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Source: https://www.ynetnews.com/article/r111v7yfzf
After Afghanistan: A Letter to a Friend in the Gulf
(Ynet News) Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Ephraim Sneh - Today, the world struggles with radical Islam, which aspires to impose its radical interpretation of Islam on all Muslim nations, and in the future, on the entire world. It does not believe in sharing power; it only considers its absolute rule as stability. Therefore, the battle against Islamic extremism cannot end in compromise, but only in a decisive triumph. This requires a forceful struggle, including the use of military force. You and I, both citizens of loyal U.S. allies, are not in a position to preach to the president of the United States where to send his soldiers to fight. However, the American president is no longer in a position to preach values to Middle Eastern rulers such as Egypt's Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi or Saudi Arabia's Mohammad Bin Salman. He who has given up on the war on radical Islam must allow those who still fight it to act as they see fit. Yes, my friend, we remain here in the Middle East, facing violent religious extremism. Pro-Iranian militias are aggressively taking over Iraq and Syria. Yemen has become a missile base for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. And in this region, we must survive. We have nobody to rely on other than ourselves. We together, alongside Egypt and Jordan, create a new balance of power in the Middle East, which grants us security and can provide the young generation across the Middle East with a different future. The writer, a former deputy minister of defense, is chairman of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Strategic Dialogue at Netanya Academic College.