  analysis. And we felt that the progress that the Saudis were  making was credible enough that we should probably keep the  report private, not release it to the public. Our concern was  that western critics seizing upon the offensive passages that  still remain might just shut down the whole process as a  defensive backlash sets in and the conservatives move in. We  have seen this time and again in different situations in the  Islamic world.  So, we spent the next 3 years implementing some of the  recommendations that we had come forward with.  Now, just to bring it right up to the present, we are in  another month we are going to be starting a new effort to look  at the textbooks of the high school grades which had not been  revised the last time we looked at them. We are also going to  take an in-depth look at three countries on how the Saudi  educational materials are affecting the religious and social.  What is that impact?  And I will say this, right now the Saudis claim to have  just completed that process, reform process that started way  back in 2007. And they realize, however, that they still have  problems. Many of those have been mentioned here right now. And  what they are planning to do is tackle it from two aspects.  One, is by 2020 to have developed a set of curriculum  standards. They have never had curriculum standards before. And  this is part of their national plan on educational reform which  was articulated in 2014, $22 billion behind it. It is very  serious money. That money has stayed protected even during  their budget shortfalls. And by these curriculum standards they  will then revise wholesale the content in all of the textbooks.  In the meantime, on a more urgent basis, they are going to  be looking at the current revised textbooks and within-- starting within 3 months they will start making changes on a  priority basis. And they will have these completed, according  to them, by the next school year, 2018 to 2019. And there is so  much going on right now. They are going to--in 3 years they  will have converted from textbooks to tablet computers. So  there is a lot of change underway.  I believe that the commitment is real. And they certainly  do understand the problem.  Thank you.  [The prepared statement of Mr. Johnston follows:]  [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]    ----------    Mr. Poe. Thank you, Dr. Johnston. The Chair recognizes  himself for some questions.  I want to be clear that when we are dealing with Saudi  Arabia it is not all or nothing. Like I said earlier, they are  the arsonists but they are also the firefighters when it comes  to terrorism. That is what makes this very troubling, this  whole issue.  And, Ms. Shea, let me start with you. If I understand  correctly, Saudi Arabia agreed in 2006 that they would fix this  problem and they would have it all fixed by 2008. Is that  correct?  Ms. Shea. Yes, Mr. Chairman. They----  Mr. Poe. Okay. Reclaiming my time because I only have a few  minutes.  So here it is now 9 years later and it is still not fixed,  maybe some progress, but it is the issue that they promised in  2006 to fix the textbooks has not come about. Is that right?  Ms. Shea. Yes, that is correct.  Mr. Poe. So that is nine grades. That is almost a  generation of students that they furnished the textbooks to  that are still receiving this, in my opinion, violation of  human rights.  Saudi Arabian schools teach religion and it is mandatory  that all students go to these religious classes. Is that  correct?  Ms. Shea. Yes.  Mr. Poe. And that is where these textbooks are used?  Ms. Shea. Yes.  Mr. Poe. And they are not only used in Saudi Arabia but  they are used in other places in the world, including in the  United States, as Congressman Wolf has stated; is that right?  Ms. Shea. They have about 20 schools that they directly  run. And then they are spread--for example, Dr. Johnston's  report said that there were 150 schools that Saudi Arabia has  established in Burkina Faso alone. So that gives you some, you  know, some idea of the scale. It is all over the world, all  continents and where there are people, where there are Muslim  communities. And they are--not every one is receiving Saudi  textbooks, but many, many are.  Mr. Poe. And some say that the radicalization in Kosovo and  Indonesia are a result of these textbooks being in these  schools. Are you aware of that?  Ms. Shea. Yes, I am. I hear it all the time.  Mr. Poe. Congressman Wolf.  Mr. Wolf. Yes.  Mr. Poe. Dr. Johnston, I know the State Department  contracted with your group to study this issue, gave a grant,  American taxpayer money, a grant for you all to study the  issue. You studied it. You have got a report there in your  hand. But the State Department still to this day refuses to  release to the public that report. Is that correct?  Mr. Johnston. No, that is not true, sir.  Mr. Poe. So they have, they have released the report?  Mr. Johnston. They have. But not, not on their own doing.  Mr. Poe. It has been released because somebody leaked the  report.  Mr. Johnston. No. It was because the New York Times used  the Freedom of Information Act to get a copy of the report.  Mr. Poe. So it has been. The public does have access to  your entire report?  Mr. Johnston. Absolutely.  Mr. Poe. All right. Thank you. I did not know that.  So, Congressman Wolf, let me ask you. You mentioned a few  things that must be done. This has been going on for a good  number of years. And where we are today, I think the United  States--this is my opinion--doesn't want to endanger the  sensitivities of our relationship with our Saudi allies. What  would--how would you characterize this relationship and the  demanding that we--that they change their textbooks?  Mr. Wolf. Well, it goes up and down. And during the area of  oil crisis nobody wanted to offend the Saudis. America is fast  becoming basically energy independent.  I think what you are doing with the hearing today by  bringing the attention.  Two, there ought to be the new U.S. Ambassador for  Religious Freedom, the person whose name I have heard is a very  outstanding person who will be very good on this issue, the  subcommittee should meet with that person.  Thirdly, you ought to have questions going over to the  Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. When they send the name up of  the new Ambassador there will be very tough questions from both  sides of the aisle--this is not a political issue, if you  will--aggressively putting him on record or her on record,  whoever it is, that they will speak out.  Lastly, when he or she is confirmed this subcommittee  ought, ought to meet with them.  And I think the more you pressure and do it publicly, in a  very respectful way, you have to be careful, though, because  the Saudis put a lot of money in different universities. They  also hire prominent law firms in town. I couldn't believe, 3  weeks ago a prominent law firm was hired to represent Bashir,  an indicted war criminal, indicted for genocide, responsible  for the death of 200,000 to 300,000 people in Darfur, bombing  people in the Nuba Mountains, and yet a law firm, prominent law  firm working for him. So you have to be careful that there  isn't pressure.  But what you have done today following up with it, I don't  think the State Department will aggressively do it unless the  Congress pushes them.  Mr. Poe. Last question. Dr. Weinberg, you mentioned that 17  minutes into this hearing, that was a public notice that we  were having this hearing, the Saudi Arabians did something.  What did they do?  Mr. Weinberg. They, they announced on social media that a  new round of curriculum revisions had been completed which,  again, needs to be not a justification for letting scrutiny off  but a justification for added scrutiny to see if they have  actually delivered on what they pledged.  If I could just add my voice to what the Honorable Mr. Wolf  said about envoys. In addition to encouraging the  administration to nominate a qualified individual for the  congressionally-mandated post of Ambassador-at-Large for  International Religious Freedom, there are four other important  positions that are laying vacant on this issue right now.  