Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan believe that the expansion of the Abraham Accords, the enhancement of Israel-Saudi defense and commercial cooperation and the conclusion of an Israel-Saudi Arabia peace accord are preconditioned upon major Israeli concessions to the Palestinian Authority.

Is such a belief consistent with Middle East reality?

Arab interests

*The signing of the Abraham Accords, and the role played by Saudi Arabia as a critical engine of the accords, were driven by the national security, economic and diplomatic interests of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and the Sudan.

*The Arab interest in peace accords with Israel was not triggered by the realization that the Jewish State was genuinely seeking peaceful-coexistence, nor by a departure from the fundamental tenets of Islam. It was motivated by the assessment that critical concerns of the respective Arab countries would be effectively-served by Israel’s advanced military (Qualitative Military Edge), technological and diplomatic capabilities in the face of mutual and lethal enemies, such as Iran’s Ayatollahs and Muslim Brotherhood terrorism.

*Saudi Arabia and the six Arab peace partners of Israel (including Egypt and Jordan) are aware that the Middle East resembles a volcano, which occasionally releases explosive lava – domestically and/or regionally – in an unpredictable manner, as evidenced by the 1,400-year-old stormy intra-Arab/Muslim relations, and recently demonstrated by the Arab Tsunami, which erupted in 2011 and still rages.

They wish to minimize the impact of rogue regimes, and therefore are apprehensive about the nature of the proposed Palestinian state, in view of the rogue Palestinian inter-Arab track record, which has transformed Palestinians into an intra-Arab role model of subversion, terrorism, treachery and ingratitude.

*They are anxious about the erosion of the US posture of deterrence, which is their most critical component of national security, and alarmed about the 43-year-old US diplomatic option toward Iran’s Ayatollahs, which has bolstered the Ayatollahs’ terroristic, drug trafficking and ballistic capabilities. They are also concerned about the US’ embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the largest Sunni terrorist entity with religious, educational, welfare and political branches. And, they are aware of the ineffectiveness of NATO (No Action Talk Only?), the European vacillation, and the vulnerability of all other Arab countries.

Israel’s role

*Saudi Arabia and the Arab partners to peace accords with Israel feel the machetes of the Ayatollahs and the Moslem Brotherhood at their throats. They consider Israel as the most reliable “life insurance agent” in the region.  They view Israel as the most effective US force-multiplier in the Middle East, and appreciate Israel’s proven posture of deterrence; flexing its military muscles against Iran’s Ayatollahs in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran itself and against Palestinian and Hezbollah terrorism. They respect Israel’s unique counter-terrorism intelligence and training capabilities, and its game-changing military and counter-terrorism battle tactics and technologies.

*The Arab view of Israel as a reliable partner on “a rainy day” has been bolstered by Israel’s willingness to defy US pressure, when it comes to Israel’s most critical national security and historic credos (e.g., Iran, Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria).  In addition, Saudi Arabia and Israel’s peace-partners aim to leverage Israel’s good-standing among most Americans – and therefore among most Senators and House Representatives – as a venue to enhance their military, commercial and diplomatic ties with the US.

*Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are preoccupied with the challenge of economic diversification, realizing that they are overly-reliant on oil and natural gas, which are exposed to price-volatility, depletion and could be replaced by emerging cleaner and more cost-effective energy.

Thus, they consider Israel’s ground-breaking technologies as a most effective vehicle to diversify their economy, create more jobs in non-energy sectors, and establish a base for alternative sources of national income, while bolstering homeland and national security.

*The Abraham Accords – as well as Israel’s peace accords with Egypt and Jordan – and the unprecedented expansion of defense and commercial cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Israel, demonstrate that critical Arab national security interests may supersede fundamental tenets of Islam, such as the 1,400-year-old rejection of any “infidel” sovereignty in “the abode of Islam.”  Moreover, critical national security interests may lead to a dramatic moderation of the (Arab) education system, which is the most authentic reflection of one’s vision and policies.

Thus, contrary to the Palestinian Authority, the United Arab Emirates has uprooted hate-education curriculum, replacing it with pro-Israel/Jewish curriculum.

Abraham Accords’ durability

*The success of the Abraham Accords was a result of avoiding the systematic mistakes committed by the US State Department. The latter has produced a litany of failed peace proposals, centered on the Palestinian issue, while the Abraham accords bypassed the Palestinian issue, avoiding a Palestinian veto, and focusing on Arab interests. Therefore, the durability of the Abraham Accords depends on the interests of the respective Arab countries, and not on the Palestinian issue, which is not a top priority for any Arab country.

*The durability of the Abraham Accords depends on the stability of the individual Arab countries and the Middle East at-large.

*The Abraham Accord have yielded initial and unprecedented signs of moderation, modernity and peaceful coexistence, which requires the US to support the respective pro-US Arab regimes, rather than pressuring them (e.g., Saudi Arabia and the UAE).

*However, one should not ignore the grave threats to the durability of the accords, posed by the volcanic nature of the unstable, highly-fragmented, unpredictable, violently intolerant, non-democratic and tenuous Middle East (as related to intra-Arab relations!).  These inherent threats would be dramatically alleviated by a resolute US support.

*A major threat to the Abraham Accord is the tenuous nature of most Arab regimes in the Middle East, which yields tenuous policies and tenuous accords. For example, in addition to the Arab Tsunami of 2010 (which is still raging on the Arab Street), non-ballot regime-change occurred (with a dramatic change of policy) in Egypt (2013, 2012, 1952), Iran (1979, 1953), Iraq (2003, 1968, 1963-twice, 1958), Libya (2011, 1969), Yemen (a civil war since the ’90s, 1990, 1962), etc.

*Regional stability, the Abraham Accords and US interests would be undermined by the proposed Palestinian state west of the Jordan River (bearing in mind the intra-Arab Palestinian track record). It would topple the pro-US Hashemite regime east of the River; transforming Jordan into another platform of regional and global Islamic terrorism, similar to Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen; triggering a domino scenario, which would threaten every pro-US Arab oil-producing country in the Arabian Peninsula; yielding a robust tailwind to Iran’s Ayatollahs, Russia and China and a major headwind to the US.

*While Middle East reality defines policies and accords as variable components of national security, the topography and geography of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and the Golan Heights are fixed components of Israel’s minimal security requirements in the reality of the non-Western Middle East. Israel’s fixed components of national security have secured its survival, and have dramatically enhanced its posture of deterrence. They transformed the Jewish State into a unique force and dollar multiplier for the US.

*The more durable the Abraham Accords and the more robust Israel’s posture of deterrence, the more stable the pro-US Arab regimes and the Middle East at-large; the more deterred are anti-US rogue regimes; the less potent are Middle Eastern epicenters of anti-US terrorism and drug trafficking; the more bolstered is the US global posture and the weaker is the posture of the US’ enemies and adversaries.

*Would the Arab regimes of the Abraham Accords precondition their critical ties with Israel upon Israeli concessions to the Palestinians, which they view as a rogue element? Would they sacrifice their national security and economic interests on the altar of the Palestinian issue? Would they cut off their nose to spite their face?

The fact that these Arab regimes concluded the Abraham Accords without preconditioning it upon Israeli concessions to the Palestinians, and that they limit their support of the Palestinians to talk, rather than walk, provides an answer to these three questions.

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Secretary Blinken’s January 29-31, 2023 visit to Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Authority was another one of his milestones, well-intentioned – but erroneous – Middle East legacies. It has backfired on vital US interests, in general, and the pursuit of regional stability and peace, in particular.

Secretary Blinken in Egypt

*A major issue raised by President El-Sisi, during his meeting with Secretary Blinken, was the volcanic turbulence in Libya, which has traumatized the region since 2011, fueling Muslim Brotherhood terrorism in Egypt and overall Islamic terrorism in Africa and Europe.

