America has changed its approach to Iran. Again.
A week ago, U.S. President Donald Trump said he was calling off the biggest military attack since World War II because a deal with Iran was imminent. Now he’s announced “economic D-Day,” with Iran being subjected to “economic warfare and isolation on an unprecedented scale,” and that any country providing any kind of lifeline “will itself face TREMENDOUS economic consequences.”
An economic blockade is indeed a ferocious strategy of war. But it’s nevertheless a desperate move to end the current impasse, which is due to Trump’s obsessive belief in the art of the deal.
This rests on a naivety which presents a fundamental problem when dealing with the Middle East and Islamic world.
Deal-making relies on self-interest. This, however, just doesn’t apply when dealing with apocalyptic and messianic religious fanatics who believe they are doing the work of God himself in destroying Israel and America.
It means not only that Trump fails to grasp the implacable nature of the Shi’ite Iranian regime, and the fact that it views any negotiation merely as an opportunity to regroup and re-weaponize while playing the Americans for suckers. It also means a failure to understand the significance of Iran’s vital strategic allies, the Sunni Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood who sit on a continuum that encompasses al-Qaeda and ISIS.
And that means a failure to grasp the Brotherhood’s strategy for conquering America and the West for Islam, to which the destruction of Israel and the achievement of regional power over the wider Middle East are key steps.
The United States is therefore making a fundamental strategic error going far beyond Iran by embracing those it should be neutralizing.
Earlier this week, Israeli forces conducted an airstrike deep inside northwestern Syria, which reportedly cratered a Syrian airbase.
The reason was Israel’s deep alarm that Turkey intended to establish a military presence at that base. This would have posed a threat to Israel’s vital command of the skies over Syria, which is essential to the defense of northern Israel.
For the Jewish state, both Turkey and Syria are enemies that have now formed a potentially deadly alliance. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was instrumental in Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, coming to power by defeating the forces of former longtime president Bashar Assad.
Now Erdoğan is nudging al-Sharaa, a former member of both al-Qaeda and ISIS, into increasing hostility toward Israel.
At first, al-Sharaa was exploring the possibility of accepting Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights in return for aid and diplomatic respectability. But now, Syria is demanding that Israel vacate the Golan Heights, which are vital for northern Israel’s protection.
And this week, Syrian army soldiers were filmed outside the historic Damascus Citadel chanting: “I am coming for you, Jew … I will make your blood flow in rivers.”
Turkey continues to provide Hamas with financial support and safe haven for its terrorist leaders. Erdoğan also routinely employs anti-Israel rhetoric. In June, he accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “following the path of Hitler,” while Turkey’s interior minister called for the “liberation of Jerusalem.”
The Islamist Erdoğan is a threat not just to Israel but to the West. He wants to assume leadership of the Islamic world through a restored Ottoman empire that substitutes jihadi fundamentalism for the relative secularism of the original.
As the Iranian regime totters, Erdoğan is aiming to replace it as the regional power. With bases already in Qatar, Somalia and northern Iraq, Turkey is steadily replacing the Shi’ite Iranian axis of jihadi conquest by a Sunni Muslim Brotherhood axis of jihadi conquest.
Trump, however, reportedly regards Erdoğan as a friend. One of his weaknesses is that he loves strongman leaders.
So he seems not to fear the alliance between Erdoğan and al-Sharaa because he admires the Syrian ex-jihadi as “tough” and believes his claim to be a reformed character. But the idea that a man who was an al-Qaeda and ISIS fanatic now disavows his divine calling to slaughter Jews, Americans and other infidels was always laughable.
The United States is exhibiting the same naivety or worse over Hamas. It’s absolutely jaw-dropping that Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior aide, met Hamas leaders last weekend in Cairo. His aim was to break the impasse caused by a row between Israel and Hamas over the Board of Peace initiative for a permanent agreement in Gaza.
Once again, American officials have failed to grasp that Islamist terrorists will lie shamelessly and sign ceasefires just to break them.
Instead of understanding that no deal would be worth the paper it was written on, Kushner was sent to Cairo to grovel to a bunch of psychopathic mass murderers. He thus legitimized these enemies of civilization, humiliating America and signaling to Hamas that they have Washington precisely where they want it.
The impasse arose because Hamas is refusing to honor the agreement signed by Israel last October in which the terrorist group would disarm before Israel started to withdraw from Gaza.
But the Board of Peace itself had moved the goalposts over this sequencing when Nickolay Mladenov, a senior board official, said Israeli withdrawal “must move in lockstep” with Palestinian disarmament (from which the board later retreated under Israeli protest).
Its own Gaza Roadmap, published at the start of this month, would not lead to disarmament and the end of Hamas rule. On the contrary, according to an analysis published by MEMRI, it would enable Hamas to retain military capabilities, ensuring that its political infrastructure would survive.
Worse still, by stating that its aim is a credible pathway towards Palestinian self-determination and statehood, the Roadmap cements the appalling message that the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 created a political opening for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Not surprisingly, Hamas sees this as a great achievement, reinforcing its belief that the slaughter of Oct. 7 was a huge step towards the destruction of Israel.
Such duplicity by the Board of Peace is hardly surprising. Since its members include those foes of civilization Qatar and Turkey, alongside two-faced false friends such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, it should more properly be known as the Board of Appeasement.
Meanwhile, the Israelis have sent the White House a list of violations by Hamas. They say the terror group continues to retain and smuggle weapons; rebuild its military infrastructure, recruitment and training; continue with armed activity and intelligence gathering; and prepare and use explosive devices against Israeli troops. This report documented 14 Hamas violations within a single 24-hour period—the overwhelming majority of which were classified as developing threats to Israeli forces.
Not only is the Board of Peace preventing Israel from destroying Hamas and thus ensuring that it can never again pose an Oct. 7-style threat to the Jewish state. It is also negating the crucial task of setting back the Islamist threat to the West.
Although Hamas has been sponsored by Iran, it’s the armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Total defeat of Hamas in Gaza would be a shattering blow to the Brotherhood and its activities throughout the world.
The Brotherhood is the link between Turkey, Syria, Qatar and Hamas. Qatar has been bankrolling American institutions and individuals to insulate it against recognition of its anti-West agenda. Turkey has its thumb on the immigration spigot into Europe, which has already destabilized it and threatens even more social and cultural mayhem.
And the Brotherhood, whose strategy for conquering America through mass immigration and democratic entryism was revealed at the Holy Land terror-financing trial in 2007-08, is enmeshed in an extensive network of mosques and Islamic charities and other institutions throughout America, Britain and Europe.
The war in the Middle East is not distinct from the war of conquest against the West, which is one unified project involving Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. The United States is currently fighting the former without grasping what it’s up against, and not fighting the latter at all.
America needs to wise up, urgently.