There is currently no nominee, at least as of last I  checked 2 days ago, for a U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. It  should be somebody with real experience in the relationship and  not just business experience.  Additionally, there is no nominee for the Special  Representative of the State Department to Muslim Communities  Abroad, a crucial vacancy.  Additionally, there is still no nominee, no nominee for the  Anti-Semitism Envoy at the State Department. And the Secretary  of State even suggested that such a nominee might be  counterproductive for addressing anti-Semitism by taking it out  of the priorities of the State Department, which I think is a  deeply counterproductive perspective.  And then, lastly, there is the position of Ambassador for-- or Special Envoy for Religious Freedom of Minorities in the  Broader Middle East, a position that is mandated by Congress.  There is somebody serving in this capacity but not with the  level of seniority that Congress has mandated.  So those are all areas where you all can have an important  voice.  Mr. Poe. Four positions, four witnesses, I think maybe we  can solve that problem right here.  I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts, the ranking  member Mr. Keating.  Mr. Keating. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  Dr. Johnston, you mentioned that the Center is moving  forward and they are looking at three countries to see what the  effect, do an in-depth examination of the religious and social  impact of Saudi educational materials in those countries. Can  you tell us and expand on what countries were chosen and what  reason were those countries included in this study?  Mr. Johnston. They have not been chosen. We are currently  examining the feasibility of securing a memorandum of  understanding with selected governments that would pass this  test. These are going to be three countries of strategic  consequence. They will be drawn from Southeast Asia, the Middle  East, and Europe.  Mr. Keating. Could you share any timetable that you might  have?  Mr. Johnston. I would say that we would, we would have this  firmly underway within 2 months.  I would say, too, and I am sorry that time didn't permit  this earlier, but in response to our study on the global  impact, the Saudis actually put out a request to the Cultural  Attaches of every one of their Embassies around the world  encouraging them to, directing them to retrieve any old  textbooks that might be in use within their respective  geographic areas and to replace them with new.  The problem with that, of course, is the new still have  problems. But this is to just show you that they are not deaf  to the issue of this stuff going worldwide. And one of the  things we are trying to do is just to impart a sense of  ownership on all of that. And I think they are stepping up to  the plate.  Mr. Keating. Well, 9 years, they might be not be deaf but  they are slow of hearing I would say in a sense.  Mr. Johnston. It is glacial.  Mr. Keating. Certainly.  And one of the concerns, too, when we are looking at this  overall problem and the expansion of these materials, I think a  lot rests on the control that the home country has on its  education curriculum. I think Ms. Shea mentioned Burkina Faso  and Mali.  And how much are countries like that reliant on these Saudi  materials? Financially, what is the control? And this should  seem to me an opportunity for the United States to try and deal  with this directly. What opportunities could we have in those  countries if they are reliant on money and resources for  curriculum from Saudi Arabia, which we are learning today still  contains material that is not, not appropriate, to say the  least?  So, tell us about what your views are of the impact of  those home-controlled countries on the curriculum?  Ms. Shea. Yes, it is very determinant. I even spoke to an  imam from a mosque in the United States about--who had Saudi  textbooks in his library that he made available in the school.  And he has since removed it he said. But he, he said that the  reason why is that he didn't--he was working with an immigrant  community that was impoverished, and that they do not have a  school, they do not have textbooks, they do not have religious  textbooks. So they turn to the country in the world with the  deep pockets for such things. So they----  Mr. Keating. Could I interrupt to say that given the U.S.  interest here, isn't that a priority for our country perhaps?  Is there an opportunity? Or would they not be receptive to the  United States?  Ms. Shea. Well, it is going to be very tricky. The United  States cannot be funding religious things like that.  Mr. Keating. How about through NGOs or funding through NGOs  or anything like this?  Ms. Shea. Well, I think the solution, again, is to force  the--or press the Saudis to clean up their textbooks because  they are going to be online. And----  Mr. Keating. Well, if they are, if the Saudis are so  sincere about this, what are they doing currently to the  current generation and the prior generations that have been so  indoctrinated in this material? Have they done anything in a  remedial nature to deal with this whatsoever?  Mr. Johnston. Well, one of the things they did in their  deradicalization program is that they fired 3,000 imams. They  retrained 20,000 others out of a total pool of 75,000 imams. So  that is, that is taking care of it within their own borders.  Beyond that, the question that you asked where they have  paid for the mosques and all the rest of it, you find in most  countries they have significant control over what is taking  place in the schools.  Again, I would just point out there is an important caveat  here. That may not be the Government of Saudi Arabia very  easily it seems. You know, peel back the onion, it is very  difficult to follow.  Mr. Keating. If I could----  Mr. Johnston. But, but a more----  Mr. Keating [continuing]. Just because my time is about to  expire, if I could just--then you can have your chance with the  committee to address that, a little bit of an expansion here.  Congressman Wolf mentioned some of the things directly he  thought. He gave specifics about what the U.S. could do. Just  in a very short summary, if any of you have specific, specific  ideas I would like to hear them.  Mr. Weinberg. So on the topic of exportation that we were  just discussing, one thing that has always plagued this issue,  and this was a challenge for that New York Times investigation  that the chairman was discussing, I spoke with some of the  reporters who were involved in that and related efforts at the  Times, and one of the challenges when it comes to studying this  exportation issue is there is often only anecdotal data or it  is, you know, very, very vague and impressionistic.  So, one of the things that the U.S. Government can do to  really play an important role here is to use all the assets of  the U.S. Government on this, and in particular, the  intelligence community. The easiest thing, or the most  important thing that can be done in terms of informing this  debate would simply be a directive from Congress to the  intelligence community to monitor the exportation of incitement  from Saudi Arabia, including but not limited to textbooks, and  to direct them to report on this.  Additionally, Congress can call for rebooting the U.S.- Saudi strategic dialogue with a track to include issues related  to incitement. And that rebooting, in a general sense, is  something that the new crown prince of Saudi Arabia is reported  to support.  And then, additionally, Congress can publicly and privately  raise this issue, as well as urging the President to do so, and  to issue a formal directive to U.S. agencies and cabinet  members to do so as well.  Mr. Keating. Thank you, Mr. Weinberg. In respect to my  other committee members, if you can do that in writing----  Mr. Johnston. Do you want any more ideas?  Mr. Keating [continuing]. I think that would be helpful.  We might, but I have to be respectful of the other  committee members, unless we have a second round. But anything  like that I think the committee would appreciate in writing.  And, also, you know the committee is aware perhaps that  there is classified material along the lines that Dr. Weinberg  suggested that they may want to review, something that I think  the committee might be interested in doing.  