*This turbulence was triggered by a US-led NATO military offensive against the Gaddafi regime, and was masterminded, largely, by key policy-makers in the Obama-Biden Administration. They included Antony Blinken, then National Security Advisor to Vice President Biden, and were led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her close advisor and Director of Policy Planning Jake Sullivan, UN Ambassador Susan Rice and Special Assistant to President Obama Samantha Power.

*The offensive was motivated by noble values of human rights, but went astray due to an intrinsic misreading of the Middle East, in general, and Libya, in particular, where Gaddafi was not fighting innocent bystanders, but anti-US Islamic terrorists. In fact, these terrorists murdered the US Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, following their US-facilitated victory over Gaddafi.

*While the aim of the offensive was to prevent a massive slaughter of non-combatant Libyans by Gaddafi, the outcome of the offensive has doomed Libya to decades of chaos, plagued by an ongoing slaughter house, which has dwarfed the worst casualty assessments made by Clinton and Blinken.

*The ill-advised offensive has transformed Libya – the soft underbelly of Europe – into one of the world’s largest platforms of anti-Western Islamic terrorists, drugs and arms traffickers.  It energized a global resurgence of Islamic terrorism, and became a home base for scores of terrorist militias and an arena of civil wars with the participation of Turkey, Qatar, Italy, Russia, Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and France.

*Secretary Blinken’s well-intentioned, but misguided, human rights-driven policy has ignored the only choice facing the US in the Middle East, where human rights have not been complied by Arab regimes: a choice between pro-US human rights violating Arab regimes, or anti-US human rights violating Arab regimes.

*The refusal to accept that reality has also led to US military, financial and diplomatic pressure on the pro-US President Sisi – as well as the pro-US Saudi Crown Prince MBS and the pro-US UAE Crown Prince MBZ – to desist from the rough-handling of Muslim Brotherhood terrorists and the Iran-supported Houthi Yemenite terrorists, which the State Department establishment considers legitimate political, religious and social entities.

*This US policy – highlighted by the eagerness to conclude another accord with Iran’s Ayatollahs, who threaten the survival of every pro-US Arab Sunni regime – has pushed Egypt, Saudi Arabia. the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain closer to China and Russia.

Secretary Blinken in Israel and the Palestinian Authority

*As frustrated as Secretary Blinken is with the rogue conduct of Iran’s Ayatollahs, and notwithstanding the recently expanded US-Israel military drills, Blinken still opposes Israel’s determination that the 43-year-old diplomatic option has dramatically failed, while significantly bolstering the Ayatollahs anti-US global rogue strategy in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

*Blinken rejects the Israeli suggestion (shared by all pro-US Arab regimes) that a credible threat to resort to regime-change and military options is the only way to abort the regional and global terroristic, conventional, ballistic and nuclear Ayatollah threats. He still assumes that the apocalyptic Ayatollahs could be induced – via a generous financial and diplomatic package – into good faith negotiation, peaceful-coexistence and to abandon their 1,400-year-old fanatic, religious and megalomaniacal vision.

*Blinken’s policy toward Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood – which pose a lethal threat to all Sunni Arab regimes – has eroded the US strategic credibility in pro-US Arab capitals, and has pushed Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain – reluctantly – closer to China and Russia, militarily and commercially.

*According to the State Department spokesperson: “The Secretary will underscore the urgent need for the parties [Israel and the Palestinians] to take steps to deescalate tensions… [and] put an end to the cycle of violence that has claimed too many innocent lives….”

*Once again, Secretary Blinken resorts to the immoral moral-equivalence, failing to distinguish between PA-incited Palestinian terrorists (killed by Israel) and Israeli civilians (murdered by Palestinian terrorists). Inadvertently, moral equivalence energizes Palestinian terrorism, while aiming to constrain Israel’s counter-terrorist efforts.

*Secretary Blinken’s visit to Ramallah enhanced legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority, while the latter has enshrined, since 1993, K-12 hate-education, which has brainwashed Palestinian youth against the existence of the “infidel” Jewish State. This rogue education system has been the most authentic reflection of the Palestinian vision/aspiration – consistent with the 1959 and 1964 charters of Fatah and the PLO, which focus on the annihilation of the pre-1967 “Zionist entity.”  The PA education system has become the most effective hot house and production-line of terrorists and suicide-bombers.

*Blinken has accorded more weight to Palestinian diplomatic–talk than to the Palestinian hate-walk and its induced terrorism.  He has ignored the fact that a prerequisite to meaningful negotiation and peace is the uprooting of hate-education, mosque incitement, generous monthly allowances to terrorists’ families, and the glorification of terrorists through public monuments, schools and other institutions.

*Secretary Blinken attempts to convince Israel that the establishment of a Palestinian state is a prerequisite for bolstering Middle East stability and concluding an Israel-Saudi Arabia peace treaty. However, such a proposal should be assessed against the backdrop of the systematic failure of all State Department’s proposals to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.  They failed because they ignored the Palestinian track record, the non-central role of the Palestinian issue in the Middle East, and due to the preoccupation with the Palestinian issue, which yielded a Palestinian veto power.

*In fact, Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and the Sudan were successfully concluded by bypassing the Palestinian issue, and focusing on Arab – not Palestinian – interests, which are increasingly served by enhanced defense and commercial cooperation with Israel. Arabs do not cut off their noses to spite their faces.

*Blinken ignores Middle East reality, which highlights the non-centrality of the Palestinian issue (no Arab-Israel war has erupted due to the Palestinian issue) and Arab order of priorities (no Arab country has flexed its military – and hardly its financial – muscle on behalf of the Palestinians), unless one assumes that the Palestinian-embracing Arab talk supersedes the indifferent/negative Arab walk.

*Unlike Secretary Blinken, the pro-US Arab Sunni regimes are aware of the despotic, corrupt and terroristic nature of the Palestinian Authority, and the rogue nature of the proposed Palestinian state, as evidenced by the Palestinian intra-Arab track record.  Arabs perceive the Palestinians as an intra-Arab role model of subversion, terrorism, treachery and ingratitude, who bite the hands that feed them (Egypt – in the 1950s, Syria – 1960s, Jordan – 1968-1970, Lebanon – 1970-1982 and Kuwait – in 1990).

*The Arabs are also aware of the systematic Palestinian collaboration with anti-Western rogue entities, such as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Bloc, Iran’s Ayatollahs, Saddam Hussein, Latin American and other international terrorist organizations, Muslim Brotherhood terrorists, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and North Korea.

*The bottom line is that a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would topple the pro-US Hashemite regime east of the river, transforming Jordan into another platform of Islamic terrorism (just like Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen), and triggering a domino scenario into the Arabian Peninsula.  It would topple the pro-US Arab oil-producing regimes, undermine regional and global stability and economy and erode the US economy and geo-strategic posture, while advancing the fortunes of Russia, China, Iran’s Ayatollahs and anti-US Islamic Sunni terrorism.

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The August 2022 Israeli war on Gaza-based Palestinian terrorists serves as a wake up call for Israeli and Western policy makers and public opinion molders, who are determined to observe/assess the volcanic and treacherous Middle East through the accommodating and relatively-peaceful Western lenses.

For example:

*The August 2022 war on Palestinian terrorism is a wake up call to the Israeli and Western “Palestine-Firsters.” Once again, Arab countries showered the Palestinians with an embracing-talk, but refrained from a supportive walk, militarily, financially or politically. Hence, the 2022 Arab walk was consistent with the Arab conduct during all previous military clashes between Israel and Palestinian terrorism: the First and Second Intifada of 1987-1993 and 2000-2005, the 1982-85 war against the PLO in Lebanon, and the four wars against the Gaza-based Hamas terrorists in 2008-9, 2012, 2014 and 2021.

