|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Order Jamie Glazov’s new book, ‘United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny, Terror, and Hamas’: HERE.
Western democracies are in serious trouble—not because they are weak, but because they still refuse to understand the nature of the war being waged against them.
For decades, Western elites have insisted that conflicts involving the Muslim world are primarily about politics, economics, colonial grievances, poverty, or social injustice. They have explained away jihad as a reaction to circumstance rather than an expression of belief. But much of the Muslim world does not see the conflict that way at all. It sees it as religious, civilizational, and existential.
Until the West understands that reality, it will continue to misread the Middle East, misread jihadist movements, misread the radicalization spreading inside its own societies, and endanger its own future.
That misunderstanding is playing out in the war with Iran right now. The question Western analysts should be asking is simple: If Iran is attacking Arab Muslim countries too, why are those countries not joining the war to bring down the regime in Tehran? Iran’s aggression is not directed only at Israel. Arab states have watched for years as Tehran threatened the region through missiles, proxies, sabotage, and terror. And today, the Iranian regime is shooting rockets at their oil infrastructure, airports, cities, shipping lanes, and internal stability. And yet, despite all that, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and others are not publicly lining up beside Israel and the United States in a campaign to topple the Islamic regime.
To Western observers, this seems irrational.
It is not irrational. It is Islamic.
The Middle East does not operate according to the secular assumptions of Western foreign policy, and that is precisely where so many Western analysts go wrong. Muslim governments are deeply reluctant to publicly align with non-Muslims against another Muslim power. Western strategists tend to believe that states act only according to interests, but in the Middle East, religion is not a decorative detail. It is often the central organizing force. Sunni and Shiite regimes may slaughter each other, as we have seen in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Lebanon, but even when Muslim states are bitter enemies, there remains enormous resistance to being seen siding openly with Jews or with the Christian West against a Muslim state. That is not merely a political problem. It is a legitimacy problem. A ruler perceived as joining the infidel camp against fellow Muslims risks domestic backlash, clerical agitation, and being branded a traitor to Islam. So Arab regimes may cooperate quietly, share intelligence, or hope Israel and America do the job for them. Publicly, however, they remain silent.
There is another reality the West refuses to confront: many Sunni Arab regimes still fear the prospect of Israel emerging as the dominant regional power. Yes, Sunni and Shiite powers fight each other viciously. Yes, many Arab governments fear Iran more than they fear Israel. But that does not mean they are comfortable with a Middle East in which the Jewish state becomes the decisive military and strategic force in the region. Western policymakers imagine that shared interests erase older religious and civilizational realities. They do not. For many in the Muslim world, the idea that a non-Muslim state – especially a Jewish one – would become the region’s anchor power remains deeply humiliating and deeply unacceptable.
Israel poses no imperial threat to them. It is not trying to conquer Mecca or dominate the Gulf. In fact, Israel is the one regional power with the military, intelligence, and technological capabilities to help stabilize the region against Iran’s terror empire. But that is precisely the point. A weakened Iran is one thing. An ascendant Israel is another. And so Arab governments hedge. They may prefer Iran damaged, but they are not eager to help create a Middle East in which Israel clearly stands at the top of the strategic hierarchy.
The biggest reason, however, is fear; fear that America will once again stop the war before finishing what needs to be done.
The Middle East has watched the United States enter conflicts and then lose the will to finish them. Iraq. Afghanistan. Red lines declared and abandoned. Commitments made and diluted. Whether those withdrawals were justified from an American domestic perspective is beside the point. What regional governments learned was simple: America may start the fight, but it may not finish it. That is the nightmare scenario for every Arab regime now calculating its next move. If they openly join the war against Iran, then cave to media pressure, diplomatic pressure, or elite fatigue before the regime collapses, those Arab states will be left exposed beside a wounded but surviving Iranian regime bent on revenge.
That is not a theoretical concern; it is a very serious, sobering, realistic, and dangerous scenario.
Their calculation is brutally pragmatic: better to absorb the blows now than openly join the war and later face an enraged surviving regime alone.
This is the larger lesson Americans need to understand. Toppling the Islamic regime in Iran is not just about Israel, and it is certainly not about the stale fantasy that “the Zionists” are dragging America into someone else’s war. A post-regime Iran would also deal a major strategic blow to China, America’s biggest military and economic enemy. Beijing relies heavily on Iranian energy, Iranian alignment, and Iranian usefulness as an anti-Western node in the Middle East. Tehran helps China undermine sanctions, expand its regional footprint, and build an anti-American axis across key transit and energy corridors. The collapse of the Islamic regime would not only weaken jihadist terror; it would also strip China of one of its most valuable footholds in the region.
In other words, bringing down the regime in Tehran is not a favor to Israel. It is America First.
