Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Con Coughlin • March 25, 2026 at 5:00 am
Several members of Trump's Board of Peace, especially Turkey and Pakistan, have expressed serious concerns about, if not outright hostility to, disarming Hamas, a factor that many believe has resulted in talks on the disarmament of the terror group being put on hold. Mladenov's optimism about persuading Hamas to disarm, however, was not shared by the terrorist organisation itself. A Hamas official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, stated that, while the terrorist group had received a written document, it denounced the initiative as a "take it or leave it" offer. He said Hamas would first wait to see the outcome of the Iran war before responding. Hamas's refusal to provide a clear-cut commitment to meeting the disarmament demand, moreover, comes at a time when it continues to consolidate its hold over Gaza, especially since the start of the Iran war. In an attempt to control Gaza's civilian population, Hamas has been enforcing price controls and managing the distribution of goods arriving from outside the Strip, moves that suggest it has no intention of relinquishing its grip over Gaza. Trump must not abandon his demand that Hamas fully disarm before going forward with his Gaza peace plan.
US President Donald Trump must not abandon his demand that Hamas fully disarm before going forward with his Gaza peace plan. Pictured: Hamas terrorists in Gaza City on November 2, 2025. (Photo by Omar Al-Qataa/AFP via Getty Images)
US President Donald Trump's ambitious plan to bring lasting peace to Gaza risks being completely ruined after suggestions that members of his Board of Peace are not fully committed to disarming Hamas terrorists, a key requirement of the Trump administration's peace plan. Prior to the war in Iran, Trump made disarming Hamas his top priority as he sought to implement his ambitious 20-point peace plan for Gaza's reconstruction. As the president wrote on his Truth Social platform in January in response to Hamas's continuing prevarication over the disarmament demands, "they can do this the easy way, or the hard way." Since then, the Trump administration's focus on disarming Hamas appears to have taken a back seat as the American leader has become preoccupied by the challenges of the war in Iran since launching Operation Epic Fury on February 28.
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by Ahmed Charai • March 25, 2026 at 4:30 am
On October 7, Israel was not merely attacked. It was meant to be broken. Israel did not collapse. It stood up. It buried its dead, fought for its hostages, and absorbed a shock that would have shattered many nations. Israel also understood something essential: if October 7 was to remain a horror rather than become a model, it was not enough to strike only the hand that carried out the massacre. The source had to be confronted. Recklessness would have been to let Tehran continue believing that it could arm militias, terrorize its neighbors, destabilize capitals, and remain beyond consequence. For too long, Iran's rulers had assumed that democracies would hesitate forever and confuse fear with prudence. Courage is the willingness to act when the cost of inaction has become greater than the risk of action. The Abraham Accords were never just a diplomatic ceremony. They were a strategic and civilizational choice: a decision in favor of modernity, sovereignty, development, and peace against a regional order built on militias, intimidation, and permanent war. This conflict did not change that choice. It tested it—and it held. That may be one of the most important political facts emerging from this war. Netanyahu... did not choose comfort. He chose responsibility. And Trump, whatever one may think of him on other issues, grasped something many others did not: there are moments when deterrence cannot be restored by speeches, conferences, or carefully worded illusions. It must be restored by force. That is not recklessness. That is leadership.
The decision by Prime Minister Netanyahu, together with President Donald Trump, to confront Iran was not recklessness. It was courage. Pictured: U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a press conference on December 29, 2025 in Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
On October 7, Israel was not merely attacked. It was meant to be broken. The massacre was designed not only to kill innocents but also to deliver a message: that terror could humiliate Israel, traumatize it, isolate it, and force it into retreat. In the hours and days that followed, amid scenes of slaughter, kidnapping, and national grief, one could hear an old fantasy returning. Many voices, openly or quietly, suggested that the massacre was the beginning of the end of Israel. They were mistaken. Israel did not collapse. It stood up. It buried its dead, fought for its hostages, and absorbed a shock that would have shattered many nations. But Israel also understood something essential: if October 7 was to remain a horror rather than become a model, it was not enough to strike only the hand that carried out the massacre. The source had to be confronted.
