Whose Side Are Democrats On? (Hint: It’s Not America’s)

Townhall 

In having conversations with people about the attacks on Iran, I’ve come to the realization that there has been a frustration with our government over Iran that has been festering since 1979. This is particularly pronounced in people who were in high school or just after at that time, as they couldn’t understand how it is that we did so little to rescue the hostages and punish Iran for taking them. All these years later, there is a sense of relief over finally talking about that terrorist regime. That sense of relief, however, only extends to people who aren’t Democrats, who seem rather unhappy about the administering of justice to the evil Islamist regime. It’s enough to make you wonder whose side they’re really on.

The administration of Jimmy Carter scarred the people who remember it more than I ever suspected, as the frustration surrounding the 444 days the American hostages were held in Iran is still a sore spot with a hell of a lot more people than I ever realized. 

Operation Eagle Claw, the failed attempt to rescue those Americans, ended in tragedy and was, as far as anyone knew, the only attempted strike back at the Ayatollah that wasn’t financial. Honestly, the sanctions simply had little to no impact on the leadership of Iran because they were in control of the government – they took theirs off the top, the people short-changed were at the bottom.

Otherwise, there were occasional slaps on the wrist, mostly at the Iranian proxies. For Democrats, that was enough. Sadly, it was also enough for many Republicans. 

As the Islamo-fascists racked up American deaths – through their proxies and direct action in Iraq – that eventually surpassed 9/11 in total, no one did anything. The Obama administration delivered them pallets of cash, billions of dollars, in exchange for hostages and in an attempt to appease them into a nuclear “deal,” which became an obsession for Barack. 

Electronic transfers can be traced, cash can’t be – Obama became the biggest funder of terrorism in the history of the world, though that can’t be proven (by design). 

The first Trump administration killed the bogus nuclear deal, and Democrats were outraged. Democrats have been outraged about every strict stand President Trump has taken with Iran, which is odd. What’s the point of being a super-power if you can’t dictate certain terms to a terrorist regime? 

That only happens if the idea of projecting American power is something that repulses you, as it does Democrats. It’s unearned and undeserved – we’re no better than any other country, and worse than most, in their minds. Iran may be no good, but at least they didn’t elect Donald Trump!

To Democrats, the real “fascist” is the United States, but only because of who the President is. Their “love” of America is contingent on which party holds power and nothing else. When Iran started murdering their citizens in significantly larger numbers than usual, there was barely a tisk-tisk from the Left. There was more outrage from Democrats over a woman who hit a federal law enforcement agent with her car, ON VIDEO, being shot in self-defense than there even sternly worded statements, empty as they were, released by press staff whose job it is to write and release such statements. 

All their anger has been reserved for Americans who refuse to conform to their wishes and anyone even suspected of voting for Trump. Two people fighting federal agents being killed was an injustice like the world had never before seen at the time (now pretty much forgotten), but tens of thousands slaughtered in the streets was unremarkable and barely remarked upon.

Donald Trump was not going to allow the United States to spend the next 50 years getting punched in the nose on occasion, not to mention the countless Iranians murdered in that time. Enough was enough.

But enough being enough was too much for Democrats, who don’t like the United States, and therefore oppose anything we do in our own best interest. The only valid use of American power, by a President who isn’t a Democrat, is to bow to our enemies in the hope they won’t hurt us. Well, the Trump administration is done taking punches and asking if the hand of the country that hit us is okay. To the extent Democrats understand that concept, they hate it.

With the exception of John Fetterman, there isn’t a Democrat – in elected office with a press pass pretending to be a journalist – who isn’t confused by the concept of America acting in its own best interest, and isn’t disgusted by it. The United States has actively decapitated a literal fascist regime and scumbags like Chris Murphy, who recently left his wife and kids for a much younger liberal activist, claiming Trump is the real problem in the world. 

Just how gross these people are cannot be overstated.

While many old wounds are being reopened in regards to the acts of Iran that went unanswered for decades (including Robert Stethem, who was killed by Iranian proxies in 1985 during a hijacking, as I learned from a caller to my radio show who’d gone to high school with the murdered Navy man), they are also being put to rest, finally. Imagine how relieved the Iranian people must feel; Iranian women are emerging from the fear of rape and imprisonment, even death, for the “crime” showing their hair. 

Then look at Democrats, who simply must oppose anything Donald Trump does because Donald Trump did it. They spent a week attacking the gold medal winning Olympic hockey team because they laughed at a joke Trump told. 

The last time America won a gold in hockey there were 52 Americans being held by the Iranian Islamists, 46 years later that regime paid the ultimate price for robbing those people of more than a year of their lives. Democrats cheered in 1980, they now stand in opposition to all of it. It’s enough to make you wonder whose side they’re really on, isn’t it? 

Podcast thread for March 3rd

 

Busy night

Don’t Just Track Foreign Funding of U.S. Universities, Police It

 

American universities report $67 billion in foreign funding. Washington can see the money but not what it buys.

