Al Queda's strategy

(oops, should be Al Qaeda)

Sun Zi said, "Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. " 故曰：知己知彼，百战不贻；不知彼而知己，一胜一负；不知彼不知己，每战必败。

via Coming Anarchy comes this (alleged) Zarqawi’s playbook

...The question remains, how to draw the Americans into fighting a war against Iran?

It is not known whether American is serious in its animosity towards Iraq [you mean Iran? - Sun Bin], because of the big support Iran is offering to America in its war in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

Hence, it is necessary first to exaggerate the Iranian danger and to convince America and the west in general, of the real danger coming from Iran, and this would be done by the following:

1. By disseminating threatening messages against American interests and the American people and attribute them to a Shiite Iranian side.
2. By executing operations of kidnapping hostages and implicating the Shiite Iranian side.
3. By advertising that Iran has chemical and nuclear weapons and is threatening the west with these weapons.
4. By executing exploding operations in the west and accusing Iran by planting Iranian Shiite fingerprints and evidence.
5. By declaring the existence of a relationship between Iran and terrorist groups (as termed by the Americans).
6. By disseminating bogus messages about confessions showing that Iran is in possession of weapons of mass destruction or that there are attempts by the Iranian intelligence to undertake terrorist operations in America and the west and against western interests.

Let us hope for success and for God’s help.

Read the whole play book here.

Surprise! If you read Sun Zi, you would try to put yourself into their shoes before you act. Then, it is not difficult to see this is quite natural given the situation they are in, and perhaps the only path that makes sense to them.

We can question on the authenticity of the book and debate about conspiracy theory. Rather, the appropriate question should be, "Does this strategy make sense for them?" If it does, it does not make a difference whether it is authentic or not. Then we need to ask ourselves, "What would be the response (to such potential chain reaction) that would make sense for us (=the civilized world)?"

I thought such a playbook existed before Osama bin Laden went into hiding. Now it appears that Al Zarqawi only did a global search for Iraq and replace the word by Iran. That is why there seems still to be some typos in the book. What a bum! so lazy that he didn't even thought about leaving the house when he heard the planes approaching, or try to create his own playbook. As to the world leader of Team America, I don't know what to say.