*During the last few days, I participated in several TV panel-discussions with experts from Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. All of them concurred with my perspective on the non-centrality of the Palestinian issue in Middle East affairs, displaying indifference or hostility toward the Palestinians. They echoed the Arab image of Palestinians as a role-model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism and ingratitude, as documented by the Palestinian intra-Arab track record.

*In contrast to Western conventional wisdom, Arab policy makers are convinced that the proposed Palestinian state would be a pro-Iran, pro-Russia and pro-China rogue/terrorist entity, fueling domestic and regional turbulence, and intensifying the existing threats to the survival of every pro-US Arab regime.

*The August 2022 war against the Gaza-based Palestinian terrorism is a wake up call to Israeli and Western policy-makers and public opinion molders, who have adhered to the convenient, but illusive, worldview of a diplomacy-based “New World Order” and a “New Middle East.”

They have been infatuated with the application of Western scenarios of peaceful-coexistence, human rights, democracy and a “Marshall Plan-like” enticements to Middle Eastern rogue entities.  But, these noble and tempting Western values are dramatically superseded by religion, history, ideology and ethnicity in shaping the 1,400-year-old violent, intolerant, unpredictable, frustrating and inconvenient intra-Arab Middle East reality.

In fact, the unprecedented financial and strategic benefits showered upon the Palestinians by the 1993 Oslo Accord and the 2005 uprooting of Israel from Gaza yielded – as expected – unprecedented waves of terrorism, which has been driven by the vision to eradicate Jewish sovereignty in “the abode of Islam.”  Similarly, the mega-billion-dollar financial bonanza accorded to Iran’s Ayatollahs by the 2015 JCPOA yielded – as expected – an unprecedented beefing-up of the Ayatollahs’ regional and global anti-US rogue conduct, aimed at bringing to submission “the Great American Satan.”

*The August 2022 Israeli war on Palestinian terrorism demonstrated that Israel’s policy of diplomacy – coupled with a periodical major military reaction to Palestinian terrorism – yielded a dramatically stronger Palestinian terrorism, with thousands of missiles covering most of Israel, including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Preemption facilitated the August 2022 elimination of most top Islamic Jihad terrorists. Preemption – and not reaction – should guide Israel’s war on Palestinian terrorism, destroying – preemptively – the storage of missiles and other lethal systems, as well as all manufacturing and smuggling facilities of such systems. Preemptive elimination – and not reaction – should be executed against the leaders of Palestinian terrorism, preempting their systematic and deliberate targeting of civilians.

*The August 2022 Israel war on the Iran-supported Palestinian terrorists (which include Hamas and Islamic Jihad) highlights the fact that the Iranian threat to regional and global stability is not limited to nuclear, but includes the threat of Iran-supported subversion and terrorism in the Persian Gulf, the Middle East at-large, central Asia, Africa and Latin America from southern Chile to the US-Mexico border.

*The August 2022 war was a battle between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists, who – just like Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood – are not driven by despair and frustration. They are driven by the vision of establishing a universal Islamic society, which mandates the toppling of all national Muslim regimes, and bringing the West (especially the US) to submission.

They view the Jewish State as an effective outpost of the West in “the abode of Islam,” which plays a central role in global trade, oil production and the battle against anti-Western Islamic terrorism.

*The August 2022 war has highlighted Israel’s posture of deterrence in the face of terrorist groups (e.g., the anti-US Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS and Palestinian terrorists) and rogue regimes (e.g., the anti-US Iran’s Ayatollahs), which pose a clear and present lethal threat to all pro-US Arab regimes, such as Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman.

Moreover, Israel’s posture of deterrence was not enhanced because of its peace accords with a growing number of Arab countries.  Arab countries concluded peace accords with Israel because of Israel’s enhanced posture of deterrence.

*The military, intelligence and technological capabilities demonstrated by Israel during the August 2022 war on Palestinian terrorism, have reinforced its role as an effective force-multiplier for the US in a critical region (between Europe-Asia-Africa and the Mediterranean-Red Sea-Indian Ocean-Persian Gulf), which has been an epicenter of anti-US terrorism, drug trafficking and the proliferation of advanced military systems throughout the globe, including Central and South America.

*The August 2022 military clash between Israel and the Iran-supported Palestinian terrorists demonstrated the advantage/necessity of preemptive military initiatives against rogue entities, especially when the diplomatic option fails to advance the cause of peaceful-coexistence, while bolstering the capabilities of the rogue entities.

For instance, the diplomatic option has dominated US policy toward Iran’s Ayatollahs since their ascension to power in February 1979. It has provided a vigorous tailwind to the Ayatollahs anti-US strategy and a robust headwind to all pro-US Arab regimes and to the national security and homeland security of the US.

*Will US policy-makers adhere to their own conventional wisdom or to the track record of their policy? Will they stick by their Western-oriented diplomatic option, or switch to the Middle East-oriented regime-change and military preemption options? While the latter entails some cost, it would be dwarfed by the cost of facing a nuclear Iran!

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Conventional wisdom vs. evidenced-reality

According to the late Prof. John Kenneth Galbraith, “the notion of conventional wisdom… is commonly understood as knowledge that is accepted within a certain community or among the general public…. [They] tend to hold on to opinions and ideas that fit with their established worldviews. Accordingly, conventional wisdom provides an obstacle for the acceptance of new knowledge or novel and original thinking….

“To its adherents, conventional wisdom provides comfortable padding against inconvenient truths and the complexities of reality…. This is a prime manifestation of vested interest. For a vested interest in understanding is more preciously guarded than any other treasure…. Acceptable ideas are disinclined to change….

“In the struggle between what is correct and what is agreeable, conventional wisdom had a tactical advantage…. There are many reasons why people like to hear articulated that which they approve…. It serves the ego: the individual has the satisfaction of knowing that other and more famous people share his conclusions….

“The enemy of conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events [evidence].… The fatal blow to conventional wisdom comes when conventional ideas fail signally to deal with some contingency to which obsolescence has made them palpably inapplicable.… The concept of conventional wisdom accentuated the difference between established truths – fundamentally out-of-touch with contemporary challenges – and new knowledge….”

Yale University’s Prof. Harlan Krumholz adds: “In science, what seems obvious may not be true, and what is accepted as conventional wisdom, may sometimes be based on flawed assumptions.”

State Department’s conventional wisdom challenged

The US State Department’s policy-making has been at odds with Middle East reality (evidence), elevating conventional wisdom (worldview) over the inconvenient truths and frustrating complexities of the jerkily-cyclical Middle Eastern reality.

For example:

*The State Department’s conventional wisdom has been guided by the conviction that the Arab/Muslim Middle East is amenable to noble Western values such as peaceful-coexistence, enhanced standard of living, democracy, human rights, good-faith negotiation, adherence to international law and a multilateral policy (along with the UN, international organizations and Europe, rather than a unilateral US national security action).

However, the harsh, complex, inconvenient and frustrating Middle East reality has rejected these values, sticking to its intrinsic intra-Muslim/Arab 1,400-year-old traits: preeminence of tribal/ethnic – over national – loyalty, deeply-rooted fragmentation (domestically and regionally), violent unpredictability, brutal intolerance, ideology-driven terrorism, despotic/one-bullet regimes (open to sedition and coups), tenuous regimes-policies-accords and anti-Western ideology (culturally, religiously and strategically).

*Foggy Bottom’s conventional wisdom has assumed that the Arab/Muslim Middle East (e.g., Iran’s Ayatollahs) could be induced into peaceful- coexistence and the abandonment of a deeply-rooted religious-ideological vision by substantial economic benefits, despite the Middle East’s 1,400-year-old track record.