But the deeper issue goes beyond Iran. The West still refuses to grasp that much of the jihadist war against it is not fundamentally about borders, economics, or grievance narratives. Those are the packaging. The core is religious and civilizational. Both Sunni and Shiite jihadists understand this perfectly well. They speak the language of human rights when it helps them. They invoke victimhood when it is useful. They exploit democratic freedoms, multicultural guilt, legal protections, media cowardice, and elite confusion. But their long-term goal is not coexistence.
It is submission.
While Western elites keep arguing over terminology, jihadist ideology continues to spread across Europe and North America—city by city, institution by institution, school by school, and increasingly, office by office—exploiting open societies that still lack the moral clarity to recognize the threat.
The free world cannot afford to remain this naïve. This war cannot be stopped halfway. Stopping before the Islamic regime collapses would produce the worst possible outcome: a wounded but surviving Iranian regime, terrified Arab states forced back into submission, renewed Iranian expansion across the region, a stronger China in its strategic contest with the United States, and a global jihadist movement emboldened by yet another display of Western weakness.
That is not de-escalation. It is surrender by installments.
The war should end only when the Islamic regime is toppled and replaced. Anything less guarantees that the same threat will return, bloodier, bolder, and better positioned. Until that happens, much of the Arab and Muslim world will keep doing exactly what it is doing now: taking the hits, staying quiet, and watching to see whether America finally has the will to finish the job.
Avi Abelow, host of The Pulse of Israel daily video podcast and the CEO of the 12Tribe Films Foundation, which produces media content highlighting Israel’s biblical, historical, and strategic importance to the Jewish people and the world. He is the 2025 recipient of the Ari Fuld Project’s “Lion of Zion Award”.
Trump has to want to have Israel be the strongest she can be. Policy has consistently not allowed that, until now; and we don’t know how long this current phase of policy will last. Remember his ‘promise’ to the Arab countries not to ‘allow’ Israel to declare sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, and his Gaza vision that completely sidelines Israel.
If he does the same with Iran, to prevent Israel from being strong and secure, it will be suicidal for the America he clearly loves.
To support Israel all the way is the only way. But this is what has never been done before.
It would be refreshing…..
And it would be mega maga.
He needs to double up efforts on the “supreme leaders” and get rid of them, once and for all!
The West doesn’t understand the Arab mind and the Arabs take advantage of the fact.
Mamdani’s election is proof of the denial and willful ignorance possessing much of America…at least the Big Apple.
His election says more about the power of the “free stuff” promised to the lazy, entitled electorate than anything else.
Wondering if they realised that they had been had when those homeless men died….
How can Trump sleep at night knowing that the Ayatollah will tirelessly seek to assassinate Trump and his entire family with IRGC agents and their collaborators already positioned in the US, if the Islamic regime is allowed to survive this war?
They have already tried to kill him more than once.
I believe Trump has no illusions about this. Hopefully his plan is a completely defunct Islamic Republic.
That said, it would be wise for the FBI to be earmarking Iranians who in any way profile as trouble makers. Meanwhile, Sunnis should also be examined and deported in wholesale numbers.
At some point the US should end the entire charade that Islam is a religion, and state unequivocally that it is a military campaign charged with violent world domination.
Some European nations are taking a “soft” approach on Islam by plans on banning the burka, disallowing plural marriages and outlawing Halal to make their nations less attractive to Islamists. Let the remigration begin.
“Western democracies are in serious trouble—not because they are weak, but because they still refuse to understand the nature of the war being waged against them.”
It’s not that there aren’t plenty of people who don’t understand the nature of the war being waged, it’s that likely the majority take the easy way and avoid making it a black and white subject, hence they have no responsibility to act proactively. In some respects the right is more responsible than the left. They hand over all power to the left and acquiesce, without any countering of the narrative. People only receive the lies of the left on this subject from the time they are tiny to the grave going on ten years+.
Still, the biggest problem is that no polly will stand against the slimes and directly confront the narrative. You can elect a polly, have a leader of your movement but if they won’t act or speak out, nothing will get off the ground.
The left has completely censored us, especially the pollys. It leaves us powerless. Can’t lead from behind and actions count, words are worthless, pollys acquiescing/controlled opposition worse than death.
This is exactly why I cry no tears for the Uyghurs. China understands.
The West doesn’t understand that the Middle East is all about Islam. It can’t wrap it’s head around it. Every excuse imaginable is afforded Muslims for their behavior, other than what the truth really is, which is that Islam will dominate the world. People would be willing to die for their religion, or their God.
For example, Hitler knew this quite well. In one of his last speeches to his Secretary Bormann Hitler spoke about this. I’ll give the short version “However, we speak of the Jewish race only for reasons of linguistic convenience, for….from the genetic point of view there is no such thing as a Jewish race.”