And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.  Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman.  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr.  Perry.  Mr. Perry. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to the panel here.  Mr. Weinberg, you mentioned a report in your testimony, or  maybe in questions, I can't remember, but what is the report  going to do? What is it going to do to Saudi Arabia and what is  it--said report, so to speak, what would it do to the United  States?  Mr. Weinberg. So, one of the challenges of this issue to  date is something that Ms. Shea addresses in her written  testimony, which is the tendency of the State Department,  because its priority is maintaining constructive relations with  Saudi Arabia and advancing a range of other issues in the  bilateral relationship such that they usually don't want to  rock the boat, that a long-term strategic priority for the  United States like textbooks doesn't get raised in the  immediate term when it needs to get raised, and it gets kicked  down the road indefinitely.  So as a result, State Department language on this issue  every year in their International Religious Freedom Report, in  their Human Rights Report, as well as in their country reports  on terrorism such as the one that came out today, basically  have a throw-away line or two about some incitement still  remaining, without providing any specific examples typically,  or at least without providing direct quotations. And so, and  well----  Mr. Perry. Is this not like widely known? Like, doesn't the  whole world, like, we all know this; right? Everybody knows,  everybody in the room knows this. With all due respect, I just,  look, the report might be nice but I don't, I don't see it  moving the ball quite honestly.  Mr. Weinberg. Yes.  Mr. Perry. I mean, maybe in the panoply of everything you  are going to do that, you have to add that.  Mr. Weinberg. If I could play devil's advocate for a  moment. So, part of the challenge with this issue has been the  absence of current data when people actually have their  conversations with Saudi officials.  So, for example, the important study that Mr. Johnston's  institute did, its results were not raised with Saudi officials  by them or by the U.S. Government to the best of our  knowledge----  Mr. Perry. But that is the, that is----  Mr. Weinberg [continuing]. Until the books were already  obsolete.  Mr. Perry. That is an issue of will, not of information. I  mean, I have got textbook experts right in front--excerpts  right in front of me here, so.  Mr. Weinberg. But the reason those excerpts were done,  until May most of those excerpts were not actually in the  public sphere because nobody had gotten access to the books and  sat down and read them and transcribed them.  Mr. Perry. You are telling me that we legitimately----  Mr. Weinberg. So for several years we didn't know.  Mr. Perry. And I am not trying to be bellicose or  difficult----  Mr. Weinberg. Yeah.  Mr. Perry [continuing]. But you are telling me we had no  physical evidence like this----  Mr. Weinberg. Right.  Mr. Perry [continuing]. Until May 2017?  Mr. Weinberg. For this academic year, yes.  Mr. Perry. Oh, for this academic year. But we have for  every other academic year back to 1970, 1980 or something.  Mr. Weinberg. But just, just like that tweet from the Saudi  Embassy that we were discussing, the Saudi Government every  year claims that this has, this has been seriously worked over  and so the stuff that people are concerned about is old news.  And so it is important for the United States Government----  Mr. Perry. Well, of course there is propaganda. I mean, you  can listen to Russia T.V. and Al Jazeera as well if you want to  believe all that stuff. But I mean, I hope that Americans are a  little brighter than that.  Let me ask anybody this: Regarding incitement, because I  just don't feel like we ever go far enough, and I am not sure  even the suggestions I have heard go far enough to suit me-- that is just me--but does anybody know whether incitement, you  know, when you talk about the penalty for the adulterer who has  previously consummated a marriage is stoning to death, that is  in the book; or apostasy, you know, the penalty for apostasy is  killing, that is, you know, that is in the textbook; you know,  I don't know if this is incitement in the classic example or  case. And I don't know if it meets the Brandenburg test.  Does anybody know if it does? Have we ever tried to? I  mean, nobody wants to get into the suppression of free speech,  but at some point free speech crosses over the line into  incitement. Now, I guess the test is intended, likely, and  imminent, and which the courts at some point decided what  imminent was. Does anybody know whether that has ever been  challenged? Have we ever taken a shot at it? Does the  government have an interest?  Okay. Yes, ma'am.  Ms. Shea. Well, I think, I think we have done that in the  case of Americans who have posted such death threats against,  like for example, the South Park cartoonist who did an  irreverent cartoon of----  Mr. Perry. But I am talking about the textbooks. Is this,  is this,----  Ms. Shea. But no, I mean I don't see how that----  Mr. Perry [continuing]. Is this considered incitement?  Ms. Shea. I don't see how that could be, I don't see how  there is--there is diplomatic immunity--I don't see how the  Saudi textbook.  Mr. Perry. The textbook has diplomatic immunity?  Ms. Shea. Well, they are published by the Government of  Saudi Arabia who would be held responsible. The Ministry of  Education of Saudi Arabia is the, the printer. And the  Government of Saudi Arabia is the sponsor.  Mr. Perry. So if the Government of Saudi Arabia publishes  information that says that every, every citizen that has an  affiliation with Saudi Arabia living in the United States  should kill the next American they see, there is nothing we can  do about that? Like we can't, we can't have that removed from  the shelf because it is the Government of Saudi Arabia?  Ms. Shea. Well, that is the--I mean, we have pressed people  who actually carried out the crime. But it, you know----  Mr. Perry. But incitement, there have been prosecutions for  incitement in advance of the crime based on incitement; right?  The question is has, to anybody's knowledge has anybody in the  United States on behalf of the United States pursued that  avenue regarding the textbooks and the passages therein as  incitement?  Ms. Shea. Some of the 9/11 victims' families may have been  suing Saudi Arabia for reparations. But, but I don't know what  the theory of their case was, whether it was the incitement.  Mr. Perry. It seems like maybe either the answer is no or  unknown. So maybe that is a place we can go into further.  Mr. Chairman, I yield back.  Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania.  The Chair will have one more round of 2 minutes per member.  I will yield my time initially to the ranking member Mr.  Keating from Massachusetts for his questions.  Mr. Keating. Mr. Weinberg, you said one of the things that  we can all do is speak up more and be consistent in doing it at  every level. Taking into consideration what Congressman Wolf  said, you know, there are generations of leaders before this,  both sides of the aisle, that haven't been aggressive enough,  as he testified.  However, President Trump was just in Saudi Arabia.  President Trump was talking about extremism and the need to  band together to do it. Yet there is no report that he brought  this issue up in the course of that.  What is the danger in not bringing this up, particularly at  that level, particularly under that thing?  Mr. Weinberg. Yes. So this is, this is, this is the  challenge is that the President almost never raises the issue.  This was the case with President George W. Bush, this was the  case with President Obama. This was the--appears to be the case  with President Trump. Which is part of why the strategic  dialogue was inaugurated between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia  under the Bush administration so that senior officials could  still raise priority concerns when it didn't rise to a level of  the Commander-in-Chief as their number one, or two, or three  priority but still needed to be addressed because of U.S.  interests.  