To defeat Islamist terror, it’s time to change the rules
Is it possible for America to defeat its Islamist enemies like the Iranian terror regime when they resort to asymmetrical warfare? And does U.S. President Donald Trump truly understand that diplomacy will never convince Tehran and its terrorist proxies to give up their war on the West?
Those are the questions posed by JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin about whether the United States will resume efforts to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons and spreading terror around the world.
He is joined in this week’s episode of “Think Twice” by Jonathan Schanzer, the executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. According to Schanzer, the “rules-based international order” created in the aftermath of World War II” appear to be “binding the hands of the United States” and preventing it from conclusively defeating enemies like Iran. The answer, he says, is that, “if our hands are tied, we’re the stronger power, and we have justice on our side, but yet cannot take the action that is necessary to win based on rules that we created,” that’s a problem. “It may be time to revise them,” he concludes.
He argues that the efforts of Trump’s envoys and advisers, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, backed by Vice President JD Vance, to get Iran to agree to give up its nuclear program or to persuade Hamas and Hezbollah to lay down their arms in Gaza and Lebanon are “not feasible.” They can’t be won over by diplomacy, something that was proved by the failures of the Obama and Biden administrations. Instead, they can be defeated.
What Trump needs, says Schanzer, is a “new strategy” to offset the advantages Iran has gained as a result of the rise in oil prices and a shortage of American munitions.
The stakes in this conflict, Schanzer asserts, are enormous. If Iran is defeated, it will help facilitate the creation of IMEC—an Indian-Middle East energy corridor—that will connect the subcontinent to Europe via moderate Arab nations and Israel to transform the international situation for the better. The alternative would be the advance of the so-called STEP alliance of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan, which will be an Islamist obstacle to regional stability, American influence and normalization of relations between the Arab and Muslim world with Israel.
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In a JNS "Think Twice" episode, Jonathan Tobin and Jonathan Schanzer discussed the U.S.'s approach to Islamist terror, particularly from Iran. Schanzer, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, argued that the post-World War II "rules-based international order" is "binding the hands of the United States" and hindering its ability to defeat adversaries like Iran. He suggested it "may be time to revise them" as diplomacy has proven ineffective against groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. Schanzer advocated for a "new strategy" to counter Iran's advantages, emphasizing that defeating Iran could facilitate an Indian-Middle East energy corridor (IMEC), transforming the international situation positively. Conversely, the rise of an Islamist STEP alliance (Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan) would impede regional stability and U.S. influence.
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