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by Lawrence Kadish • March 25, 2026 at 4:00 am
Quantum computers are capable of solving problems of staggering complexity, such as cures for intractable diseases. These quantum systems, however, demand an extraordinary amount of energy. Pictured: The IBM Quantum System Two computer, at the IBM-Euskadi Quantum Computational Center in San Sebastian, Spain on October 14, 2025. (Photo by Ander Gillenea/AFP via Getty Images)
That cure for cancer or Alzheimer's? Without the needed power to run the quantum computers that could finally solve those plagues, you can forget about it. What about an unbreachable anti-missile defense shield to protect our nation? Not without applying the enormous power of quantum computing. From history-making advances in astrophysics to microbiology, quantum computing is the technology that can unlock an unimaginable future. Yet, except for the Chinese, few recognize how its enormous power can dictate who will be the next global superpower. While artificial intelligence (AI) and data centers with their massive demand for energy dominate our attention, quantum computing urgently needs to become an American priority. The new technology is going to demand more electricity than anything we can imagine.
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by Gordon G. Chang • March 24, 2026 at 5:00 am
Friends of Havana blame the U.S., but the Trump administration had to act before China turned the island into a military bastion. Declassified intelligence showed that Chinese signals-intelligence collection facilities had been operating in Cuba since at least 2019. "China and Cuba are negotiating to establish a new joint military training facility on the island, sparking alarm in Washington that it could lead to the stationing of Chinese troops and other security and intelligence operations just 100 miles off Florida's coast." — The Wall Street Journal, June 20, 2023. President Donald Trump acted before the Chinese could base missiles in Cuba.
"China and Cuba are negotiating to establish a new joint military training facility on the island," reported the Wall Street Journal in 2023. So, whatever one thinks of the harsh consequences of the U.S. naval embargo, the Havana regime, by allowing the Chinese to have the run of the island, does pose a threat to the United States. Pictured: People wave the flags of Cuba and China as several Chinese Navy vessels enter the port of Havana on November 10, 2015. (Photo by Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images)
Cuban society, due to a U.S. naval embargo, is close to collapse. Friends of Havana blame the U.S., but the Trump administration had to act before China turned the island into a military bastion. America took control of Venezuela's national oil company, PDVSA, after the January 3 raid that resulted in the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife. Then the U.S. stopped the flow of Venezuelan oil to the Cuban regime. At the same time, the Trump administration, by threatening tariffs on oil suppliers, imposed a de facto oil embargo on Havana. The U.S. Navy has deterred vessels from unloading cargo in Cuba.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • March 23, 2026 at 5:00 am
Someone needs to inform Mladenov that Hamas has already made a choice: to reject disarmament. Hamas leaders have instead proposed long-term truces (5-10 years) rather than total decommissioning of arms. Another thing the "Board of Peace" and Mladenov do not seem to understand is that Hamas uses ceasefires with Israel to rebuild, regroup, and restock its arsenal and tunnel networks. To ask Hamas politely to disarm is fantasyland. The notion that the "Board of Peace," no matter how well-intentioned, can persuade Hamas to relinquish its arsenal through dialogue alone ignores decades of evidence to the contrary. The Trump administration seems to have forgotten that Hamas is a terrorist group whose foundational principles and actions are centered on the use of violent Jihad (holy war) and the destruction of Israel. Hamas is aware that it cannot achieve its goal without holding onto its weapons. The dangerous message now being sent is: hold on to your weapons long enough, and the world will come to beg you. Hamas will disarm only when it realizes that the cost of holding onto weapons exceeds the benefits. Hamas will lay down its weapons only when it faces sustained political, economic and, if necessary, military pressure.... For Hamas, weapons are the foundation of its rule, its ideology, and its survival. Asking Hamas to give up its weapons voluntarily is like asking the Republican or Democrat party to vote itself out of existence. Treating disarmament as a voluntary goodwill gesture rather than a non-negotiable prerequisite is unfortunately a non-starter. Disarmament is not a favor Hamas gives; it is a condition that must be enforced to prevent countless more October 7-style massacres against Jews.