But that having been said, that is not an excuse for the  President not to address it. It is not an excuse for the  President not to direct cabinet members to do so as well.  President Trump, when he participated in the inauguration  of a global center for combating extremist ideology in Saudi,  while he was in Saudi Arabia--which by the way was in the works  for 2 years and then they repackaged it to be a deliverable  during this summit--he predicted it would make history.  Reflecting on his visit to the Kingdom several weeks later,  he urged all nations to stop teaching people to kill other  people, stop filling their minds with hate and intolerance. And  he said he would not name other countries besides Qatar.  Now, I actually have an article draft forthcoming which  explains why Qatar's record on counterterrorism issues is  actually worse than all of its other neighbors in the Gulf  monarchies. But that having been said, the books need to be  addressed directly, with knowledge, on a regular basis with  current information about the current school year, or else it  is not going to have any impact with the Saudi Government.  Otherwise, the Saudi Government is going to keep doing what it  is doing, which is reprinting these books year after year with  incitement, and indoctrinating, you know, at least several more  years of students with this problematic information.  Mr. Johnston. May I correct the record on something? This  report was in fact--I briefed the Saudis in Riyadh on this  report. It was sent over through diplomatic channels as well.  And out of that came one ray of hope.  We worked for several years on one of the recommendations  which was to bring Saudi educators together with American  educators to deal with the problem of bias and intolerance in  national education systems. Out of this came a series of  recommendations to their government, and our own, but to their  government which I delivered to their Minister of Education.  One of the things I feel is so important, and it hasn't  been mentioned here, but far more important than these  textbooks, far more important is the teacher training. And we  have opportunities now to be able to go over there and in the  context of this national plan for educational reform, which was  crafted mostly by McKinsey & Company, it is a dynamite plan,  and if they fully implement it it will actually leapfrog some  of our own habits. But I think there the door is open that we  could go and help them implement this and particularly get at  the teacher training, which is, as I say, far more important.  Mr. Keating. I yield back.  Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman.  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr.  Perry.  Mr. Perry. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.  Mr. Johnston, Dr. Johnston, I understand one of the  problems for the United States is how the actions, the  statements versus actions coming from Saudi Arabia are  determined. And I indeed asked the Secretary about the metrics  to determine efficacy of the Saudi's actions and how we are  measuring their progress.  I will tell you now--well, the man's been on the job for 4  or 5 months, right, so we have to give him some leeway--but I  didn't get a lot of confidence that anything meaningful was  there. And I actually wonder, some of the officials who may be  determining whether what the efficacy is, literally that might  be, I hate to say it, but so to speak working for the other  side.  So, in your work with the, the ICRD how would you  characterize the metrics we use and who is determining? Is it,  it is appropriate or is that problematic that--that needs to be  addressed? And where is that addressed?  Mr. Johnston. No, I, I think one of the metrics is the  baseline that we established here back in 2011. To be sure, we  haven't looked at those books in 5 years. But the U.S.  Commission on International Religious Freedom did several years  ago. We provided them the baseline.  They determined that further reform was taking place. And  in this year's annual report they even talk about a visit there  in February of this year where they determined that more reform  was taking place. So this is a metric.  We are going to be looking very hard at it starting in  another month on the high school grades. That is where most of  the onerous content exists.  And one of the other things in terms about why this is so  slow is they took a full year to field test their revisions to  the 10th grade, which was, as far as we were concerned, was the  one grade where it was the worst. And they did those revisions.  I don't know what has come of that. We will find out. But they  did take a full year to test it.  And the other thing we have to remember is that a lot of  this is getting in on religious grounds. And some of that is  pretty----  Mr. Perry. But I think they use that. And good for them, I  suppose.  Mr. Johnston. Sometimes yes. Yes.  Mr. Perry. But it is an Achilles heel for the United  States. And we can't allow that to be used against us,  especially for what many consider to be seditious activity.  And I also would question what progress means or what, you  know, reforms are taking place at what level. I mean, reform,  you know, they might change one word in that sentence and of  course they reformed the sentence, I guess in this classic,  very strict constructionist sense. But from the greater sense  and the spirit of it, it is not getting the job done and it is  not getting done quickly enough for us.  And what they do in their country, quite honestly and quite  frankly from my opinion, that is their business, but what they  do in our country is our business.  Mr. Johnston. Yes. No, your points are very valid.  One thing I would say is in addition to eliminating  negative content, one of the things we have found, and we just  took a quick glance, there is the addition of very positive  content that sort of works in the other direction.  I don't know to what extent they are constrained by this  needing to keep their religious establishment on board, because  that is where they get their, their authority from is from the  religious establishment. That is part of the package. So it is  a difficult walk that they are making. The people that I have  worked with I am 1,000 percent convinced are very sincere. And,  in fact, one of them----  Mr. Perry. With the chairman's indulgence, I agree, in  their country it is inexorably linked since they came to power,  the House of Saud. And I get all that and why the need to keep,  to do all the things they need to do. I don't agree with it but  I understand it.  However, in this country none of it is appropriate, none of  it is appropriate and we should take action.  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman.  Congressman Wolf, I have a question for you first and then  I will let you make a comment because I know you want to keep,  you want to talk about the last question.  ISIS used Saudi Arabian textbooks up until 2015. That was 2  years ago. And now they use their own textbooks. Would you like  to comment on where ISIS gets--got their textbooks to begin  with?  Mr. Wolf. Well, you are right. In the New York Times piece  they say, ``In a huge embarrassment to the Saudi authorities,  the Islamic State adopted official Saudi textbooks for its  schools until the extremist group could publish its own  textbooks in 2015.''  Secondly, when I was in 2 years ago we went up into the  Nineveh Plains. We went into meetings with all the different  people. At every meeting I said, Tell me, who is helping the  Saudis--rather, who is helping ISIS? And every meeting, every  meeting two came up, some three, but two came up: The Saudis,  not always the Saudi Government but Saudi individuals, and he  sort of alluded to the renegade guy; secondly, Qatar. They were  aiding and abetting ISIS. And there was another country,  Turkey, who was for the longest period of time was allowing  people, they go to Istanbul, they call a telephone number, they  go south and they join.  