(Note: this is an excerpt from Grassfire's publication Target: Israel.)

Target: Israel charts the rapidly developing world events that have worked together to place one of America’s strongest allies at the epicenter of an extremely volatile Middle East, which has been created by the intentional policies of President Obama. To understand the intricate web of collapsed governments and the rise of radical Islam, we cannot overlook the events that unfolded at a U.S. “consulate” in Benghazi, Libya.

The President’s and his administration’s lies surrounding what happened there were impeachable. The fact that re-election was Mr. Obama’s primary concern in the aftermath of the attacks is reprehensible. Furthermore, that U.S. citizens died on foreign soil and no one has yet been held accountable is unconscionable. But the story gets much worse.

There is another layer to the Benghazi story that exposes what we call the “Obama Doctrine” — our 44^th president’s overall foreign-policy agenda designed to “liberate” the Middle East from America’s longstanding policy. For decades, U.S. foreign policy in the volatile region could be over-simplified as follows: Lend support to less threatening and more secular rulers who can suppress radical Islamic factions in order to keep relative peace and maintain the free flow of oil in the region. The Obama Doctrine changed everything and is at the root of what was really happening in Benghazi on the night of September 11, 2012.

Here is what we now know:

Everything we originally were told about Benghazi, the “consulate,” the YouTube video, and even the prevailing view today that this was a terrorist attack is not the whole truth. These stories were merely various covers for a sophisticated gun-running effort spearheaded by the American government, designed to de-stabilize regimes in the Middle East by putting U.S. arms (directly and indirectly) into the hands of Muslim radicals and resetting the Mideast as a jihad stronghold.

And we can trace the story from Benghazi to Baghdad.

The essential fact pattern of this alternative Benghazi reality was reported early on by a few key sources but with little or no follow up. In 2013, Grassfire’s LibertyNEWS team ran a series of stories “connecting the dots” about what really was happening in Benghazi. Then in 2014, other sources began to corroborate the gun-running theory. In April, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh supported the theory primarily by sourcing a classified “annex” to the Senate Intelligence Committee report on Benghazi that was released in early 2014.

Writing in the London Review of Books, Hersh described the “rat line” of weapons that flowed from Libya, through Turkey and then into the Syrian rebels’ hands -- with the CIA masterminding the entire gun-running operation. Using a similar U.S.-backed strategy that had undermined Muammar Gaddafi in favor of Muslim radical elements in Libya, the “rat line” was directed at Syria’s growing civil war.

To gain a better understanding of what this all means, we have to go back to the days before Gaddafi’s fall.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq was a fierce and evil force that terrorized anyone who crossed its path. We don’t hear much about Al-Qaeda in Iraq anymore, not because the terror network no longer exists. It’s because the massive coalition of jihadists no longer uses that name. Al Qaeda in Iraq is now known as the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,” or ISIS for short.

How is it that, while Barack Hussein Obama was claiming that Al-Qaeda was on the run, he was also having to answer questions about the new threat of ISIS? How did an already deadly terrorist organization become bigger, more dangerous and more powerful in the Middle East?

The answers to these questions lead us to a terrifying realization: American taxpayers have funded a massive, destructive range of foreign policies that helped give birth to what is now considered the world’s greatest terror network! All of this at the direction of Barack Obama.

Understanding The Rise Of ISIS

What you’re about to read explains the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens; the ties between Libya, Iraq and Syria; and the birth of ISIS at the hands of Obama’s foreign policy. Even worse, the following also explains how everything that is happening is paving the way for Iran’s war against Israel.

ISIS is a large-scale army of ruthless criminals who embrace the fanatical principles of radical Islam. Their mission is and has always been to establish a caliphate where Sharia is the supreme law of the land. Under the agenda of ISIS, anyone who disagrees — no matter what nationality or religion they claim — is instantly considered an enemy combatant. ISIS deals with such enemies (or infidels) through public beheadings, mass executions and even brutal crucifixions.

Why on earth would any free American EVER choose to partner with these monsters? In what world is it logical to team up with such radical extremists, give them freedom, money, weapons and influence, all with the idea that they may be able to eliminate another group of brutal serial killers? It defies logic. Even if successful, the strategy would create one empowered enemy much more dangerous than the previous two combined.

No individual with any semblance of rational thought would ever do something like this unless they intended to created a force of evil the likes of which has never been seen. Yet that is exactly what the President and his ilk in Washington, D.C. did. But in order to gain a full understanding of how ISIS came to be, we have to back up to the early years of the Obama administration and dissect the truth of what happened.

Obama’s Terrorist Frankenstein

When thinking of Libya today, images of a war-torn, collapsed nation in turmoil come to mind. But before Obama came into play, Libya was actually a bright spot in a dark region of the world. In fact, according to the United Nations Development Index of 2010, Libya had the highest standard of living of any African country . It wouldn’t be fair to try and make a comparison to cities in the U.S., but when it comes to Africa, Libya was prosperous.