Someone needs to inform "Board of Peace" Director-General Nickolay Mladenov that Hamas has already made a choice: to reject disarmament. Another thing the "Board of Peace" and Mladenov do not seem to understand is that Hamas uses ceasefires with Israel to rebuild, regroup, and restock its arsenal and tunnel networks. Pictured: Mladenov speaks at the "Board of Peace" meeting in Davos, Switzerland on January 22, 2026. (Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)
US President Donald J. Trump's "Board of Peace" has reportedly presented Hamas with a written proposal on how it could lay down its weapons, according to a recent report. The proposal "was submitted to Hamas during meetings in Cairo over the past week." The talks were attended by Nickolay Mladenov, the Trump-appointed "Board of Peace" envoy to the Gaza Strip, and Aryeh Lightstone, a US aide to Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff. Mladenov, in a message greeting Muslims on the Eid al-Fitr feast marking the end of Ramadan, later wrote on X:
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by Raymond Ibrahim • March 22, 2026 at 5:00 am
"They had the audacity to tell us that we are poor Christians, and we should be thankful that their son had only sodomized the child, 'not raped her'.... Muslims think that they can commit any crime against us, and no one would dare oppose them." — Father of a 6-year-old girl attacked by her tutor, morningstarnews.org, December 17, 2025, Pakistan. On December 30, a young man of "North African" appearance stabbed a priest multiple times in a busy street in broad daylight. Don Rodrigo Grajales Gaviria, 45, was stabbed from behind while walking in Modena's historic center. — December 30, 2025, Italy. On December 15, the Muslim-led MyLahore Group, led by Ishfaq Farooq, renamed Bradford's Christmas Market, of which it is in charge, to "Winter Market"... "Once again, Christmas is the thing being diluted, renamed, and pushed aside – not because it offends everyone, but because it offends a very specific worldview that refuses to integrate." — X, December 15, 2025, United Kingdom. "A Muslim mass besieges the St. Martin's Cathedral, shouting 'Allahu Akbar.'... This is just the trailer. What do you think will happen when they are in the majority?" — X, December 10, 2025, The Netherlands On December 1, a Sri Lankan national, identified only as "YA," successfully appealed the UK Home Office's rejection of his asylum claim. He had been arrested in connection with the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings — Islamic State-claimed suicide attacks on Christian churches and hotels that killed 269 people, including British nationals. The UK is nevertheless considering granting him asylum. — December 1, 2025, United Kingdom.
On December 30, a young man of "North African" appearance stabbed a priest multiple times in a busy street in broad daylight. Don Rodrigo Grajales Gaviria, 45, was stabbed from behind while walking in the historic center of Modena, Italy. Pictured: Modena Cathedral and Ghirlandina Bell Tower at the Piazza Grande, in the center of Modena. (Photo by iStock/Getty Images)
Muslim Rape of Christians in Pakistan On December 10, in Punjab Province, a Muslim man in his early 20s, Muhammad Uzair Riaz Dogar, "sodomized" a 6-year-old Christian girl during a tutoring session at his home. The victim, daughter of impoverished Salvation Army church member Saleem Masih, had been tutored by the suspect's sister for four months. While the female tutor was away, the brother let all Muslim children leave but forcibly took the Christian girl to another room and assaulted her. She was found crying in pain, clothes blood-soaked; hospital examination confirmed sodomy. The perpetrator was eventually arrested, but his family tried to pressure the family to withdraw charges and settle, making derogatory remarks exploiting their Christian poverty. According to the girl's father:
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by Amir Taheri • March 22, 2026 at 4:00 am
The second scenario is for Trump to refocus on Iran's arsenal of missiles by claiming it has been wiped out, thus enabling him to end the war. However, that would mean becoming hostage to fortune. It would be sufficient for Tehran to fire a ballistic missile or launch an attack drone just days after Trump's declaration of victory to show that the leader of the mightiest power in history has thrown in the towel a bit too soon. The third scenario, favored by some in Trump's kitchen cabinet but absolutely hated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is the Venezuela model: having decapitated the regime, you allow it to squeal and survive under a second tier of leaders. That scenario may not be applicable to Iran for two reasons. First, the Venezuela of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro did not want to wipe Israel off the map and drive the Yankees out of Latin America. Nor did Venezuela have proxies in the American backyard and sleeping terror cells inside the US.
Pictured: Two F/A-18 jets launch from the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean Sea, in support of U.S. military operations in Iran, on March 3, 2026. (Photo by U.S. Navy via Getty Images)
With the war between the Israel-US duo and the Islamic Republic in Iran entering its third week, two questions are asked in policy circles across the world. The first is: how long will it last?
The answer is: how long is a string?