Thus, the State Department has underestimated the cardinal role played by history, ethnicity, tribalism, religion, ideology and the 1,400-year-old intrinsic, rogue political culture in the shaping of intra-Arab/Muslim and Arab/Muslim-West relations.

*Contrary to the State Department’s conventional wisdom, Middle East terrorism has not been driven by despair and frustration, but has been driven – since the 7^th century – by historic, religious and fanatic vision.

*Contrary to the State Department’s conventional wisdom, the Middle East considers posture of deterrence and the military option – not the diplomatic option – as the key factor of responsible national security policy. Moreover, the Middle East does not tolerate – and severely punishes – hesitancy, concessions, retreats and appeasement, which it perceives as weakness, whetting the appetite of rogue entities.

*The State Department’s conventional wisdom highlights diplomacy (which has generated a robust tailwind for Iran’s Ayatollahs and headwind for the US), international law, human rights and economic benefits in its attempts to restore the strategic reliability of the US in the eyes of its Arab allies. At the same time, it is eagerly pursuing another accord with Iran’s Ayatollahs and embraces the “Muslim Brotherhood,” which is the largest Sunni terror organization with political, religious and welfare branches.

However, the march-of-events in the Middle East has determined that the restoration of the US’ strategic stature in the eyes of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt and Jordan, on the one hand, and attempting to conclude another accord with Iran’s Ayatollahs and embracing the “Muslim Brotherhood,” on the other hand, constitute a thundering oxymoron.

Moreover, pro-US Arabs question the strategic reliability of the US in view of the US’ adherence to the 43-year-old diplomatic option toward Iran’s Ayatollahs (whom they consider – along with the “Muslim Brotherhood” – to be mortal threats).  In addition, pro-US Arabs are deeply concerned about President Biden’s delisting of the pro-Iranian Yemenite Houthis from the list of terror entities, which intensified the Houthi shelling of Saudi and Emirati civilian targets; the US’ reluctance to punish the Ayatollahs for bombing Saudi, Emirati and US targets in the Persian Gulf region; tolerating the release of frozen Iranian assets in Iraq; the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which is perceived by pro-US Arabs as a retreat; and, the reduction of the US military deployment in the Middle East.

The erosion in the US posture of deterrence has been reflected by the gradual and substantial drift, by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt toward China (which has become the largest trading partner of Persian Gulf states) and Russia, including military contracts and construction of nuclear power plants.

*The State Department’s flawed conventional wisdom was underscored when it welcomed (in 2010/2011) the Arab Tsunami – which is still traumatizing the Arab Street – as an Arab Spring, Facebook and Youth Revolution and a March toward Peace.

*The dramatic gap between Foggy Bottom’s conventional wisdom and Middle Eastern reality was revealed by the State Department’s courting of the pro-Soviet Nasser of Egypt in the 1950s; embracing Iran’s Ayatollahs and facilitating their rise to power in February 1979; considering Saddam Hussein an ally of the US until his 1990 invasion of Kuwait; the 1994-2003 heralding of Arafat as a messenger of peace, deserving the Nobel Prize for peace; the 2011 US-led military offensive against Qaddafi, which transformed Libya into an uncontrollable country, one of the largest platforms of anti-US Islamic terrorism, afflicted by civil wars with the involvement of Russia, Turkey, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, France, Italy, Sudan and Chad; the 2009-2012 courting of Egypt’s anti-US “Muslim Brotherhood,” while stabbing the back of the pro-US Mubarak, which was similar to the embrace of the anti-US Ayatollah Khomeini, while stabbing the back of the pro-US Shah of Iran; and the list goes on.

*All of the US State Department’s Israel-Arab peace proposals have been driven by the Palestinian-centered conventional wisdom. Therefore, these proposals have been systematically frustrated by Middle Eastern reality, which has never perceived the Palestinian issue to be the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict, neither a core cause of Middle East turbulence, nor a crown-jewel of Arab policy-making. While the State Department’s conventional wisdom has been infatuated with Palestinians, the Middle East’s march-of-evidence has made the Palestinians a role-model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism and ingratitude, as well as a 100-year-old terror campaign against the idea of a Jewish State.

Will the US policy-makers for the Middle East learn from past critical mistakes by elevating the Middle East reality – as complex and frustrating as it is – over State Department’s convenient and comfortable conventional wisdom?

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*A major goal of President Biden’s July, 2022 visit to the Middle East – in addition to increasing the Saudi and Emirati oil production – is the restoration of the US stature as a reliable strategic ally of the pro-US Arab regimes, and stop their drift toward Russia and China.

*At the same time, Biden pursues a JCPOA-like agreement with Iran’s Ayatollahs and embraces the Muslim Brotherhood.

*However, the attempt to restore the US’ strategic reliability, while aiming for a JCPOA-like accord with Iran’s Ayatollahs and embracing the Muslim Brotherhood, constitutes a contradiction in terms, since all pro-US Arab regimes view Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood as lethal threats. Moreover, they are convinced that a JCPOA-like accord would bolster (as did the 2015 JCPOA) the Ayatollahs’ regional and global subversion, terrorism, fueling of civil wars, drug trafficking, money laundering and the proliferation of advanced military systems to rogue entities in the Middle East and beyond. They are also frustrated by the State Department’s underestimation of the fanatic vision of the Muslim Brotherhood, and taking lightly its terror network throughout the Middle East and beyond (e.g., India and Thailand).

*Contrary to President Biden and the State Department establishment, the pro-US Arab regimes are fully aware that Iran’s Ayatollahs are not amenable to peaceful coexistence with their Arab Sunni neighbors; neither to abandoning their fanatic, religious, imperialistic vision in return for a financial and diplomatic bonanza; nor to compliance with agreements.  They have concluded that the rogue 43-year-old track record of Iran’s Ayatollahs – since rising to power in February 1979 – is irreconcilable with good-faith negotiation.

*The visit may awaken Biden and Secretary of State Blinken – who have prodded Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt on account of human rights and their involvement in the Iran-fueled civil war in Yemen – to Middle East reality.  The visit may alert them to the fact that the choice facing the US is not between Arab countries, which respect or violate human rights, but between pro-US and anti-US Arab countries, which violate human rights.

*President Biden’s visit will reaffirm the return of the State Department – since January 2021 – to the center stage of US foreign policy-making, as it was until January 2017, notwithstanding Foggy Bottom’s systematic blunders in the Middle East.

*For example, the State Department opposed the Abraham Accords, which were forged in defiance of its (Palestinian-centered) Middle East perspective. Thus, the Abraham Accords were concluded because their architects recognized the secondary role of the Palestinian issue in the Middle East. Therefore, they did not focus on the Palestinian issue, but on Arab national security and economic interests, in the face of lethal Iranian and Muslim Brotherhood threats, and the need to diversify/modernize the economy of the oil-producing countries.

*The Abraham Accords – similar to Israel’s prior peace accords with Egypt and Jordan and consistent with intra-Arab priorities – bypassed the Palestinian issue, and therefore, avoided a Palestinian veto. On the other hand, the State Department establishment has ignored the wide gap between the Arab (supportive) talk and (harsh) walk on the Palestinian issue.  Therefore, it has misconstrued the Palestinian issue as the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict, a core cause of Middle East turbulence and a crown-jewel of Arab policy-makers. Therefore, all State Department Israel-Arab peace proposals have failed, wrecked on the rocks of Middle East reality.

*Hence, the attempt to expand the scope of the Israel-Arab peace process, on the one hand, and the State Department’s preoccupation with the Palestinian issue, on the other hand, constitute a thundering oxymoron.

