How fitting that the US and Israel finally retaliated against 47 years of aggression by the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran during the week of the Biblical Purim Festival.
Then, roughly 2,300 years ago, Haman, viceroy to Persia's King Ahasuerus, threw a lot ("pur", plural "purim") to determine the date by which he would kill all the Jews in the empire. This plan's successor sits (or sat) in Tehran's Palestine Square: a "doomsday clock" counting down the minutes until Israel is supposed no longer to exist: 2040, to be exact.
Iran's current regime began its bellicosity in November 1979 with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's vows of "Death to America," then kidnapping and holding hostage 53 US Embassy personnel in Tehran for 444 days, until the inauguration of US President Ronald Reagan in 1981 appears to have frightened them off. The hostages were immediately released.
Iran's regime then proceeded to target in earnest not only the US ("The Great Satan"), but also Israel ("The Little Satan"), Latin America, Europe and its own Sunni neighbors (such as here and here) in the Gulf.
This week, the United States under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump and Israel under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, finally took decisive action against an enemy of civilization while the rest of the West, its supposed safekeepers, instead of supporting those countries fighting on their behalf to preserve civilization, continue working to undermine them.
Civilization, authors James Hankins and Allen Guelzo contend, is not only an environment, locale, or setting, but a social construct where "people may breathe." There, they have space to thrive culturally, to truly live, to enjoy the finer and more pleasant elements of life. There, they might find respite from the daily grind of striving and surviving.
In essence, civilization creates space for people "to erect monuments of art, literature, and thought alongside the everyday need to work, to produce, to exchange." Such opportunity enables humans to mature as cultural, creative, and social animals for "the human spirit cannot be captured simply by the way we earn bread or avoid massacre; there is a natural yearning after order, after beauty, after truth."
Oswald Spengler (1880-1936) clarified this ideal when he wrote, "A civilization is judged not by its material wealth, but by its spiritual and cultural achievements."
The greatness of Western civilization was primarily founded on a composite of Judeo-Christian religious values, Greek philosophy and political theory, and Roman jurisprudence, all providing definitive moral guidance. This is not to overlook the deep influence of other events such as Europe's Reformation, Renaissance and Enlightenment, together with various revolutions such as Britain's 17th century "glorious revolution" and America's 18th century one.
This is the noble civilization that, through its principles, has led much of the world into prosperity, democracy, individual liberty, equal justice under the law, freedom of expression and human rights.
The geopolitical nations commonly accepted as exemplifying the Western world include those of the Anglosphere and most nations of Western Europe that adhere to a rules-based order. Increasingly, certain Central European nations such as Hungary and Poland deserve to be included in any list of the West. This concept is evolving, emphasizing common Judeo-Christian values and a politically open society based on liberal democratic traditions and free market economies. The list increases as more nations, previously regarded as part of Eastern or Central Europe, align themselves on these grounds with major Western powers.
Consequently, in mid-February 2026, when US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Western leaders at the Munich Security Conference, his address was directed at a significant number of nations, not only the UK and those in Western Europe -- hitherto presumed bastions of civilization -- and emphasized the common legacy of all.
According to Srdja Trifkovic:
"Rubio said that after the end of the Cold War, the West had embarked upon a 'dangerous delusion,' thereby weakening its economic, cultural, and political foundations....
"Rubio was particularly outspoken on migration. Opposition to the opening of Western borders to waves of mass migration is not a fringe issue, but a transformative crisis that jeopardizes the survival of Western culture and the future of our peoples. Under President Donald Trump, he said, the U.S. is prepared, if necessary, to pursue renewal on its own. Washington wants to take this path together with Europe, however, because we belong to a shared Western civilization, bound by history, culture, and Christian heritage."
As Vice President J.D. Vance said at the same conference in 2025, and President Trump before him (here, and here) had done before, Rubio encouraged Europe's leaders to change direction dramatically to avoid civilizational collapse.
Trifkovic added:
"In closing, Rubio called on Europe to fundamentally change course. The West is, once again, at a historic turning point. Our decline is not inevitable, but a political choice.
Rubio encouraged Western leaders to stimulate reform, and to strive for revival. In other words, he asked them to together conserve and revive those fine and noble principles that have made Western civilization great.
While his objective was to reassure Europe and Western nations of America's cooperation and commitment to mutual civilizational goals, he studiously avoided focusing on the core issue plaguing the West – that of radical Islamists attempting to overturn core tenets of the existing culture. The probable reason was most likely "political correctness."
Responding to Rubio's speech, officials such as the UK's Prime Minister Keir Starmer and, especially, the European Union's Ursula von der Leyen, touched on the need for Europe to become independent in areas of defense and, further, to maintain its "digital sovereignty."
Similarly, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and other Europeans, according to Australia's ABC News, "made it clear they would stand by their values, including their approach to free speech, climate change and free trade."