Which means: because no one knows, no speculation is warranted. The second question may be beyond a journalist's bailiwick. As one of my mentors in journalism taught so many decades ago, we had better leave history to historians and guessing the future to futurologists. However, using a dose of sophistry, one might claim that op-eds represent a hybrid form of journalism that allows a measure of exemption from the mentor's rule through pontification. With that admittedly lame excuse, one could imagine five scenarios in which this war might terminate. The first is for President Donald Trump to do what he has done many times: declare victory and move to something else.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • March 21, 2026 at 5:00 am
The critical question is whether we will stop at weakening the Iranian regime or Hamas or move toward ensuring that they can never again recover as long-term threats to their neighbors or global security. At this moment, leaving those regimes in place – the ruling mullahs in Iran or Hamas in Gaza — is probably the most dangerous option. Authoritarian regimes such as Iran's, and terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic State and the Taliban, rarely respond to setbacks by abandoning their ambitions. Instead, they pause, regroup, and rebuild. Russia and China, each with its own anti-American calculations, could provide political cover, technological assistance, and indirect support that would allow Iran to resume its nuclear program. China has already been supplying Iran with "almost everything but troops" during this war, and supplying Russia with military materiel for its war against Ukraine. If Iran's regime and Hamas are allowed to recover, their primary strategic objective will likely become to rearm as quickly as possible, and we will be right back at war again. Stopping halfway through such efforts only allows threats to reemerge dangerously in the future. History will judge whether these two opportunities presented today were seized — or allowed to slip away.
If Iran's regime and Hamas are allowed to recover, their primary strategic objective will likely become to rearm as quickly as possible, and we will be right back at war again. Pictured: Iran's then "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei meets with Hamas leaders Khaled Mashaal (center) and Mussa Abu Marzuk (left) in Tehran on February 1, 2009. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
What has taken place in recent weeks is nothing short of historic. For decades, the Iranian regime and its proxies, including Hamas, have operated with a sense of impunity. For decades, Iran's rulers have expanded their regional influence, armed their proxy militias, threatened their neighbors, and steadily advanced their weapons or mass destruction programs. While various countries imposed sanctions and Israel and the United States occasionally conducted limited military responses, no large-scale effort was ever undertaken to fundamentally weaken the political and military power deep inside Iran. That reality has now changed dramatically. Now, for the first time, both the Iranian regime and Hamas have experienced direct and sustained military campaigns at a scale they had long assumed would never occur.
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by Robert Williams • March 20, 2026 at 11:00 am
In a region too often dominated by arsonists, the United Arab Emirates stands for something rarer and far more valuable: order, courage, legitimacy, and the conviction that peace is not weakness, but strength.
In a region too often dominated by arsonists, the United Arab Emirates stands for something rarer and far more valuable: order, courage, legitimacy, and the conviction that peace is not weakness, but strength. Pictured: The city skyline is pictured in Dubai on March 11, 2026.(Photo by Giuseppe Cacace/ AFP via Getty Images)
At a time when much of the Middle East remains trapped between revolutionary slogans and recurring violence, the United Arab Emirates has chosen a different path: order over chaos, statehood over militias, modernity over ideological ruin. For years, the UAE has worked to build a future-focused nation anchored in innovation, economic dynamism, strategic openness, and institutional strength. It has sought to project the image — and the reality — of an Arab state confident enough to embrace progress, invest in peace, and defend stability. That is precisely why Iran and its proxies find the UAE so intolerable.
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by Uzay Bulut • March 20, 2026 at 5:00 am
Pakistan, included by US President Donald J. Trump in his "Board of Peace" for the Gaza Strip, nevertheless continues to be one of the most dangerous countries for Christians and other non-Muslims. International watchdog organizations continue to rank Pakistan among the most difficult countries for Christians. "The year 2025 was marked by a deepening crisis for religious minorities in Pakistan, characterized by entrenched legal discrimination, rising mob violence, and a climate of near-total impunity for perpetrators." — 2025 report by "Voice of Pakistan Minority." The same day Masih was murdered, United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) thankfully issued its 2026 report, in which it urged the US government to redesignate Pakistan as a "Country of Particular Concern" (CPC), under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, over systematic and ongoing violations of religious freedom. USCIRF also called for lifting an existing waiver that exempts Pakistan from penalties available with the designation. In addition, USCIRF calls for targeted sanctions on Pakistani officials and government agencies responsible for severe violations of religious freedom by freezing those individuals' assets and/or barring their entry into the US under human rights-related financial and visa authorities, citing specific religious freedom violations. USCIRF additionally called for holding accountable individuals who incite or participate in vigilante violence, targeted killings, forced conversion, and other religiously based crimes. It noted: "The U.S. Congress should incorporate religious freedom concerns into its larger oversight of the U.S.-Pakistan bilateral relationship through hearings, letters, resolutions, and congressional delegations and advocate for the release of FoRB [Freedom of Religion or Belief] prisoners in Pakistan." Pakistan would seem hardly the most helpful member for any real "Board of Peace."