*When assessing the validity of State Department proposals, which may be submitted during President Biden’s visit, Israel should study additional examples of critical State Department blunders, such as its early embrace of Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat and Bashar Assad, as well as Foggy Bottom’s reference to the eruption of the 2010-2011 turbulence/Tsunami on the Arab Street (which is still raging) as “Youth and Facebook Revolution” and “the Arab Spring.”  In addition, in 1948, the State Department ferociously opposed the establishment of the Jewish State, which it expected to be pro-Soviet, too weak to withstand Arab military offensive, undermining US national security interests and a burden for the US.  In 1981 and 2007 the State Department brutally attempted to stop, and then condemned, Israel’s bombing of Iraq’s and Syria’s nuclear reactors, which spared the US, the Middle East and the world at-large much devastation.

*President Biden may attempt to impose upon Israel a quid-pro-quo – consistent with the State Department’s “Palestine Firsters” – requiring Israeli concessions to the Palestinians, in return for enhanced strategic cooperation with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries (which regard Palestinians as a role model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism and ingratitude).

*President Biden and Secretary Blinken should be reminded that concessions to rogue entities whet their appetite and intensifies terrorism, as documented by the unprecedented waves of Palestinian terrorism following Israel’s dramatic concessions in 1993 (Oslo Accord) and 2005 (disengagement from the Gaza Strip). Furthermore, Egypt (1950s), Syria (1966), Jordan (1970), Lebanon (1970s) and Kuwait (1990) made major civic and financial concessions to the Palestinians, which resulted in Palestinian terrorism against their Arab hosts, including civil wars in Jordan and Lebanon and Palestinian participation in Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

*President Biden will try to convince Israel to concede the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and allow the establishment of a Palestinian state.  President Biden should be advised that based on the Palestinian rogue track record, a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would doom the pro-US Hashemite regime east of the River. It would be replaced by a radical, anti-US regime, triggering an anti-US ripple effect into the Arabian Peninsula, toppling pro-US Arab regimes, transferring the supply of Persian Gulf oil to anti-US entities, and bolstering the geo-strategic stature of Iran’s Ayatollahs, Russia and China at the expense of dire US interests.

Israeli control of the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria deters rogue entities and advances US interests; the proposed Palestinian state would radicalize the region, undermining US interests.

*Israel will be asked to authorize a US Consulate in Jerusalem, acting as the US Embassy to the Palestinian Authority. Such a demand would be in violation of the US 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act, which defines Jerusalem as the undivided and exclusive capital of Israel. It would be interpreted – regionally and globally – as succumbing to Arab/Muslim pressure, thus further eroding the US posture of deterrence.

*When considering President Biden’s demands for Israeli concessions, Israel’s Prime Minister Lapid should study the conduct of previous Israeli Prime Ministers, who fended off US Presidential pressure, experienced a short-term setback in the US-Israel relationship, but gained in long-term US strategic respect for defiance of odds and adherence to a principle-driven stance.

*While expressing much respect to President Biden and Secretary Blinken and their demands, Israeli leaders should realize that the US democracy features Congress as a co-equal, co-determining branch of government, the most authentic representative of the American people, the most powerful legislature in the world, which has the power to both propose and dispose in the areas of foreign and defense policies, and has expressed its deep reservations with regard to US policy on Iran (e.g., Democratic Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Robert Menendez’ February 2022 floor speech). While most US Presidents have pressured Israel, Congress has been a systematic supporter of enhancing the mutually-beneficial US-Israel strategic and commercial cooperation.

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(More on the Iranian threat)

The anti-US strategy of Iran’s Ayatollahs

The Congressional Research Service highlights SOUTHCOM Commander Admiral Kurt Tidd’s statement that “as a state sponsor of terrorism, Iran’s nefarious involvement in the Western Hemisphere is a matter for concern.” The Admiral noted that Iran expanded ties with Latin America.

Moreover, according to the Washington, DC-based Lawfare Institute: “…. U.S. authorities believed that Hezbollah [Iran’s proxy] helped the Sinaloa cartel build smuggling tunnels under the US-Mexican border, drawing on expertise from Hezbollah’s work digging tunnels under the Lebanese-Israeli border [and Hamas’ experience in building tunnels from the Sinai Peninsula to Gaza and from Gaza to Israel, smuggling weaponry and terrorists]…. Hezbollah has been suspected of partnering with Mexican drug cartels such as the Sinaloa cartel, the preeminent drug trafficking organization in that country for much of the 2000s…. Iran’s area of influence is not limited to its region. Over the past decade, it has launched operations, either through Hezbollah or its own agents, around the world—including in Latin America, Eastern Europe, East and South Asia, Western and Central Africa, and within the United States itself….”

*Notwithstanding their soothing diplomatic talk, the violent walk of Iran’s Ayatollahs – since the 1978/79 Islamic Revolution – attests that the worldview of this rogue Shiite regime is not amenable to Western values and institutions such as peaceful-coexistence, democracy and human rights, nor good-faith negotiation.

*Iran’s Ayatollahs have been preoccupied with guns rather than butter, since the February 1979 Islamic Revolution, which transformed Iran from “the American policeman of the Gulf” to the anti-US Islamic Republic of Iran.

*Iran’s Ayatollahs have not been driven by despair and frustration (supposedly triggered by global sanctions and non-recognition as a major regional power), but by their 1,400-year-old fanatic, imperialistic Shiite vision, which transcends the subjugation of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, extending all the way to the American continent.

*Iran’s Ayatollahs are determined to export the Islamic Revolution world-wide, and establish a global entity, ruled by Shiite Islam, vanquishing (peacefully or militarily) the “apostate” and “heretic” Sunni regimes in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan and Egypt, as well as the “infidel” West, and especially the US, “The Great Satan.”

*The attempt to induce moderation by showering the Ayatollahs with diplomatic and financial gestures and concessions ignores the Ayatollahs’ pernicious track record, including the tendency to bite the hand that feeds them (e.g., terrorizing the US as a follow up to President Carter’s 1978/79 critical assistance to the Islamic Revolution). The Western courting of the Ayatollahs is perceived by them as weakness, which whets their rogue appetite.

*Thus, the 2015 Iran nuclear accord (the JCPOA) provided Iran’s Ayatollahs with a diplomatic and financial bonanza, but– as expected – it did not moderate their conduct.  In fact, it was harnessed to bolster their subversive and terroristic ventures, accelerate the development, manufacturing and proliferation of military technologies, and expand the Ayatollahs’ global network of anti-US proxy forces through training, financing and supply of military systems and technologies (e.g., ballistic missiles, predator drones, improvised explosive devices and tunnel construction).

The anti-US global terrorist network of Iran’s Ayatollahs

The Atlantic Council reported: “…. A narcoterrorism conspiracy involves dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), drug cartels in Mexico, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah [Iran’s proxy] …. The Hezbollah crime-terror network moved to Colombia and to the Tri-Border Area between Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina…. Hezbollah’s External Security Organization has co-opted many Lebanese families throughout Central and South America as well as the Caribbean…. It is tied to a vast transnational criminal network that includes an array of businesses in Latin America, laundering illicit funds…. In October 2018, the US Justice Department named Hezbollah alongside three major Mexican cartels and the Central American gang MS-13 as transnational criminal organizations…. A logistical air bridge exists between Caracas, Damascus, and Tehran. Thus, more than 300,000 Venezuelans reside in a city called As-Suwayda in southwestern Syria (“little Venezuela”), many of them dual-nationals. Hezbollah has helped the Maduro regime become the central hub for the convergence of transnational organized crime and international terrorism in the Western Hemisphere, multiplying the logistic and financial benefits for both….  Hezbollah’s influence within, and infiltration of, Lebanese expat communities gives Iran a gateway to grow its footprint in Venezuela….