At that time, Libyan Prime Minister Muammar Gaddafi ruled the nation with an iron fist. There is no question Gaddafi was a dictator who didn’t always look out for the best interests of his people. However, Gaddafi still was widely respected by neighboring governments as one of the greatest leaders on the continent.

To give you idea of how the leaders of the region viewed Gaddafi, a meeting once took place where more than 200 kings and rulers throughout Africa jointly decided to honor him with the title “King of Kings.”

This mention of Gaddafi is not made with the intent of siding with him. He never was a model leader. He certainly was not someone we should prop up as an example of the type of leader the world should have in control of its assets and lives. But having Gaddafi in power in that part of the world had benefits. And truth be told, Libya was far better off under his rule than it is today.

So why did Obama want Gaddafi out: dead or alive? One could easily suggest, as we do, that Obama wasn’t going to tolerate Gaddafi’s attitude towards Israel. No, the Libyan leader was not a big supporter of Israel, but like several other heads of state Obama helped remove from power in the Middle East (Egypt, for example), Gaddafi gladly gobbled up foreign aid in exchange for recognizing that Israel has a right to exist.

In a 2009 interview with Time magazine, Gaddafi had this to say:

“The position that we are in, the road that the world is going on, would lead to the destruction of the Jews. Because generally speaking, Jews as a community are limited, their number is limited, all over the world. We know that they’re not that big. Unfortunately, they were persecuted by all nations. They were persecuted by the Romans and King Edward I. And we all know the Holocaust during Hitler’s time. Once seeing the history like that, we can only but sympathize with them as Jews.”[i]

How often have we heard the leader of a nation in or near the Middle East say something like that? Rarely, if ever. And certainly not since Obama took office. There is, without question, a six-year trend of U.S. involvement in toppling Mideast leaders who “tolerated” Israel’s existence. The end goal has been to replace them with rulers (or rogue terror-linked entities) who share a desire to see Israel weakened, if not completely destroyed.

Which gets us back to Obama’s campaign to take Gaddafi out of the picture. The Libyan affair was the President’s second major foreign-policy action in the Mideast. (We’ll backtrack to the first shortly.) The Obama Administration was able claim it was successful in that it removed Gaddafi from power, and that it all happened without U.S. “boots on the ground.” But what Obama doesn’t want you to know is what happened under the mainstream media’s radar during the operation.

Obama won his Libya trophy by using the State Department and the CIA to fund, arm and help orchestrate what some call the “Libyan Revolution.” Who served in this mysterious army to take down Gaddafi for Obama?

The answer should shock and outrage you.

Obama’s CIA and State Department used what is now known as ISIS to destroy Gaddafi in Libya. The rebel army, known as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, was commanded by a Muslim named Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi. In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr. al-Hasidi admitted that many of the same al-Qaeda members who fought American troops in Iraq had also joined the fight against Gaddafi in Libya.[ii]

So here we have a scenario where Obama was funding and arming the same terrorists who had been fighting American troops in Iraq to do his dirty work in Libya. Once these terrorists and thugs began organizing and winning battles in Libya, Obama came in with the final death blow: massive U.S. and NATO air strikes on Gaddafi’s infrastructure. In the end, Obama — with the help of his al-Qaeda allies — defeated and killed Gaddafi on October 20, 2011, and Libya was in the hands of people who hate Israel.

When Gaddafi was confirmed dead, the CIA and State Department moved in to seize control of Libya’s massive arms stockpiles. Gaddafi had amassed a legendary supply of sophisticated weapons of war via his pre-Obama aid packages from the U.S. and other world powers. Before being named Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens was chosen as the operative in charge of gaining quick and total control over Gaddafi’s weapon stockpiles. He had full and intimate understanding of what weapons were there; what they were capable of; and what the U.S. was going to do with them. In fact, he was probably one of only a handful of people who knew the full story surrounding the weapons. In essence, Stevens was the key person that could link U.S. involvement in Libya to the supply of heavy arms to “rebels” in Syria.

As Ambassador to Libya, Stevens was given even more control over the State Department’s operations in the region. It was during this time that the U.S. began shipping the weapons stockpiles through Turkey and into Syria. The Times Of London reports:

A Libyan ship carrying the largest consignment of weapons for Syria since the uprising began has docked in Turkey and most of its cargo is making its way to rebels on the front lines. …

Among more than 400 tonnes of cargo the vessel was carrying were SAM-7 surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), which Syrian sources said could be a game-changer for the rebels.

“This is the largest single delivery of assistance to the rebel fighting units we have received,” said Abu Muhammed, a member of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), who helped to move the shipment from warehouses to the border. “These are things that could change the tide — if they are used correctly.”[iii]

The shipment arrived in Syria just three days after Chris Stevens was killed in Benghazi. The New York Times reported it as well.[iv]

As the United States and its Western allies moved toward providing lethal aid to Syrian rebels, these secretive transfers give insight into an unregistered arms pipeline that is difficult to monitor or control. And while the system appears to succeed in moving arms across multiple borders and to select rebel groups, once inside Syria, the flow branches out. Extremist fighters, some of them aligned with Al Qaeda, have the money to buy the newly arrived stock, and many rebels are willing to sell.