In March 2025, Zohaib Iftikhar, a Muslim, slit the throat of his coworker, Waqas Masih, a 22-year-old Christian, after accusing him of committing blasphemy by touching an Islamic textbook with "unclean hands." Pictured: Thousands of people at a rally in Karachi, demanding the execution of Asia Bibi, on November 21, 2018. Bibi, a Christian woman, spent 8 years on death row because of a false accusation of blasphemy, before being released and exiled. (Photo by Asif Hassan/AFP via Getty Images)
Pakistan, included by US President Donald J. Trump in his "Board of Peace" for the Gaza Strip, nevertheless continues to be one of the most dangerous countries for Christians and other non-Muslims. International watchdog organizations continue to rank Pakistan among the most difficult countries for Christians. On Open Doors' 2026 World Watch List, which assesses persecution faced by Christians worldwide, Pakistan again ranks eighth. The report cited systemic discrimination, mob violence, forced conversions, bonded labor, and gender-based abuses, noting that perpetrators often act with impunity. According to a 2025 report by the organization "Voice of Pakistan Minority": "The year 2025 was marked by a deepening crisis for religious minorities in Pakistan, characterized by entrenched legal discrimination, rising mob violence, and a climate of near-total impunity for perpetrators.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • March 19, 2026 at 5:00 am
Engagement clearly signals to terrorists that violence is an effective path to power, land, and international recognition. Hamas is a group that is explicitly and fundamentally committed, in both ideology and practice, to "armed resistance" (terrorism). Hamas is not some misunderstood political faction waiting to be coaxed into moderation. It advocates jihad (holy war) as an "individual duty [of all Muslims] for the liberation of Palestine." Article 13 of the Hamas charter says: "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors." [T]here is no evidence that the terror group intends to fundamentally alter its long-term goals. Talking to Hamas now, without its first adhering to Trump's preconditions, marks a sharp and potentially confusing policy reversal that weakens US credibility globally. Across the region, the Iranian regime and its terror proxies are watching closely. The lesson for them will unmistakably be: hold out, escalate, and eventually the world's most powerful democracy will come to deliver victory to you. Engaging Hamas as if it were a normal governing authority will only demonstrate to other terrorist groups that terrorism works. Launching direct talks with Hamas or other Islamist terror groups absent any fundamental change in their positions is not diplomacy. It is capitulation and surrender dressed up as "realism." Above all, direct engagement of Hamas is a concession to the jihadis, who believe Muslims are in an eternal confrontation with the enemies of Islam and must overthrow secular regimes to restore a "pure" Islamic state.
Hamas is not some misunderstood political faction waiting to be coaxed into moderation. It advocates jihad (holy war) as an "individual duty [of all Muslims] for the liberation of Palestine." Pictured: Hamas terrorists in Jabalia refugee camp, in the Gaza Strip, on December 1, 2025. (Photo by Omar Al-Qataa/AFP via Getty Images)
Envoys from U.S. President Donald J. Trump's "Board of Peace" recently met representatives of Hamas in the Egyptian capital of Cairo in an effort to safeguard the Gaza ceasefire, Reuters reported on March 16. "The weekend meeting is the first publicly reported since the start of the Iran war between the Palestinian militant group and the board, a new international body personally headed by Trump, which has been tasked with overseeing post-war Gaza.... "One of the sources says Trump's board was represented at the talks with Hamas by Aryeh Lightstone, an American aide to Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff.... Further meetings were expected this week. "
The Trump administration is making a huge mistake by engaging an Islamist terror group.