“Iran has deep-rooted connections in several African nations—through its own agents or those of Hezbollah….  In 2017, the US Justice Department charged two naturalized U.S. citizens, holding Lebanese passports, with providing material support for Hezbollah’s targeting of military installations and airports in New York City….”

The Congressional Research Service (ibid) notes special Iranian operations – including drug trafficking, money laundering, terrorism and intelligence – in the Tri Border Areas (Argentina-Paraguay-Brazil and Chile–Peru–Bolivia), Ecuador, Uruguay, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Mexico, focusing on leftist governments that share the goal of reducing U.S. influence in the region.  In 2012, Iran launched a Spanish-language satellite TV network as part of its ideological, cultural and religious campaign. An Iranian intelligence network was established in Guyana.

According to the State Department Iran Country Report, 2020, the Iranian government continued supporting terrorist plots.  For instance, Albania, Belgium and the Netherlands have either arrested or expelled Iranian government officials implicated in terrorism on their soil.  Iran remains unwilling to bring to justice senior al-Qaeda members residing in the country, allowing them to operate a core facilitation pipeline through Iran since at least 2009, and enabling them to move funds and fighters to South Asia and Syria. In Bahrain, Iran supports and trains local Shia terrorists. In Yemen, Iran has provided weapons and advanced equipment such as unmanned aircraft systems, training, and other support to Houthi militants, who have engaged in attacks against Saudi Arabia and the UAE.  Iran supports various Iraqi Shia terrorist groups, which have targeted US installations, while committing human rights abuses against Sunni civilians.  Iranian forces have directly backed militia operations in Syria with armored vehicles, artillery, and drones.  Iran has supplied Hezbollah in Lebanon with thousands of rockets, missiles, and small arms, advanced weapons systems and technologies, as well as assisting the group in creating infrastructure that would permit it to indigenously produce rockets and missiles to threaten Israel from Lebanon and Syria.  Iran has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in support of Hezbollah and trained thousands of its fighters at camps in Iran.  Hezbollah fighters have been used extensively in Syria to support the Assad regime….”

The bottom line

*The well-documented domestic and external rogue track record of Iran’s Ayatollahs should not take a backseat to speculative assessments of their future track record. Such an error of judgement threatens the survival of all pro-US Arab regimes, and undermines the national security and homeland security of the US.

*The track record of Iran’s Ayatollahs, on the one hand, and the assumption that they are good-faith negotiators constitutes a self-destruct oxymoron.

*When dealing with the rogue Iranian regime, one should not exclude the military option or the regime-change option. Such an exclusion generates a robust tailwind to Iran’s Ayatollahs, while betraying Iran’s oppressed ethnic and religious minorities.

*While there may be substantial cost to a military option, it would be dwarfed by the regional and global cost of a nuclear Iran, including the cost to the US national and homeland security.

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(More on Iran)

Learning from mistakes?

*Ten days before the toppling of the Shah of Iran, President Carter told a conference of world leaders on the Island of Guadeloupe that a Khomeini-led Iran “would not export revolution… and would be interested in buying tractors, not tanks….  On January 11, 1979,  six days before the toppling of the Shah, “the CIA assessed that Khomeini would sit back and let his moderate, Western educated followers run the government….”

*On the eve of the toppling of the Shah, US Ambassador to Iran, William Sullivan, argued that Khomeini and the armed forces were anti-Communist, that “Khomeini would play a Gandhi-like role, and that elections would be likely to produce a pro-Western Islamic republic….”

*Five months before the toppling of the Shah, an August 1978 CIA study concluded that “Iran is not in a revolutionary or even a pre-revolutionary situation.”

*According to Winston Churchill, “all men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes.”

Moreover, making mistakes could be a productive experience, if one avoids repeating them.

*Have US policy-makers learned from past mistakes by avoiding – or repeating – them?

The pre-1978/79 mistaken policy on the Islamic Revolution dealt a devastating blow to Middle East stability, generated a robust tailwind to Islamic terrorism, and severely undermined US national and homeland security.

As a result of this dramatically flawed policy, Persia was transformed from “Iran” to “The Islamic Republic of Iran,” and from “the American policeman of the Gulf” to a global epicenter of anti-Americanism, stretching its rogue presence from Central Asia, through the Middle East and Africa to Latin America, all the way to the US-Mexico border.

*Notwithstanding the mega-billion dollar bonanza of the 2015 nuclear accord, Iran’s Ayatollahs have persisted in perceiving the US as “The Great Satan” and the mega-hurdle on their way to advance their mega-goal: the subordination of Western culture and the entire globe to Islamic Shiite dominance.

Dramatic mistakes of the 1978/79 US policy on Iran

*On November 9, 1978, US Ambassador Sullivan sent his “Thinking the Unthinkable” cable, contending that US interests could be protected in a post-Shah Islamic government. Opposition leaders such as Bazargan would lead a new government, that would depend on the US-oriented Iranian military.  Khomeini would return to Iran in triumph and hold a Gandhi-like position in the political constellation. Iran could still be counted on by the US to fulfill its role as defender of the northern tier.

*The late British Prof. Eli Kedourie, who was a game-changing Middle East historian, exposed fundamental fumbles in US policy on Iran: “US Ambassador Sullivan argued that Khomeini and the armed forces were anti-Communist…. that elections would produce a pro-Western Islamic republic…. In Washington, there was a chorus of academic and official voices singing the praises of Khomeini…. Princeton University’s Richard Falk… [claimed that] Khomeini’s entourage were committed to a struggle against all forms of oppression…and strong belief in minority rights…. Khomeini’s Islamic Republic could be expected to have a doctrine of social justice at its core…flexible at interpreting the Koran…. The Islamic republic will be a stabilizing element geopolitically…. The State Department believed that Khomeini intended to set up a government drawn from moderate secular politicians, with Ayatollah Khomeini remaining in the background as a guiding political and spiritual force…. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Harold Saunders, declared that he did not sense a strong anti-American feeling among the [new] leaders of Iran…. [National Security Advisor] Brzezinski told [the new regime] that the US government is prepared to expand security, economic, political and intelligence relationships…. A profound and systematic misunderstanding of Khomeini and what he stood for….”

US conned by the Ayatollahs’ Taqiyyah

*The BBC Persian Service documented Ayatollah Khomeini’s skillful use of Islamic Taqiyyah, which is a 1,400-year-old act of religious devotion – embraced by Khomeini’s successors – intended to mislead rivals/enemies by concealing one’s belief and intentions through dissimulation.

Khomeini showered the US with empty promises, which satisfied the worldview of US policy-makers, who were eager for Iran to be pacified and embrace Western values and institutions, such as peaceful coexistence, human rights and democracy.

*Khomeini convinced the US national security and foreign policy establishment that they could do business with the Islamic Republic, as expressed by a January 11, 1979 CIA document.

According to the CIA document, Khomeini was expected to let his moderate, Western-educated followers and his second-in-command, the pragmatic, university-educated, English and German-speaking, Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, run the government.

*Moreover, on January 27, 1979 – five days before Khomeini’s landing in Tehran – he sent a message to President Carter, suggesting that if the US were to secure Iran’s military acceptance of Khomeini’s takeover, then he would calm the country, restore stability and protect US interests and US citizens in Iran. The Islamic Republic will not act as the Policeman of the Gulf, will not interfere in the affairs of other countries, and will not export the Islamic Revolution.

*Khomeini stated that he was not opposed to US interests in Iran, and the US would not lose an ally, because he, too, would be a friend of the US.  He preferred dealing with the US, rather than the atheistic, anti-religion Soviets. American presence was necessary to counter the Soviet and British influence. The Islamic Republic will be humanitarian, advancing the cause of peace and tranquility for all mankind…. He pledged not to destroy the pro-US military, and urged the US not to pull its sophisticated weapon systems out of Iran.