They may have changed. But don't forget, 15 of the 19  hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden was from Saudi  Arabia. The number of people from my area who were killed in  the attack on the Pentagon, the guys who did it, Saudi Arabia.  And so I think what this committee has done today with the  hearing, the textbooks are important, but all these issues, and  you push and you push and you push. And I urge you to meet with  the new ambassador, and I urge you to sit down with him or her,  whoever it is, and pressure them, and the new religious freedom  ambassador. I think you may have started something here.  And the real danger is you even recall last year--I read  the 28 pages--you remember last year the issue came up, the  Saudis hired law firms and PR firms in this town to do  everything. Fortunately the Congress, to its good credit,  passed it and was not influenced. But you know what is going  on, so by this hearing you can cover all the textbooks are  important but terrorism is important. All these things are  very, very important. And, hopefully, this can be the genesis  if you guys, men and women, continue to really make a  difference and stop what Saudi Arabia has been doing for a long  period of time.  Mr. Poe. Thank you. And the ranking member and I will  request a meeting with the Ambassador and we will go from  there. Maybe have a hearing in the future on Qatar, have all of  you back.  And I want to have one last question for all four of you.  Since we are talking about textbooks and schools, how would you  rank the--at this time--the goal of changing the textbooks so  that they don't preach hate, intolerance, and violence? And it  is real simple, it is not pass or fail, it is A, B, C, D, or F.  You understand the question, Ms. Shea? How would you rank  what Saudi Arabia is doing right now?  Ms. Shea. F.  Mr. Poe. All right. Dr. Weinberg?  Mr. Weinberg. F with credit for effort.  Mr. Poe. F with credit for effort. Okay.  Congressman Wolf?  Mr. Wolf. F plus instead of F.  Mr. Poe. Dr. Johnston?  Mr. Johnston. I would give it a D.  And one of the things I would point out is that as long as  we are, you know, buying 150 billion--selling $150 billion  worth of arms to the Saudis, they are not going to pay a whole  lot of attention to western criticism. When you couple that  reality with the line they are walking with the religious  establishment, I think that they are making as much progress as  one could hope for at this point in time.  They need to do a lot better, but there is, there is  sincere desire to do better on their part, the government's  part. I don't know about the religious.  Mr. Poe. And without belaboring the point, if we take Ms.  Shea's recommendation, we tie defense contracts to Saudi Arabia  with the repairing of their textbooks, that may get somebody's  attention. I don't know. We will see.  Anyway, I want to thank all of you for being here. I want  to thank all of the people in the audience for being here as  well.  And this subcommittee is adjourned.  [Whereupon, at 3:56 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]        A P P E N D I X   ----------  [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]   [all] 

On 10 February, Israel announced that an Iranian drone had been shot down in western Syria. Later, an Israeli F-16 crashed after being hit by Syrian anti-aircraft fire over the north of Israel. Both Iran and Israel claimed provocation by the other. Whatever the truth of the matter (the drone allegation was not fully convincing), it is clear that after nearly seven years of war in Syria, Shia Iran’s presence in that blighted country is stronger than ever. In fact, what we mean when we speak of Iran in Syria is the presence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the influence of which has grown over the last ten years. Where did the Revolutionary Guards come from? How powerful are they, and does their greater influence signify an expansionist Iran and even more trouble in the Middle East?When Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran from exile on 1 February 1979, he was greeted by an enormous crowd (estimates of its size have run up to three million, but no one really knows). For ten days or so after Khomeini’s return, the country had two prime ministers: Mehdi Bazargan, a liberal non-cleric appointed by Khomeini; and Shapur Bakhtiar, appointed by the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, in the last days before he left Iran in mid-January.The situation in Tehran and across large parts of the country was chaotic. The police were scarcely to be seen, and some of their responsibilities, such as traffic control, were taken on by armed revolutionaries – students and others who had taken weapons from ransacked police stations and military bases. Some of those armed paramilitaries were associated with revolutionary committees called Komiteh, rather like the Soviets in Russia in 1917-21.The Komiteh were mostly based in mosques, from which they distributed food and fuel oil for heating and cooking (normal retail distribution had largely broken down). Other armed groups were connected with political movements – leftists, and the Mojahedin-e Khalq organisation (MKO), a Marxist-Islamic outfit that had carried out terrorist attacks against the Shah’s regime (and some US nationals) over the previous decade. These movements had been persecuted almost to annihilation by the Shah’s secret police, but had expanded again as the revolution gathered pace.The final showdown came between 10-12 February 1979. Some air force technicians who had previously declared for Khomeini were confronted by members of the old Imperial Guard at the Doshan Tappeh base in the east of Tehran. Exchanges of slogans and abuse were followed by exchanges of gunfire. Crowds and armed paramilitaries converged on the area and some joined in the fighting (including MKO members).The military, still loyal to Bakhtiar, sent armoured columns through the city to restore order and relieve the pro-Shah troops, but crowds surrounded the tanks and stopped them getting through. Finally, on the morning of 12 February, the military commanders met, acknowledged the hopelessness of the situation, announced on the radio their (so-called) neutrality and ordered all troops to return to their barracks. Bakhtiar gave up in disgust and went into hiding, leaving the country a few weeks later.Khomeini’s supremacy was complete. But there was still a dangerous vacuum of authority in the country, which persisted for several months in 1979. It was this chaotic situation that led to the formation of the Revolutionary Guards – or to give them their full title, the Guards Corps of the Islamic Revolution (Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enqelab-e Eslami). They are usually referred to as the Sepah by Iranians. Khomeini’s overwhelming popularity as leader of the revolution was undisputed, but a variety of groups were hoping to take advantage of his supposed naivety, advanced age and political ignorance to win control for themselves – by violence if necessary.In April 1979, one of Khomeini’s closest followers, Morteza Motahhari, was assassinated by an obscure extremist group, the Forqan. In previous periods of political crisis in the 20th century and earlier, many Iranians had turned to the clergy for leadership. But the clergy, as a class, had often been uncertain about what to do with the leadership they had been given. Traditionally, most of them disdained and avoided politics. At different stages, the more politically-minded clerics allied themselves with secular liberals or with reaction and the monarchy.In the first Iranian revolution of the 20th century, 1906-11, one leading cleric, Fazlollah Nuri, was executed by resurgent revolutionaries after he sided with the monarchy in a coup. In 1953, the defection from the coalition behind prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq of another cleric, Ayatollah Kashani, weakened Mosaddeq and prepared the way for a British- and US-planned coup. The first coup attempt failed but led eventually, after a confused period, to Mosaddeq’s fall from power and the restoration, until 1979, of the rule of the Shah in more autocratic form.Familiar with this history, Khomeini was determined that, having achieved success in the 1979 revolution, the clergy would