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by Ahmed Charai • March 19, 2026 at 4:30 am
[CIA Director John] Ratcliffe projected command, seriousness, and strategic clarity. He spoke like a man who understands intelligence not simply as the collection of information, but as the fuel of statecraft. He reaffirmed the administration's rationale for striking Iran, saying that Iran posed a "constant threat to the United States for an extended period of time, and posed an immediate threat at this time." Tulsi Gabbard, by contrast, appeared less at ease in a role that demands steadiness, clarity, and discipline. For years, Tehran has built and expanded an arsenal of ballistic missiles and drones while cultivating a network of coercion that has threatened not only Israel, but also Gulf states such as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain—countries that chose peace, modernization, and partnership with Israel and the United States. To suggest that America had no obligation to stand with such partners against a regime built on intimidation, blackmail, and ideological expansionism would constitute a shocking abdication. Regimes of this kind [Iran] do not become less dangerous because democracies grow tired of confronting them. On the contrary, in Tehran, democratic fatigue is interpreted as permission. Here, the Abraham Accords offer a strategic approach. They showed that the Middle East need not be organized around permanent grievances, but can be reorganized around commerce, technology, security cooperation, and mutual recognition. Jared Kushner deserves recognition for the role he played in helping bring those accords into being and in working afterward to deepen their promise. Their deeper lesson was not merely that old enemies can sign documents. It was that the future can be built around incentives more powerful than hatred. In the end, the choice was never between war and perfect peace. It was between confronting a regime that had spent decades arming proxies, tightening a ring of fire around Israel, terrorizing America's Arab partners, and extending its reach toward the world's most sensitive maritime corridors—or waiting until that architecture of aggression became even harder, bloodier, and costlier to dismantle. History is rarely kind to powers that confuse delay with prudence. If this moment is to mean anything, it must mean more than having checked Tehran's advance. It must mark the beginning of a different regional horizon: one in which Israel can live in security, Arab states can deepen stability and prosperity, and the Iranian people can finally reclaim a future stolen from them by a regime that made regional chaos its grand strategy.
Pictured: A Fattah ballistic missile is displayed during a military parade in Tehran, on September 22, 2023. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
Yesterday's Senate Intelligence Committee's Worldwide Threats demonstrated that in an age of deep polarization and mounting international disorder, the public questioning of intelligence leaders before elected representatives is one of democracy's highest disciplines. Those in power must explain their actions before the nation. Specifically, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified before the Senate committee on the Trump administration's decision to launch strikes on Iran on February 28. Their testimonies mattered not because they satisfied partisan ritual, but because they defined to the public how they assess the threats gathering against the United States, its allies, and the strategic order America sustains.
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by Lawrence Kadish • March 19, 2026 at 4:00 am
Pictured: US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on March 16, 2026. (Photo by Annabelle Gordon/AFP via Getty Images)
Israel has for decades understood what the American public is just beginning to appreciate: Iran has been at war with our democracy for nearly half a century. President Donald J. Trump has long recognized the threat, along with the grim reality that Iran's ayatollahs and their Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have been zealously committed to deploying nuclear weapons that would jeopardize more than the Middle East. Their chants of "Death to America," were not just meant to inflame their citizens but to transmit their strategic intent: truly "Death to America." Without a declaration of war, the Iranian clerics have directed the murder of American servicemen, the assassination of opponents anywhere in the world, funded sleeper cells, and created a ring of terrorist organizations whose mission remains to drive Israelis into the sea. The outrage of October 7, 2023 was just meant to be their curtain-opener.
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by Nils A. Haug • March 18, 2026 at 5:00 am
Erdogan, from his comments, seems to consider himself the rightful leader of the entire Muslim world. In the interim, he evidently sees himself as "the Middle East's next great power broker, claiming leadership while chaos reigns." Now, just as Israel is overcoming its primary enemy, the Iranian regime, which seeks to wipe Israel off the map and then establish a Caliphate under Sharia law in the region -- along comes yet another Muslim extremist of a similar kind, Turkey's Erdogan. In March 2025, Erdogan doubled down on his anti-Israel rhetoric: "[I]n Turkey's largest mosque, he reportedly told a crowd of worshippers: 'May Allah, for the sake of his name, Al-Qahhar'—the Vanquisher—'destroy and devastate Israel.'" Turkey, it seems, will become Iran's successor in continuing venomous anti-Israel threats in the Muslim sphere, with "Death to Israel" voiced even in the Turkish parliament. Perhaps only when Turkey's leader openly declares, "Death to America" will the US realize that the Islamist monster it has naively supported has simply been stringing the West along.
