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Tom Del Beccaro on War & Peace |
They do that, in part, by threatening eternal damnation unless they comply with their cultural edicts. The United States and its culture are their bogeyman. From the beginning, they have railed against American culture.
It wouldn't matter how reasonable we are, how much the United States appeased them or withdrew from the international stage. The facts no more matter to those radical extremists than the facts mattered to Hitler. They will carry on their jihad regardless
A decade ago, while the borders of the Middle East were relatively secure, Iran's ambition to be the dominant power in the Middle East was perhaps best served by obtaining a nuclear weapon. Today, Iran has troops in Iraq, its long-time foe. It has sent troops and aid to support rebels in Yemen allied with Iran.
That's why the deal is great for Iran--and a bad deal for everyone else. An ascendant Iran on the ground in the Middle East threatens all of its neighbors in ways well beyond the threat of a nuclear weapon. Each country will now have to enter a conventional arms race in addition to considering acquiring nuclear weapons.
Today, there is quite a different story. Iraq is a war zone with fungible borders. The same can be said of Yemen and Syria. All three countries may still appear on the map, but full control within their historic borders does not belong to their governments. Of course, we cannot forget that the Islamic State, or ISIS, has militarily created its own state within the region at the expense of some of those other states--and the ISIS state borders also are ill-defined and changing.