Part 1 Hidden interests in the Middle East
It is no coincidence that the Middle East was the cradle of civilization, for here the spheres of influence of three continents overlap.
This civilization gave rise to agriculture, urban cultures, and technological progress. The flip side was intensified rivalry among people. In the struggles for territory, two highly problematic phenomena historically prevailed: autocratic rule and brutal militarism.
Autocratic power, not controlled by ordinary citizens, tends toward escalation and the use of violent means. Accordingly, history has been marked by non-solidary rulers who sent their subjects to war to expand their spheres of influence.
Autocracy not only has its roots in the Middle East, but it has also intensified there to this day, particularly affecting the mentality of those in power. Discrepancies between political facade and reality are now commonplace worldwide, for example, between feigned willingness to negotiate and actual rejection of any amicable solution. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full
The discrepancy between feigned solidarity and the actual use of "friends" as tools is also universally prevalent. This latter phenomenon regularly occurs in strategic alliances between ideological rivals against a common enemy.
However, the Middle East conflict has brought about an escalation to all these "normal" insincerities. This escalation has its psychological roots in the millennia-old practice of sacrificing soldiers in the power struggles of autocrats. Now, civilians are being sacrificed—also in the interest of expanding power.
Although the mechanism demonstrably functions efficiently, the mainstream media remain blind, and with them, the eyes of Western citizens. This concerns an engine of Islamization, fueled by the suffering of Muslims in wars and civil wars. This suffering, firstly, sets refugee flows in motion and, secondly, triggers a willingness in European countries to accept these people.
Of course, terrorists and Islamists can only discuss the use of this mechanism as a deliberate strategy within their trusted circles, because it only works when there is widespread ignorance. https://www.frieden-freiheit-fairness.com/blog/was-hamas-fuehrer-tatsaechlich-wollen-mit-ihren-eigenen-worten-teil-2
The actual functioning of the engine of Islamization leads to the insight that the acceptance of Muslim refugees in Western countries has, on the whole, the opposite effect of alleviating violence and hardship. This willingness to help tempts unscrupulous terrorists and jihadists to provoke such violence against Muslims. Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar proved this with the massacre he planned for October 7, 2023. After Israel had done the Islamists a huge favor with the supposedly deterrent, but militarily largely pointless, destruction of Gaza, he wrote to his accomplices in Qatar in 2024, "We have Israel right where we want them."
The Tehran rulers exhibit the same irresponsible mindset. From a rational Iranian perspective, the attacks carried out against neighbor states since the beginning of the war on February 28, 2026, are suicidal. But since 1979, the country's leadership has consisted of an autocratic circle of Islamists who recklessly sacrifice the well-being of their own population to the global spread and radicalization of Islam. These fanatics cannot, therefore, be threatened with destruction that would cause suffering for civilians.
Saudi Arabia, in the present war was only moderately attacked, supported terrorism until 2001. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-real-largest-state-sponsor-of-terrorism
Since then, the government has been striving to put this past behind it.
Despite outward friendship, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait are merely strategic allies for the West, with limited ideological common ground. Qatar even supports the Muslim Brotherhood in its efforts to spread radical Islam in the West. The United Arab Emirates is the only country in the region that explicitly opposes the Brotherhood and instead advocates a moderate form of Islam. This ideological compatibility with the West explains why the UAE, as the actual enemy of the Islamist regime in Tehran, has suffered by far the most severe Iranian attacks.
A protracted war would very likely involve Turkey. It is the only military power in the region capable of a successful ground invasion of Iran. This involvement would introduce new interests into play. Despite Erdogan's professed affinity for Islamists, Turkish politics has been guided for roughly 100 years by the ironclad principle of Kemalism that the nation takes precedence over the Islamic religion. For the Turkish nation, this means its interests are protected, while those of the Iranian nation are sacrificed to the regime's Islamist ideology.
The deceptive facades of the predominantly autocratic governments in the Middle East give people in the democratic West no reason for arrogance. After all, the entire series of highly counterproductive military interventions from Vietnam to Afghanistan after the two world wars would not have occurred if Western nations had been authentically represented democratically by their politicians. Militarism is inherent to autocracy, not democracy.
Now, in the Iran-Iraq War, it is high time to learn from these past mistakes and not continue down two equally suicidal paths. One, more commonly advocated by the left, is that of a half-hearted appeasement towards Islamists. The other one is a harsh military intervention that inflicts suffering on civilians and plays right into the hands of these same Islamists who use these victims for their propaganda.
A strategy for success is based neither on maximizing violence nor on fearful appeasement, but on an ideological pressure against Islamism and specifically the Tehran regime. More on this in the next part of the article (coming soon).
A CORDIAL REQUEST: This article should be forwarded quickly. This way, it can reach American and Israeli politicians, directly or indirectly, who are on the verge of making extremely far-reaching strategic errors.