*However, on February 15, two weeks following Khomeini’s landing in Tehran, four senior military generals were executed on the rooftop of a high school. And, that was just the beginning of countless executions.

*Downplaying the role of Islam in shaping the vision, culture and policy of the Islamic Republic, US policy-makers were preoccupied with Khomeini’s lack of affinity for the Soviets.

*In January 1980, celebrating the first anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, Khomeini held 63 US hostages, including the US Charge’ d’Affaires, declaring: “America can’t do a damn thing; Iran is going to fight American imperialism worldwide; and we will export the Islamic Revolution to the entire world.”  Instead of the soothing messages to President Carter, Iran’s Ayatollahs have promoted the message of “The Great American Satan.”

Have US policy-makers learned from past mistakes?

According to Tony Blair Institute for Global Change’s Kasra Arabi, a specialist on Iran and Shiite Islam, the fundamentals of Iran’s Islamic Revolution are as valid today as they were in 1979:

“….Western foreign policy towards Iran has consistently overlooked the power of the ideology born in the Islamic Revolution. The totalitarian worldview promotes repressive governance on religious grounds and hostility to the West. It has been a driving force of instability and violence for decades. It has claimed lives not only in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon, but also as far as Bulgaria, Argentina and Thailand….

“Antipathy towards the US has become a greater focal point for the regime under Iran’s incumbent Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, than it was under Khomeini…. A pledge to exporting the 1979 Revolution is enshrined in Iran’s Constitution….

*”Iran’s anti-US stance was not altered by the 2015 nuclear agreement…. [The Ayatollahs] believe in a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West, with the view that Islam is incompatible with Western values…. [According to Iran’s] anti-Americanism, the US is the chief representative of the oppressors, the Great Satan, Islam’s ultimate enemy and the master of injustice that has subjugated the Muslim World…. Since the 2015 agreement was signed, Tehran has become more involved in the region, continuing to support proxy groups. In Syria, Iran spent at least $30bn since 2011, and now spends at least $6bn every year…. Since 1979, revolutionary Shiism has linked Tehran with a network of Shia militia groups in the region, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Hashd al-Shaabi in Iraq, Shia militias in Syria and the Houthis in Yemen.

*”Israel is an illegitimate, oppressive and usurping entity, created in the heartland of the Muslim world to enable the West, in particular the US, to achieve its ‘colonial goals’ throughout the Islamic World….

*”The depiction of a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West, the belief that Islamic governance is the solution to the Muslim world’s problems, and the aim of establishing a universal Islamic order based on the Sharia’ law are espoused by both Shia and Sunni Islamists….

*”Forty years following the Revolution, Iranian leaders still act on these ideas.  Tehran has worked tirelessly to export its Shia’ Islamist ideology, regionally and globally.  Iran and its proxies are driving violence and instability across the Middle East and beyond….

*”Coexistence between dar al-Islam (abode of Islam) and dar al-Harb (abode of the ‘disbelievers’) is impossible. Dar al-Islam is in a permanent state of war, or Jihad, with dar al-Harb. Peace between Muslims and non-Muslims is unattainable [while temporary ceasefires are possible]…. Iran actively encourages all Muslims to rise against their corrupt, pro-Western regimes, particularly aiming at Saudi leaders, to whom Khomeini referred as illegitimate disbelievers, who had usurped the holy mosque of Mecca….”

The bottom line

*Is the systematic track record of Iran’s Ayatollahs consistent with the assumption that they are amenable to good-faith negotiation, peaceful-coexistence and departure from their 1,400-year-old fanatic and imperialistic vision?

*Does the US recognize the well-documented 1979-2022 ruthless Ayatollahs’ reality – including Iran’s Constitution, school curriculum, mosque sermons, mass public event, regional and global subversion and terrorism – which has exposed the futility and the self-destructive practice of waiving the military and regime-change options?

*Do the architects of 2022 US foreign and national security policy avoid – or repeat – the egregious errors of their predecessors from 1978/79?

*Or, are US policy-makers still susceptible to the masterful practice of Taqiyyah by Iran’s Ayatollahs, sacrificing the harsh and frustrating reality on the altar of convenient wishful-thinking?

Is the US still trapped in a policy, which underestimates the critical role played by Islam in shaping Middle East culture and geo-strategic relations; a policy which has fueled the “Islamic Revolution,” posing a critical threat to regional and global stability, including US national and homeland security and economy?

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me (at least) twice shame on me?

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1. In 1975, the US disengagement from Vietnam fulfilled the goal of the Viet Cong, thus ending the US-Vietnam conflict.

In 2021, the US disengagement from Afghanistan advances – but does not fulfill – the goal of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and therefore does not end the conflict between the US and Islamic terrorism.

In 1975, the vision and strategic goal of the Viet Cong was limited to the territory of Vietnam, consistent with an eventual peaceful-coexistence and cooperation with the resourceful US.

In 2021, the 14-century-old vision and strategic goal of Islamic terrorism is not limited to the territory of Afghanistan. It is driven by fanatic imperialism, striving to subordinate the “infidel” West – and especially “The Great US Satan” – which is perceived to be the key obstacle on the way to Islamic global domination. Islamic terrorism is determined to establish a global Islamic society, ruled by the Quran and Sharia (“divine law”), which is inconsistent with peaceful-coexistence with the “infidel” US, irrespective of its involvement in Afghanistan. In fact, it requires a decisive war against the US, including terrorism on the US mainland.

In 1975, the US was involved in a Vietnam civil war, faced with the choice of fighting in the Vietnam trenches, or disengage and spare itself a war.

In 2021, the US is fighting against an intrinsic, anti-US Islamic terrorism, faced with the choice of confronting Islamic terrorists in their own trenches (which is costly), or disengaging and gradually shifting the war to the US trenches (which is dramatically costlier).

2. In 2021, US policy-makers are reminded that the Taliban and all rogue regimes are not impressed by – and are not willing to adopt – the Western values of human rights, democracy, international law and peaceful-coexistence.

Moreover, rogue regimes are not impressed by US diplomacy, as they are by effective US counter-terrorism and posture of deterrence.

Islamic terrorists don’t seek popularity in the international community. They seek to intimidate the international community all the way to submission, peacefully or militarily.

3. The US retreat in the face of Islamic terrorism has severely eroded the US posture of deterrence, heating up the volcanic Arab Tsunami (mislabeled as the “Arab Spring”), which has traumatized the Arab Street since 2010. Furthermore, the erosion of the US posture of deterrence has recharged the fierceness of all rogue regimes (e.g., Iran’s Ayatollahs, Muslim Brotherhood affiliates from Pakistan through the Middle East and Northwest Africa, Yemen’s Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority), as well as the megalomaniacal aspirations of Turkey’s Erdogan. Thus, the US retreat has intensified existential threats to every pro-US Arab regime (e.g., Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco).

The US disengagement from Afghanistan, along with its eagerness to reenter the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran’s Ayatollahs, the enhanced ties with the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East and the US, and the US pressure exerts on Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt, may drive these pro-US Arab regimes closer to China and Russia, which are major beneficiaries of the current US policy.

4. The US retreat from Afghanistan has jeopardized the national security of India – a pro-Western bastion of democracy, stability and effective capabilities – which is facing a multitude of threats by internal and external Islamic terrorism, a nuclear Pakistan and China.
5. The severely flawed Afghanistan-oriented assessments made by the US foreign policy and national security establishment were consistent with the systematic gap between State Department conceptions, on the one hand, and Middle East reality, on the other hand.

