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Its ideology is ruthless but not the least bit mysterious. NR has been documenting it for decades.
I wish I could say I was breaking new ground. But no, it’s a time for relearning the old lessons, for reacquainting ourselves with the eternal truths.
When I started writing for National Review over two decades ago, the nation was under siege by jihadists — sharia-supremacist organizations supported by Iran from afar and organized in the West by the Muslim Brotherhood and its alphabet soup of Islamist societies tentacled across Europe and North America.
Today, everything old is new again. Fortunately, that includes National Review. To defend America’s republican constitutional governance and the Judeo-Christian culture that underpins it is why we are here. Obviously, it’s a calling that never goes out of style. That is why I’m asking you to support us.
The jihad waged against the United States by the apocalyptic Shiite regime in Tehran since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s 1979 revolution has flared into hot warfare.
It is fair to say the Trump administration has stumbled in executing what a 47-year trail of American casualties tells us is a righteous cause in defense of our national security. Despite a withering campaign by our peerless armed forces, American negotiators are on the back foot, and it appears that advances on the battlefield could be given back, and then some, in a diplomatic settlement.
As this is written, the outcome is unclear. What is easy to see, though, is that the government’s missteps lay in failing to heed history’s wisdom.
In a democratic republic, success in military expeditions of any length hinges on public support — on convincing the American people that our vital interests are at real risk. That is why we urged the administration that — whether or not federal law technically required it — it was imperative to make the case in Congress, to seek authorization from the people’s representatives by demonstrating that the objectives of combat were vital and achievable, and that the perils had been thought through carefully.
Moreover, to succeed in battle against an implacable anti-American foe driven by an ideology that is ruthless but not the least bit mysterious, it was crucial to grasp what the jihadist regime believes — to know why, to this day, almost a half century after its opening act of overrunning our embassy and taking American hostages, it unabashedly calls for death to America. To understand that its highest priority is survival and, thus, that it would fight fiercely, using every geopolitical advantage at its disposal to hang on.
That may seem revelatory to some in our government, as it has through decades of administrations of both major political parties. But it is not the least bit surprising to readers of National Review. Throughout modern history’s jihadist challenge to the West, in the Cold War tradition of our founder, William F. Buckley Jr., NR has stood athwart progressive fads — government by statist experts and blame-America-first foreign policy. Peace through strength still requires, will always require, annealing ourselves in the timeless lessons of politics and culture.
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