not again be pushed aside or exploited by more secularised, leftist or pro-Western elements in the country. He understood the essentials of power in Iran and was determined ruthlessly to stay in control. It was important for him to demonstrate full popular support for the revolution (a referendum held at the end of March 1979 showed 98.2 per cent in favour of an Islamic republic), and to institute a new, Islamic constitution.But it was necessary also to establish an armed force that was unquestioningly loyal to Khomeini and to the principle of an Islamic republic. Hence the establishment of the Sepah in May 1979. There were other pro-Khomeini paramilitary groups that sometimes carried firearms, notably Hezbollah (the so-called party of God) and the Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution, but almost from the start, the Sepah was pre-eminent and more disciplined.The revolution had side-effects well beyond the jockeying for power that went on in Tehran throughout the rest of 1979. Komiteh formed throughout the country as the central authority of the Shah collapsed – including in areas inhabited by ethnic minorities. In several cases, some among these minority groups saw the revolution and its rhetoric of liberation for the downtrodden as an invitation to fairer treatment, and the greater autonomy that they had failed to achieve under the Shah.The Arabs of Khuzestan and the Kurds of the north-western provinces were two such ethnic groups, as were Baluchis in the south-east and Turkmen in the north-east. The Kurds and Arabs were wooed for a time by politicians from Tehran, but when discussions broke down there were renewed demonstrations, which were suppressed with force. In Khuzestan the disturbances died down fairly quickly, but in Iranian Kurdestan there was an armed insurrection by militant Kurds.The conflict with the Kurds was carried out by the Sepah and some army units. It was often brutal, with many deaths. Villages were destroyed and many activists and others were arrested and thrown in prison. But the fight was also exploited by Khomeini to maintain an atmosphere of tension, danger and threat in Tehran, to help with his task of consolidating his hold and that of his supporters on the Islamic Republic.Fighting the Kurdish revolt was an important factor in debates over the new constitution in the summer and early autumn of 1979. The conflict continued into 1980 and beyond, but Khomeini succeeded in securing a new, strongly Islamic constitution at the turn of the year – assisted by the US embassy hostage crisis, which he used to divide leftist and liberal opposition. The war in Kurdestan established the Sepah as the prime defenders of the Islamic Republic, given continuing doubts about the loyalty of the regular armed forces (in July 1980 some air force and army officers attempted a coup, centred on the Nozheh air base in western Iran; Sepah troops broke it up.Part of the constitution that came into force in the winter of 1979-80 included a commitment to defend the rights of all Muslims (including those beyond Iran’s borders) and to support the oppressed “in every corner of the globe” – but with the ambiguous and perhaps contradictory caveat that this was “while scrupulously refraining from all forms of interference in the internal affairs of other nations”.Sometimes referred to as the justification for Iran to export revolution, these clauses became the basis for the unit of the Sepah known as the Qods (Jerusalem) Force. The name alone points to Israel, and although the exact origins of the Qods Force are uncertain (some say it came into existence with that name only after the Iran-Iraq War ended in 1988, taking over from a previous Sepah entity), it seems to have originated around the time of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, when Sepah personnel went to Lebanon to help their fellow Shias.Since then, the Qods Force has become notorious as the main instrument for Iran’s projection of military power in other countries, and for involvement in terrorism. Large numbers of Sepah troops flew to Lebanon early on, but within a short time, their ranks were slimmed down to something over a thousand. The group’s main activity was training Shia recruits in the Bekaa Valley, who came to form Lebanese Hezbollah. The Qods Force/Lebanese Hezbollah relationship in turn became the prime focus for Iran’s commitment to oppose the state of Israel. Iran has a similar position of support for the Palestinian group Hamas, but that relationship is less strong.No one outside Iran has a clear idea of how many personnel belong to the Qods Force. Some wilder estimates have gone as high as 30,000 or even more; others, more sensibly, as low as 2,000.The point is that the Qods Force does not act like a normal military unit. It liaises with military or paramilitary forces in other countries to stiffen their resolve and enhance their expertise, rather than fighting on the front line itself (one might compare this with “military advisers” that the US has deployed in various countries – notably, Vietnam before 1965). It does not need large numbers. Such activity can be deniable, avoiding the necessity for the regime to face that original constitutional ambiguity.It has become a standard for the Trump administration to denounce Iran as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. This is misleading at best, because it suggests that Iran is involved in a lot of terrorism – but it is not, at least not any more. Most Islamic terrorism in the last 20 years, overwhelmingly, has been carried out by Sunni extremists, not Shias or Iranians. During the early 1980s, in the midst of the Lebanese civil war, a group called Islamic Jihad (which seems to have been closely associated with Lebanese Hezbollah, if not part of it) carried out several attacks on US interests, with Iranian backing. These included attacks in 1983 on the US embassy in Beirut and US barracks, killing 63 and nearly 300 respectively. Islamic Jihad also took hostages from Western countries in Lebanon in the mid-1980s.After the Iran-Iraq War, there were several assassinations that also might be regarded as score-settling by Iran: the Iranian-Kurdish leader Abdol Rahman Qasemlu was killed in Vienna in 1989, former prime minister Shapur Bakhtiar was murdered in Paris in 1991, and three more Iranian-Kurdish politicians were killed with their translator in Berlin in 1992.There were also two bombings in Buenos Aires, in 1992 and 1994, aimed at the Israeli embassy and a Jewish community centre respectively, that together killed more than 100. Lebanese Hezbollah claimed the first as being carried out in revenge for the killing of one of its members by the Israelis – but it appeared that there was Iranian involvement in both.There is good reason to believe there was a central decision to end this kind of terrorist activity at some point during the Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani presidency of Iran (1989-1997). Since then, senior Shia clerics have denounced suicide bombing in principle. In 2012, there were incidents aimed at Israeli diplomats involving Iranians in Delhi, Tbilisi and Bangkok; the attacks seem to have been intended as retaliation for the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, which were attributed to the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.Four people were injured in the Delhi incident, but the other attacks failed. It is unclear whether the Sepah was involved or not. The US has accused Iran of involvement in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, but at various times the Saudis blamed al-Qaeda for that attack, and the evidence implicating Iran was based on interrogation by Saudi torturers.At one time, it was thought that Iran instigated the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, and some doubt remains. But Muammar Gaddafi of Libya accepted responsibility in 2003, and a Libyan was later tried and convicted as the perpetrator. Nonetheless, Iran has continued to deny the right of Israel to exist as a state, and still supports Lebanese Hezbollah’s use of all methods, including violence, against Israel.The Iran-Iraq War, which began in September 1980 when Saddam Hussein’s forces invaded western Iran, was the most important