Now, just as Israel is overcoming its primary enemy, the Iranian regime, which seeks to wipe Israel off the map and then establish a Caliphate under Sharia law in the region -- along comes yet another Muslim extremist of a similar kind, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Pictured: Erdogan meets with Iran's then Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, on September 7, 2018. (Photo by the Office of the Supreme Leader of Iran)
Tehran's infamous "doomsday clock" was designed to count down to the annihilation of Israel in the year 2040. Instead, it appears finally to have ceased operating at the 2026 mark, along with many leaders of Iran's extremist Islamic regime. The irony of Iran's rout by its two most-hated enemies -- the "Great Satan" United States and the "Little Satan" Israel -- must be seismic in Iran's major centers, where much of the civilian population openly celebrates, not the end of Israel as intended by Shia clerics, but, instead, the hoped-for final days of an apparently much-hated regime. Israel long sought to destroy the clock's prominence in Tehran's Palestine Square, and has now succeeded in eliminating most of Iran's military and propaganda infrastructure.
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by Pierre Rehov • March 17, 2026 at 5:00 am
Unlike Venezuela's military elite, whose loyalty ultimately depends on financial incentives, Iran's security apparatus has always viewed itself as the armed guardian of a sacred Islamic revolutionary mission. Iran, however, represents a fundamentally different political organism. Confusing the two systems could produce disastrous strategic errors. The Islamic Republic of Iran is not merely an authoritarian government cloaked in ideological language; it is an ideological state whose institutional architecture was deliberately constructed to preserve and expand a revolutionary doctrine. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commands roughly 190,000 personnel plus hundreds of thousands of reservists, controls vast business conglomerates spanning construction, energy and telecommunications, and oversees the Basij militia, a mass organization whose membership has been estimated in the millions and whose purpose is to violently enforce ideological conformity and suppress dissent. This resilience is characteristic of ideological regimes whose institutional design ensures survival beyond any single leader. The Islamic Republic itself endured the death of founding Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, transitioning smoothly to a new leadership structure under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei while preserving the same revolutionary framework. Applying the Venezuelan model to Iran would not merely fail; it would risk creating a dangerous illusion of success while leaving the underlying ideological infrastructure untouched. Some Western analysts have suggested that once sufficient military pressure weakens Tehran, negotiations could be opened with supposedly pragmatic factions inside the regime, allowing elements of the current political structure to remain in place in exchange for concessions on nuclear weapons development and regional aggression. Such thinking misunderstands the nature of ideological systems, which tend to treat compromise not as a strategic transformation but as a temporary tactic designed to preserve the revolution until circumstances change. Leaving the ideological framework of the Islamic Republic intact would therefore resemble leaving a malignant tumor inside the body after surgery: the symptoms might temporarily subside, but the underlying disease would continue to grow until it inevitably returns. The Venezuelan model succeeded because the regime it confronted was fundamentally pragmatic, corrupt and adaptable. Iran's regime is none of those things. The Islamic Republic was designed to survive leadership crises, economic hardship, and external pressure precisely because its institutions are bound together by religious ideology rather than mere patronage. Any strategy that focuses only on removing individual leaders while preserving the ideological machinery that sustains them will ultimately fail. It is naive, however, and self-defeating if the Trump Administration imagines that unarmed civilians -- with no outside assistance -- can realistically prevail against heavily armed, determined state security forces. The wish may be understandable, but even more civilians than the 40,000 already slaughtered are bound to meet the same fate. The Trump Administration needs to direct and help them. If there is eventually an end to the violent suppression from the IRGC and the Basij, the international community should be prepared to support forces capable of building a new political order that is neither Islamist nor communist. Anything less would allow the same ideological machinery to regenerate under a different name, ensuring that the crisis would return once again — and that we will still be fighting essentially the same regime but with different ayatollahs five or ten years from now.
Once Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro disappeared, the country's interim leadership and military elite simply recalculated their interests and began cooperating with Washington to preserve their positions. Unlike Venezuela's military elite, whose loyalty ultimately depends on financial incentives, Iran's security apparatus has always viewed itself as the armed guardian of a sacred Islamic revolutionary mission. Applying the Venezuelan model to Iran would not merely fail; it would risk creating a dangerous illusion of success while leaving the underlying ideological infrastructure untouched. Pictured: Maduro, in US custody, on board the USS Iwo Jima in the Caribbean Sea, on January 3, 2026. (Image source: The White House)
The spectacular American military operation that removed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power earlier this year has inevitably inspired comparisons among strategists searching for solutions to the Iran crisis.
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