Ironically, free speech is under self-imposed threat of termination in their nations, including those located as far from Europe as Australia.
Europe's leaders had already formulated their position on civilization issues prior to Rubio's address. According to Trifkovic:
"Less than 24 hours before Rubio's speech, the European Parliament (EP) voted in favor of a resolution calling for a feminist and transgender-oriented EU foreign policy. MEPs approved a text urging the EU Council to defend the recognition of self-perceived gender identity as an international priority... EP called on the European Commission and the Council to pursue a 'feminist foreign, security, and development policy' that includes a 'gender-transformative vision.' Women's rights and gender equality are described as 'fundamental prerequisites for democracy, social justice, and sustainable development...' A key passage demands the 'full recognition of trans women as women.'"
No distinction was made between birth sex and subjectively claimed identity. Thus were the XX and XY chromosomes, biological science's determinants of binary sex distinction, summarily dismissed.
By so voting, the European Parliament discarded Western civilization's Judeo-Christian mainstay of empirical knowledge (from the Latin scientia, knowledge) while attempting to retain some semblance of its moral-ethical tenets upon which their legal systems were founded.
When Rubio delivered his inclusionary speech, which received a standing ovation, the following day, the European Parliament, and associated personages, appeared already to have made up their minds. They were happy with the current state of affairs, thank you, and did not need America's cultural, political or scientific input; only its guarantee for defense or support for ideological dreamscapes. Their message was obvious: they would not commit to the US's idea of a common Western cultural heritage, nor would they join the US in preventing civilizational decline.
It is difficult to construct a more short-sighted and delusional attitude than that exhibited by Europe's decision-makers. The threats Europe faces are real. Europe's denial is stupefying. The US is, by far, their main supplier of armaments and their sole guarantor against attack by Russia or other aggressive nuclear nations. Secondly, their main export market and largest trading partner is the US; third, the US is the world's leading military and nuclear power and has tens of thousands of troops stationed in Europe as a deterrent. To dismiss the entreaties of the deeply concerned Vance, Rubio, and Trump with disrespect and disdain is almost beyond comprehension, and potentially devastating to the millions of citizens under their watch.
Fixated ideologies, delusional thinking, pandering for votes and a lack of courage are the intersecting reasons for such insanity. Nearly 50 years ago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn delivered a sharp speech, warning that Western leaders exhibited a "decline in courage:"
"A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society. Of course, there are many courageous individuals, but they have no determining influence on public life.
"Political and intellectual bureaucrats show depression, passivity, and perplexity in their actions and in their statements, and even more so in theoretical reflections to explain how realistic, reasonable, as well as intellectually and even morally worn it is to base state policies on weakness and cowardice. And decline in courage is ironically emphasized by occasional explosions of anger and inflexibility on the part of the same bureaucrats when dealing with weak governments and with countries not supported by anyone, or with currents which cannot offer any resistance. But they get tongue-tied and paralyzed when they deal with powerful governments and threatening forces, with aggressors and international terrorists.
"Should one point out that from ancient times declining courage has been considered the beginning of the end?"
Since his speech, the state of affairs in the West has only deteriorated. The current European leaders embody what Solzhenitsyn was talking about. Is it "the beginning of the end" for Europe and Western civilization as we know it? Concerningly, there seem to be few positive developments to indicate otherwise. Those brave souls who do have the courage to speak up are ostracized, imprisoned or overruled.
Apart from ruinous civil wars to remedy the situation, the last hope seems to reside in a few dedicated personalities, mainly in the US -- that last bastion of free speech -- who occasionally appear to view the status quo as in need of a bit of a shake-up. These individuals evidently believe that the values of the West are worth preserving.
Elsewhere, Western civilization endures in a few lonely places, such as Hungary and Poland, as well as the tiny nation of Israel – a courageous country that has spent nearly eight decades fighting – and winning – wars of self-defense, yet continues to be unjustly vilified by almost everyone. These are just some of the brave nations that exemplify, however imperfectly, the reservoir of Judeo-Christian values, the fount of the West. Might anyone else please sign up?
Europe's decision-makers, meanwhile, blissfully carry on, condemning Israel, rebuffing the US, and voting to send their countries into barbarism.
Nils A. Haug is an author and columnist. A Lawyer by profession, he is member of the International Bar Association, the National Association of Scholars, the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. Dr. Haug holds a Ph.D. in Apologetical Theology and is author of 'Politics, Law, and Disorder in the Garden of Eden – the Quest for Identity'; and 'Enemies of the Innocent – Life, Truth, and Meaning in a Dark Age.' His work has been published by First Things Journal, The American Mind, Quadrant, Minding the Campus, Gatestone Institute, National Association of Scholars, Jewish Journal, James Wilson Institute (Anchoring Truths), Jewish News Syndicate, Tribune Juive, Document Danmark, Zwiedzaj Polske, Schlaglicht Israel, and many others.