formative experience in the early years of the Sepah (for a time, in 1981, it was fighting not just the Iraqis but an insurrection by the MKO in Tehran). Thousands of volunteers came forward, and initially many went to the front with little training. The Sepah expanded hugely, to at least its present-day size of more than 100,000 men, but even estimated numbers are hard to determine. Volunteers outside the usual military age parameters went into the Basij militia, which has perhaps the same number again or a little less. The Basij, which became notorious internationally for accepting boys in their early teens or even younger, was subordinated to Sepah command in 1981.The regime always emphasised the role of the Sepah in the fighting and gave it credit for victories in wartime propaganda, sometimes at the expense of regular army, air force and gendarmerie units. But the Sepah was undoubtedly of central importance in the Iranian war effort, which was ultimately successful despite horrendous losses.The Karbala-4 offensive began on 24 December 1986 with an attack by specialist Sepah frogmen, who crossed the Shatt al-Arab in the darkness. But it seems the Iraqis were warned of the Iranian troop build-up by US satellite intelligence. The attackers were illuminated by searchlights and raked with machine gun fire, but managed nonetheless to overwhelm the defences on the far side of the Shatt before getting pinned down among the remains of date palm groves, minefields and barbed wire.At dawn they were shot at by everything the Iraqis could bring to bear – machine guns, mortars, artillery and helicopter gunships. Reinforcements sent to help them suffered the same fate. The attacking troops gained no further ground and those who were not killed or captured escaped back over the Shatt al-Arab by nightfall on 25 December. The Iranians had lost an estimated 10,000 men, for no gain. Estimates of the total casualties suffered by Iran in the war range up to one million, but that would include many whose injuries later permitted something like a full recovery. In a statement in 2001, Rahim Safavi, then the commander of the Sepah, said that 213,000 had been killed and 320,000 left permanently disabled. The latter figure included tens of thousands still suffering the effects of chemical weapons used by Hussein.The war allowed the Sepah to expand and develop from a militia into a full-blown military force, armed with the full panoply of heavy weapons and with its own air and naval components. But the conflict was important for the Sepah in other ways, too. Throughout the war, and since, it has retained its character as a citizen force in line with its revolutionary militia origins. Although the Sepah has a long-service senior officer cadre, it has never become a force of predominantly professional career soldiers. This has deepened its influence in Iranian society, as large numbers of citizens have rotated through the Basij and the Sepah for their obligatory military service. This, in turn, contributes to the role of the Sepah in what one might call the national myth of the Islamic Republic. Some Iranians are committed ideological supporters of the regime. But a larger number have a split or ambiguous attitude. They might resent the economic failures, the rule of the clerics, the lack of full democracy or political freedoms, or all of these things, but still approve the independent position that the Islamic Republic has achieved for Iran.Even many of the millions of Iranians who have gone into exile share that view. National independence is one of the few things that a large majority of Iranians would agree upon as a valuable achievement of the Islamic regime (universal education is perhaps another).To appreciate the importance of that, it is necessary to have a sense of the humiliation felt in the decades and centuries before 1979, when Iran was manipulated by foreign powers, often with the connivance of some Iranians. The revolution enabled Iran to break free at last, and whatever the errors and the sufferings of the Iran-Iraq War, successful resistance and defence set the seal on that independence.The Sepah has a central place in this story, and so the attitude towards it is often split, too. The Sepah and the Basij are resented as corrupt bullies, brutally crushing dissent and enjoying privilege in return. But they are also respected by many for their past and present role as the cornerstone of the country’s self-defence and self-determination.Since the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988, the position and influence of the Sepah in the life of Iran has grown and grown. It has taken a greater role in intelligence, with its own organisation for gathering information.In the summer of 2006, the assistance it gave to Lebanese Hezbollah against a second Israeli invasion of Lebanon was widely considered a success; the Israelis found resistance unexpectedly robust, augmented by electronic warfare capability. Yet, more obviously, the Sepah has taken an ever-greater role in the economy of Iran. Some estimate that it controls 15 per cent of the economy; others put it higher.The Sepah has major interests in construction and civil engineering (notably through the Khatam al-Anbia organisation), in the oil industry and in telecommunications. The extent of its economic involvement is hard to assess because the full ramifications are unclear. In particular, the Sepah has close relations with several Bonyads – tax-exempt charitable foundations – the most important of which is the Bonyad-e Mostazafan va Janbazan (Foundation for the Oppressed and War Veterans). This is involved in a wide range of sectors, from shipping to chemicals, retail and tourism.Despite Khomeini’s view that the Sepah should not interfere in politics, it has become inexorably more involved. In 1999, several Sepah chiefs warned President Mohammad Khatami that if he did not act to stop student demonstrations in Tehran, the force would be obliged to intervene. In 2009, more serious demonstrations erupted in the capital and in regional centres after a disputed election that the regime declared to have been won by the sitting president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (himself ex-Sepah, and strongly pro-Sepah in his policies).The Sepah masterminded the suppression of the demonstrations, which continued on and off into the following year, using young Basij volunteers on the streets for the most part, along with riot police. (In the protests that broke out all over Iran most recently, at the end of December 2017, the suppression by the regime and the Sepah followed a similar pattern.)Before the June 2009 election, demonstrations had generally refrained from attacking Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader. Yet Khamenei himself departed from previous practice by giving forthright support for Ahmadinejad – both before the election and after the declared result. Shortly before his death at the end of 2009, the dissident cleric Hossein-Ali Montazeri said that the Islamic Republic had become a military republic.When criticised internationally for their support for Shia militias in Iraq and Syria, and their complicity in the actions of those militias, including atrocities, Iranian politicians cite the example of the Sepah and the Basij. They say that the Iraqi and other militias formed out of necessity, in self-defence, because Shias were being attacked; just as Iranians had flocked to join the Sepah and the Basij after Saddam Hussein’s invasion in 1980.When Mosul fell to Islamic State (IS) in June 2014, Iran had been heavily involved in both Iraq and Syria for a long time. Qasem Soleimani, the legendary commander of the Qods Force, was the leading figure in that involvement. Before the fall of Hussein in 2003, Iran had supported Shia opposition group the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which was founded in exile in Iran in 1982. After 2003, Iran supported SCIRI, its associated militia the Badr Brigade, and Nouri al-Maliki, who emerged from SCIRI to become Iraqi prime minister in 2006. Iran has supported other militias in Iraq, too, through the Qods Force, but Badr has always been its preferred partner. The US and most other Western countries also supported Maliki, who had been