Counter terrorism expert, author and news commentator Walid Phares says Americans going to the polls this year are making a choice between re-electing a president who he believes will “respond to the national security challenges, and a former vice president who “would form an administration reflecting a third term of former president Obama’s direction.”
But this election has also caused him to be more concerned than any other.
Lebanese-born US citizen Phares, a Fox News commentator who spoke with JewishPress.com on the eve of Election Day 2020, said the question of whether Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has a real chance to win Tuesday’s election is “troubling, because we may end up in a very long counting process.”
He also said the vote may end up being “real close.” How close?
“Buckle up,” he advised. “It could be as long as a week, or perhaps all the way to December,” figuring in lawsuits, “because remember, back in 2000 between Bush and Gore in Florida, it took actually two months but to count a very small amount, and then they took it to the Supreme Court.”
In his new book The Choice, (on store shelves as of last month) there are details on all the pros and cons of a Biden or Trump administration as well as and analysis of each and the domestic and foreign policy wrangling that goes into keeping them in place.
Some of that wrangling was on display during this year’s campaign. For those who think Tuesday election will put an end to all that, recalibrate and reboot.
What could follow, Phares warned, may be worse than the nightmare around the election. “Now it’s going to be long and stretch, and now you’re going to have an intifada on the streets.”
American Intifada?
As of Tuesday midnight after the polls close, Phares said there is a real possibility that cities across the country may be forced to contend with an “American intifada.”
“There will be a duly organized intifada that we have never seen; that America has never seen,” he warned. “Only Israel has seen something like that — hopefully without firearms,” he added.
“My concern as an expert on counter terrorism is that these “waves” will be penetrated by real terrorists. These are radicals, and I have many indications that overseas powers and organizations and money have been invested specifically in the Antifa, a little bit of the BLM (Black Lives Matter group) and others, and sometimes independent cells who could wear Antifa [clothing] and do the first shot,” Phares said.
He expressed particular concern about other protesters, perhaps Trump supporters, being provoked into fighting back — and the violence being ignited once the first “shot” is fired.
“When you do the first shot what happens is that the other side, you know, the Trump people they don’t do arson and such, but if you hit them they are those within who served in the army and who are not happy to be shot at, and this is where the problem will be.”
Phares said that he is deeply concerned about what the days will bring after the polls close Tuesday night.
“Most politicians are afraid of civil unrest. Here, neither the radicals are afraid, nor Trump is afraid,” Phares pointed out. “He’s ready to go and confront them. So I am concerned this time more than any other time before.