For example, in 1948, the State Department determined that the newly-born Jewish State would be helpless against a concerted Arab military assault, would be pro-Soviet and undermine US-Arab relations. During the 1950s, the US courted Egyptian President Nasser, who downplayed the lavish US offers, and became an ardent pro-Soviet and anti-US leader. In 1978/79, the US betrayed the pro-US Shah of Iran and embraced the Ayatollah Khomeini, assuming that he was pro-US, driven by human rights and democracy. In 1980-90, the US collaborated with Saddam Hussein, assuming that “the enemy (Iraq) of my enemy (Iran) is my friend,” naively providing a green light for his invasion of Kuwait. During 1993-2000, the US hailed Arafat as a messenger of peace, worthy of the Nobel Prize for Peace and annual US foreign aid. In 2009, the US stabbed in the back pro-US Egyptian President Mubarak and embraced the anti-US Muslim Brotherhood, which constitutes an existential threat to every pro-US Arab regime. Until the eruption of the 2011 Syrian civil war, the State Department considered Bashar Assad a reformer.  In 2011, the US led the NATO offensive against Qaddafi, which transformed Libya into a major platform of global Islamic terrorism and civil wars. In 2015, the US engineered the nuclear accord with Iran’s Ayatollahs, irrespective of their fanatical, repressive, terroristic and megalomaniacal ideology and track record, assuming that Iran’s Ayatollahs were credible partners for negotiations, amenable to peaceful-coexistence with their Arab Sunni neighbors, and renouncing their core ideology.

6. The US and British track record in the Middle East was criticized by London University Prof. Elie Kedourie, who was a game-changing historian of the Middle East: “The very attempts to modernize Middle Eastern society, to make it Western must bring about evils, which may be greater than the benefits…. The Muslim theory of international relations recognizes only two possible situations: war on the ‘infidel’ or his subjugation to the ‘faithful.’ Peace with him de jure is hostility until he recognizes the authority of the Muslim ruler…. The comity of nations, or the sanctity of treaties, the rules of natural justice, or decent respect for the opinions of mankind, are quite alien and largely unintelligible to the Middle East (The Chatham House Version, pp 1-12).”
7. In 2021, Israel would be advised to study US policy in Afghanistan and the US track record in the Middle East, accepting US proposals on the Palestinian issue and the Golan Heights with a grain of salt, subordinating the temptation for peace-in-our-time to hard core Middle East reality.
8. In 2021, in view of the Afghanistan and Gaza experience and the Palestinian track record, Israel should resist the pressure to establish a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), lest it yields a mini-Afghanistan or a mega-Gaza on the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria, which dominate Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and 80% of Israel’s population and infrastructures.
9. In 2021, against the backdrop of a gradual US withdrawal from the geo-strategically critical Middle East, and the intensifying threats to regional stability, Israel stands out as the most effective, reliable and democratic beachhead and force-multiplier for the US, and the most effective “life insurance agent” for all pro-US Arab regimes.

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1. September 11 was the zenith of anti-US Islamic terrorism, which has afflicted the US since the 18^th century. At that time, the Barbary Muslim pirates routinely assaulted US merchant ships, triggering the 1801-1805 US Navy and Marines offensive against the Barbary headquarters in Tripoli.

The following are recent examples of the sustained anti-US Islamic terrorism: three US Navy sailors were murdered in December 2019 by an Islamic terrorist in Pensacola, FL; eight people were murdered in October 2017 by an Islamic terrorist in Lower Manhattan, NY; 49 people were murdered in June 2016 by an Islamic terrorist in Orlando, FL; 14 people were murdered in December 2015 by Islamic terrorists in San Bernardino, CA; 13 US soldiers were murdered in November 2009 by a Muslim terrorist in Ft. Hood, TX; etc.

Thus, Islamic terrorism has haunted the US irrespective of US policy and independent of US-Israel relations: during Presidents Trump and Obama; during President Clinton’s pressure on Israel and embrace of the Palestinians (e.g., 300 people murdered when the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were demolished by two Islamic car bombs in August 1998); seven days following President Reagan’s recognition of the PLO (257 passengers murdered when PanAm-103 was blown up over Scotland in December 1988); despite President Carter’s critical support of Iran’s Ayatollahs’ toppling of the pro-US Shah of Iran (63 US personnel were held hostage for 444 days after Iran’s Ayatollahs seized the US Embassy in Teheran, from November 1979 through January 1981); etc.

2. September 11 underscores the determination of Islamic terror regimes (e.g., Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban, Al Qaeda) to engage the US in their battle to bring the West to submission, irrespective of the US’ intent to disengage from the Middle East. These regimes view a potential US disengagement and isolationism as a symptom of Western battle-fatigue and erosion of posture of deterrence, energizing them to shift the battle gradually away from their own turf to Western turf.
3. September 11 implemented a central theme of the school curriculum of Islamic/Arab regimes (e.g., Iran and the Palestinian Authority), which highlights the 1,400 year old central Islamic precepts of “holy war” (Jihad) and “martyrdom” (Shuhada’) as prime commitments to Islam/Allah, guaranteeing each martyr 72 virgins in paradise.

Western policy-makers, who do not shake hands with hate-mongers in their own society, appease and reward the hate-educating regimes of Iran and the Palestinian Authority, while being aware that education is the most authentic reflection of one’s vision and worldview.

4. September 11 reinforced the fact that Islamic terrorism is not driven by despair, but by a 14-century-old vision of intolerance, supremacy, repression and global imperialism, which considers Islam as the only legitimate religion, divinely-ordained to bring “infidels” – especially the US – to submission, peacefully or militarily.
5. September 11 was a compelling vindication of Prof. Bernard Lewis’ observation: “If the fighters in the war for Islam are fighting for God, it follows that their opponents are fighting against God…. In the classical Islamic view, to which many Muslims are beginning to return, the world is divided into two: the House of Islam… and the House of Unbelief, which it is the duty of Muslims ultimately to bring to Islam…. The struggle between these rival systems has now lasted for some 14 centuries…. America has become the archenemy, the incarnation of evil, the diabolic opponent of all that is good… of Islam….”
6. September 11 was a startling reminder that since the early 7^th century, when Islam was introduced in Mecca, it has employed Jihad-driven offensive (not defensive) military (not peaceful) means to take over the entire Arabian Peninsula, expand throughout the Middle East and Turkey, surge to northwest Africa and Spain and establish itself in parts of Asia and Africa.

Most Arab/Muslim regimes rise/lose power through violence, subversion and terrorism, as recently demonstrated by the civil wars in Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Since the 7^th century, Islam has employed domestic, regional and global violence against “infidels” and mostly against other “believers.”

7. September 11 was a wakeup call for Western democracies, which tend to underestimate the critical weight of the Quran and Sharia (“divine law”) in setting the strategy and tactics (including Taquiyya – diplomatic dissimulation) of many Muslim regimes, such as Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey’s Erdogan, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
8. September 11 alerted the West that concessions to rogue regimes add fuel – not water – to the fire of terrorism.
9. September 11 signaled to Westerners, who are determined to export democracy, human rights and peaceful-coexistence to rogue nations in the Middle East, that Middle East regimes tend to reject such Western norms and institutions. According to Prof. Elie Kedourie, “any such project as bringing democracy to the Arab Middle East [resembles] trying to make water run uphill.”
10. September 11 highlighted the US-Israel strategic and ideological synergy in the face of rogue regimes, which view the US as “The Great Satan” and Israel as “The Small Satan.” Israel is considered a force-multiplier for the US (e.g., counter-terrorism operations and intelligence, battle experience and an effective and democratic outpost), a reliable line of defense for pro-US Arab regimes (e.g., Jordan and Gulf States), and an innovative ally in the co-development of the most advanced military and commercial technologies.

Support Appreciated