democratically elected. But his government proved aggressively sectarian in office. It permitted attacks and massacres against Sunnis by Shia militias, and was widely seen to have facilitated the rise of IS by alienating Iraqi Sunnis.Meanwhile, Soleimani had been engaged in Syria against the opponents of the regime of Bashar al-Assad since the Arab Spring revolt in 2011. The alliance between the Iranian regime and the Assads was established during the Iran-Iraq War and had endured since. Syria had been Iran’s only reliable foreign ally; they both supported Hezbollah in Lebanon, and also shared a principle of resistance to Israel and the US.It is not necessary to recount here the crimes of the Assad regime, nor the suffering of the Syrians. The estimates, that approximately half a million have died since 2011, four times that number injured, 11 million or more displaced and perhaps four million forced out of the country as refugees, tell their own story. The Assads (and by extension, the Iranians and others who have backed them) are culpable for much of this suffering.After IS broke out of its territory in Syria to take Mosul in Iraq, Soleimani was accused of having neglected the growth of the terror group in favour of defending the core territory of the Assads in Damascus and the west of Syria (with the help of Lebanese Hezbollah). The fall of Mosul was at least as much of an unpleasant shock to Iranians as it was to Europeans and Americans – Mosul is, after all, a good deal closer to Iran’s border.IS made rapid gains; the Iraqi army fell apart, and before long the Assad regime appeared to be on the brink of collapse. That danger precipitated the greatly intensified intervention of the Russians in the autumn of 2015, through air power especially, to stabilise the Assad regime. The Iranians moved more forces into Iraq – in addition to the Qods Force members that were already there – including Sepah commando-type units and drones, and made their own air strikes. The wars in Iraq and Syria were complex but became, in effect, a single struggle. From then on, the combination of Russian air attacks and Iranian-backed militia on the ground, co-ordinated with Kurdish forces and reformed Iraqi military units (as well as US and other Western help) drove IS slowly back. In the process, Soleimani’s star rose again; he appeared everywhere, liaising with Iraqi Shias and Kurds (though some Kurds were hostile to the Iranians). IS resistance collapsed in Mosul in July 2017 and in the Syrian city of Raqqa in October, with all IS territory reoccupied by the end of the year. These were major victories for Iran and the Sepah, notwithstanding that they were achieved with help from others.The Russians and Iranians are still helping the Assad regime against its other enemies in Syria; the killing continues. And, as the clash over the drone and F-16 fighter jet on 10 February showed, Iran’s confrontation with Israel has become closer and more dangerous.So, what next? Iran has been accused of hegemonic ambitions. Others have countered that Iran’s actions are wholly explicable in terms of self-defence, national interest and the preservation of the Islamic Republic (the last being, of course, the core purpose and legitimising role of the Sepah). Iran’s actions in Iraq and Syria (and Afghanistan) have been aimed at preventing the rise of new powers that could threaten the Islamic Republic’s security, the defence of important strategic allies, and (to some extent, especially in Iraq) the protection of fellow Shias and important shrines.Iran’s involvement in Bahrain and Yemen, by comparison, is of much lesser importance to the regime. The Iranians feel obliged to support the Shia in Bahrain, with rhetoric at least. Their religious connection with the Zaidi Houthis is much less strong, but they have sent weapons in response to Houthi requests (to call the Houthis Iranian proxies in Yemen would be an exaggeration), and to retaliate for Saudi interventions in what the Iranians regard as their sphere of influence. It is part of the ugly game of rivalry the Iranians and Saudis have been playing in the region.There are many good reasons, I think, why Iran will not seek expansion and hegemony in the Middle East. One is that most Iranians know any such attempt would go down so badly with the majority of Arabs, including Shia Arabs, that it would be unfeasible.Another is that Iran, with relatively low military spending ranging between 2 and 3 per cent of GDP for most of the last decade, is structurally not well-placed for militaristic expansion. Saudi Arabia, UAE and Israel, to name just three, have consistently spent much more.A further reason is the protests in Iran that began at the end of last year. They were eventually crushed, and were not supported by all Iranians, but there are signs that the regime took them seriously, possibly even to the point of pursuing economic reforms that would curtail the Sepah’s commercial activities.There were many reports that resentment of Iran’s military activities and spending in other countries featured in the protests (for example, payments by the Qods Force to the families of Shia militia killed or injured). As the central, driving idea for both Khamenei and the Sepah is the preservation of the Islamic Republic, they will not pursue adventures in other countries if these would increase the risk of losing power at home.There is also the enduring importance of the Iran-Iraq War in the Iranian psyche and in the regime’s decision-making. One specific juncture may be particularly relevant; the decision in 1982 to refuse a ceasefire, and continue the war into Iraq after the Iranians had retaken most of the territory they lost to Saddam Hussein following the invasion of 1980. Today that decision is widely seen in Iran, both within the regime and outside, as probably the most damaging mistake made by the leaders of the Islamic Republic in its history. It brought not only six more years of war, but hundreds of thousands more casualties.Some of the surviving politicians who were involved at the time have attempted subsequently to deny their involvement, or claimed that they argued against continuing the war into Iraq. The only ones who have been unable to avoid responsibility, because their advocacy was too well-known, were the Sepah commanders. There is evidence that Khomeini blamed them for the decision at the end of the war.There could be no stronger lesson for Iran’s leaders today, nor for the Sepah, about the dangers of foreign adventures and strategic overreach.Another question prompted by the growth and success of the Sepah is whether it might take a final step and assume full control of Iran, establishing a military government. This question becomes sharper as Khamenei gets older (he is 78, and Western intelligence services and the media have long speculated about his ill health).The point, as we have seen (and as Afshon Ostovar argues in his excellent book, Vanguard of the Imam), is that the Sepah is heavily dependent on the supreme leader, just as he is on the Sepah. Its position in the system is not built on a history of intervention in politics (unlike the military in Egypt and, at least in the recent past, in Turkey). If anything, it is built on the opposite; a principle of non-intervention, or at any rate intervention only at the request of the supreme leader.The Sepah’s power is bound up with, and conditional upon, the ideology and institutions of the Islamic Republic. To subvert them would be to subvert its own position. The Sepah will have an important voice in the selection of the next supreme leader. But it will not determine the decision alone, and Mohammad Ali Jafari (current overall commander of the Sepah) will not become supreme leader because he is not a cleric.The Sepah is the military cutting edge of a regime that is relentless in its determination to stay in power – a state headed by Ali Khamenei, whose guiding principle is to maintain, at almost any cost, what he inherited from the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini. The regime and the Sepah are not seeking dominance of the Middle East, but they are prepared to use ruthless methods to defend and preserve the Islamic Republic – whether that means acting within or beyond the borders of Iran.