|
Trending Topics
|
Source: https://jcfa.org/confronting-jihads-forever-war/
Confronting Jihad's Forever War
(Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) Dr. Dan Diker - The U.S. has confronted seemingly implacable ideological enemies before - and won. The lessons of Hiroshima, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Reagan's Cold War strategy point to a common principle: overwhelming force, credible will, and the imposition of unsustainable costs ultimately prevail. Iran has not surrendered. Its proxies continue to launch missiles and drones. Its parliament invokes jihad. This is the behavior of a regime that does not process war through the same conceptual framework as does the West. The question policymakers must answer is not why Iran keeps fighting - but what kind of pressure will finally make continued fighting more costly than stopping. One of the most consequential failures of Western strategic analysis has been treating the Islamic Republic's rhetoric as theater. It is not. Its leadership has articulated - with remarkable consistency across four decades - a vision of global, divinely ordained, open-ended struggle against Western civilization. Since 1979, Iran's Islamic Republic has called for "Death to America" and "Death to Israel." The Karbala Paradigm functions as the Islamic Republic's operational code for conflict. In 680 CE, Imam Hussein ibn Ali - grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and the third Shiite Imam - rode with 72 followers into the plains of Karbala. He was surrounded by a vastly superior Umayyad army. He was offered a choice: submit to the Caliph Yazid, or die. He chose death. His followers were massacred. For Shiite Islam, this was the foundational moral event of the faith - proof that righteous resistance is sacred even when it leads to annihilation. Any signal that Washington will negotiate the terms of Iran's nuclear program or proxy network - rather than their elimination - will be read as confirmation that the forever war is working. Yet, America does not want a forever war. Neither do Israel, the Gulf states, or the broader community of nations. The theology of jihad is formidable. The martyrdom culture of Karbala is real. But it is not more formidable than American resolve has proven to be. The Islamic Republic has built its resistance strategy on the assumption that the West lacks the strategic patience and political will to sustain pressure long enough to defeat the regime. Now there is a narrow window to prosecute a historic change. We need to make clear - through action, not rhetoric - that the forever war will end Iran's revolution before it ends ours. The Islamic Republic's leadership has told us explicitly what they intend. The only remaining question is whether the U.S., Israel, and the West have the moral and strategic will to confront this messianic jihadi phenomenon and to defeat it. The writer is President of the Jerusalem Center.