Obama’s work in Libya was done. Gaddafi, a dictator who tolerated the existence of Israel, was out of the picture. His weapons were shipped off to terrorists in Syria. And Christopher Stevens, one of the few people who knew each and every detail of how it all happened, was also removed from the equation. Of course, there are multiple reports that confirm what happened. But without a credible witness such as Ambassador Stevens, that tie can never be made official. At least, not without Hillary Clinton. And we all know Clinton erased the data on her email server, making the truth very difficult to recover or uncover.

Obama’s First Foreign-Policy “Victim”

But it was actually earlier in 2011, when Obama’s foreign policy efforts claimed its first “victim.” The infamous “Arab Spring,” which began in December 2010, sparked massive protests across the Mideast. Just two months later, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak found himself at the center of a coup led by the Muslim Brotherhood. This is important because, as was the case with Gaddafi, Mubarak also tolerated the existence of Israel.

As the Muslim Brotherhood was about to oust Egypt’s fourth president, Reuters published the following:

“If Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak is toppled, Israel will lose one of its very few friends in a hostile neighborhood and President Barack Obama will bear a large share of the blame, Israeli pundits said.”

The Reuters article also included this quote from Israel’s President Shimon Peres:

"We always have had and still have great respect for President Mubarak. … I don't say everything that he did was right, but he did one thing which all of us are thankful to him for: he kept the peace in the Middle East.”[v]

Because of his respect for Israel, Mubarak — who had led Egypt for 30 years — had to go. By force, at the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mubarak was gone. And nine months later, Gaddafi was dead. Two nations with new Obama-supported leadership that refused to tolerate the existence of Israel were in place.

The Lone “Survivor”

Obama’s foreign policy later turned to Syria. When it comes to Syrian President Bashar Assad, it turns out many prominent politicians and officials would prefer he be in power instead of the U.S. backed terror groups who initially made up the Free Syrian Army before it became ISIS. Here’s what an unnamed Israeli politician told Al Arabiya Network:

“I prefer to support Assad than the Syrian revolutionaries. He may be a tyrant, but things have been more stable with him around. … Syria is all that stands between Israel and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. … Israel stands hand-in-hand with Assad.”[vi]

But according to Obama’s State Department, Assad had to go. And who would replace him? Those loyal to ISIS and Iran.

Pivoting back to the Syria-ISIS narrative, we must understand that ISIS is Al Qaeda. What started as Al Qaeda in Iraq, was then recruited by Obama to remove Gaddafi in Libya before turning its attention, through Gaddafi’s weapons and more than $120 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Free Syrian Army, towards Syria. When the Syrian civil war got heated, the Free Syrian Army joined forces with al-Qaeda in Iraq and created ISIS. Even the Council on Foreign Relations agrees:

Al Qaeda in Iraq, decimated by the “Awakening” of Sunni Iraqis who joined the fight against extremists, the U.S.-led military surge, and the death of Zarqawi, found new purpose in exploiting the vacuum left by the receding Syrian state. It established its own transnational movement known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The group expanded its grip on Sunni provinces in Iraq and eastern regions in Syria, seizing Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, in June 2014. …. ISIS rebranded as the Islamic State in July 2014 and declared its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as caliph.^[vii]

And it all happened under Obama’s watch. World leaders who tolerated Israel were toppled and replaced with others who want Israel destroyed. The Obama Doctrine gives Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood backdoor access to Israel through nations that surround the Jewish state: Egypt to the south and Syria to the north.

Iraq gives Iran a direct passage into Syria. Iran is now confirmed to be involved, on the ground, in Iraq. U.S. interests in Iraq are now aligned with those of Iran, while both put forth the appearance of fighting ISIS. In August 2015, LibertyNEWS reported that an Israeli general had recently confirmed some 10,000 Iranian-backed “troops” were amassing at the Syria/Jordan border near Israel. And finally, Iran is sending funds, supplies and support to Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip.

And also in 2015 we found out that $500 million was spent training fighters that, once again, are becoming terrorists with an agenda that includes killing Christians and fighting against Israel. The story repeats from Egypt to Libya to Syria and now into Iraq. With each unfolding chapter in the Obama Doctrine, our most dependable ally in the entire region — Israel — finds itself at the epicenter of a nuclear-equipped and radically charged target zone.

[i] http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1926125,00.html

[ii] www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8407047/Libyan-rebel-commander-admits-his-fighters-have-al-Qaeda-links.html

[iii] www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/middleeast/article3537770.ece

[iv] www.nytimes.com/2013/06/22/world/africa/in-a-turnabout-syria-rebels-get-libyan-weapons.html?_r=0

[v] www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/31/us-egypt-israel-usa-idUSTRE70U53720110131

[vi] http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2014/11/12/Israel-prefers-Assad-to-ISIS-.html

^[vii] www.cfr.org/peace-conflict-and-human-rights/sunni-shia-divide/p33176#!/