“Spiritual race is tougher and more enduring than a natural race”
Hitler had no intention of making this a spiritual race because he understood how difficult that would be. Now, times that by 10 for Muslims.
The West doesn’t understand that this is a spiritual war. It isn’t about politics, geography, etc. Until the West understands this it will continue to be gobbled up by slowly, but surely by Muslims/Islam.
Then, just follow Nature and let them fight each other.
They have been fighting for centuries; they must gain some satisfaction by fighting ?
None of our business anyway.
Lee Lee, you are correct, they will just have to fight it out between themselves.
Here is the reason why.
You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery. [Ishmael means “God hears.”] He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers” (Genesis 16:11–12).
It is our business because however much they fight each other they are united in Islam and that dictates them working together for their ultimate goal of a worldwide Islamic Caliphate. Qatar and Iran have worked hand in glove to further Islam throughout the world; Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism and Qatar is the financial funder of it. 9/11 had high hackers from Saudi Arabia.
The worldwide ummah (Muslims throughout the globe) can be issued instructions against non-Muslims wherever they live and they will carry them out.
Clearly, you seem unaware of the Islamic Caliphate goals historically achieved by Türkiye as it gobbled up vast areas over a period of 600 years subjugating all non-Muslim countries by defeating them, subjugating them under Sharia law and then mandating the regular payment of the jizya tax.
Yes, they are tribal and often allow that resurgent barbarity to destroy other Muslims in their Middle Eastern mindsets. However,
I think you are woefully naive about the Islamic dictates of their faith. They want the deaths of all Jews and either the conversion or dhimmitude subjugation of those who hold any other religious beliefs. Tucker Carlson attacks Israel and Jews whining about the loss of lives in Gaza but as a Christian, he remains silent about the ongoing rape and slaughter of Christians by Muslims across many, many countries both inside and outside of the Middle East.
Thinking this is tribal only is a very isolationist point of view…right up until they invade your city, begin infiltrating your local government, facilitate the rape your women, girls and boys and then they cry Islamophobia when caught.
Islam is a religiously driven ideology of conquest based on their prophet, Quran and Hadiths
Unless you plan on relinquishing your freedom, I would suggest taking your head out of the sand and then reading several books on Islam. Frontpage authors have written many! Live and let live cannot work with Islam as it is completely intolerant of any other religious beliefs, any government other than Sharia and they relegate all western values as corrupt and worthy of destruction.
If the world and people like you in it continue refusing to wake up, it will happen and it is not and issue of if it will happen but when.
And that is why Trump’s Abraham Accords will never succeed. It is Islam and always will be Islam the Abraham Accords are not Islam. In its 1400 years of existence Islam has done nothing but conquer civilizations and then convert them to the 7th century Arab tribal clan society that Islam is. This is what Islam will always be nothing more. The West need to kick all Muslims out, close down all mosques and realize that Islam is not compatible with the West. New York City is finding that out the hard way.
Academic level work, opinion of a regular viewer of ure program!
Ban mosques from America, ASAP.
I think iran is going to end up living in the dark with no foreign friends over all this, and no economy, they are broke and their military is being taken apart and maybe they have a supreme leader and maybe they dont, apparently they still have electricity but that may change, and this is how it ends after 47 years of hate and murder, nobody wants your company or your business, russia and china will probably build a pipeline and just let iran go to hell, pretty much, meanwhile, the rest of the middle east, israel included, will finally get a good nights sleep once irans army and offensive capability are gone and done with.
It’s their status as a “religion” that allows gutless politicians in the USA to not deal with them sensibly. The solution is simple. Codify a legal definition of “religion” that excludes all thought systems that promote the killing of and/ or discrimination against non-believers.
Islam is more than a Political, Militaristic, Lying Cult all wrapped up in the name of Religion to fool the
West. So never ever trust them, well how can you when lying is so natural to them. It is written that Allah is the best of Deceivers !!! And that is who they emulate.
“But much of the Muslim world does not see the conflict that way at all. It sees it as religious, civilizational, and existential.”
Islamo losers do not seem to have a live and let live ethos in their defective brains. Just as liberalism is a mental illness, Islam appears to be the ultimate mental illness. Conquer and kill. That is all the muslim seems to understand. And it can’t be reasoned with or eradicated.
Unless we get serious about these untermenschen and their f**cked murderous “religion”, and begin the deportations, it’s going to be a life long war. We have had 4-6 jihadi attacks domestically in just the last two weeks. It’s only going to get worse even after the government in Iran finally collapses. The Islamocrats in Congress appear to be encouraging it.
Israel has the same problem with Hezbollah in Lebanon just across their northern border