Ian Oxnevad, Lilla Nora Kiss

February 27, 2026

The Departments of Education and State have established a new partnership to examine foreign funding in American universities and to identify risks to sensitive research. This relaunch of the Department of Education’s foreign funding tracker reflects a growing recognition that foreign governments can use money to gain access to research, data, and academic programs to influence policy and future elites. Such access can threaten the U.S. economy and national security. Tracking foreign funding by source is an important first step. But it is not enough. The federal government still lacks a clear authority responsible for tracing how foreign money moves through universities and what influence it buys.

Foreign influence in American higher education moves through funding, research partnerships, talent pipelines, and informal knowledge exchange. One of the government’s main tools for addressing this risk is Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which requires colleges and universities to report to the Department of Education any foreign gifts, funding, or contracts valued at $250,000 or more. According to the Department’s data, universities have self-reported $67.6 billion in foreign funding so far. Under the Biden administration, the enforcement of these requirements was conspicuously neglected. Under the second Trump administration, federal oversight resumed, with the Departments of Education and State coordinating their efforts.

The new cooperation between the Departments of Education and State shows renewed executive-branch attention to foreign funding in higher education. Still, Congress holds the authority to set national priorities and link academic security to national defense. In recent years, Congress has treated higher education as part of the U.S.-China Strategic Competition. This paradigm shift became more visible when Chairman Moolenaar, head of the House Select Committee on China, led efforts to incorporate the SAFE Research Act—a legislation designed to protect federally funded research from adversarial foreign influence—into the annual national defense bill, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The SAFE Research Act would have tied access to federal research funding to disclosure of ties to hostile foreign entities. By advancing the proposal through the NDAA, lawmakers signaled that academic research is a national security issue. Although the SAFE Research Act did not become law, it joined Section 117 and the Education–State partnership as part of a broader, multi-branch response to foreign influence. Chairman Moolenaar’s role positions Congress to connect agency-level transparency efforts to a broader national strategy.

The foreign funding tracker shows where the money comes from, but it is not very useful in identifying or mitigating strategic risk. First, universities report the data themselves, and the tracker only captures transactions above $250,000, leaving smaller or fragmented payments undetected. Of the $67.6 billion in reported foreign funding, 74.6 percent came through contracts, which typically do not reveal their terms or purpose to the public. The ten largest recipients of foreign funding are private universities, including Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Yale, Columbia, and Carnegie Mellon, meaning the public cannot access their records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Second, the tracker does not disclose how the foreign funds are used. Thus, the public can see that a university received foreign funds, but not whether it supported sensitive research, technical training, data access, or routine academic programs.

The tracker’s gaps matter because it cannot distinguish between normal academic cooperation and access sought for strategic or security purposes. When money comes from countries that openly work against U.S. interests, not knowing what the funding supports or who ultimately controls it creates real risk. China and Qatar rank among the top donor countries, and China in particular seeks access to dual-use technologies with both civilian and military applications. The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has documented cases where Chinese-linked partnerships involved sensitive research areas. For example, Georgia Tech and Alfred University had concerning ties to Chinese entities while working on hypersonic missile technology research, and the University of Michigan has faced scrutiny over biological materials and access by Chinese nationals. Yet the tracker cannot show whether foreign funding supported these sensitive activities or something entirely unrelated. The same opacity affects funding routed through intermediary jurisdictions. For instance, Bermuda appears as the source of more than $752 million to Carnegie Mellon University and $87 million to Columbia University, while Guernsey is listed as the source of $446 million to Yale. These are obvious evasions of U.S. law. Guernsey, with a population of about 67,000, appears to be funneling funds from some other entity or entities. Who? And why? The NAS has previously reported that universities frequently fail to report the foreign funds they receive.

The tracker’s design and real-world funding practices reveal a clear institutional oversight gap. No federal agency is responsible for tracking how foreign money moves through universities, how it is structured, or how influence builds over time. The Departments of Education and State can collect disclosures and assess diplomatic risk, but they do not investigate financial flows. By contrast, financial oversight agencies such as the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) already monitor complex funding structures, identify intermediaries, and flag suspicious patterns across the economy. Yet their tools appear to be absent in overseeing foreign funding in higher education.

Section 117 should require universities to explain how they use foreign funding, not just that they received it. Current reports list dollar amounts and source countries, but omit the details needed to judge risk. At a minimum, universities should report whether the funds are a gift or a contract, which department or program receives them, and whether they support research, teaching, training, or access to data in sensitive fields. Lawmakers should also revisit the $250,000 threshold to prevent foreign entities from avoiding disclosure by splitting funding into smaller payments. The NAS has also encouraged Congress to lower the reporting threshold to $50,000. A quarter of a million dollars is more than enough to seed a university with maligned influence or set up a lab to steal secrets in the open under the guise of “fundamental research.” Aggregation rules could require universities to report related payments together instead of treating them as separate transactions. These changes would not restrict academic collaboration, but they would make disclosure more than just a bureaucratic duty.

Foreign funding rules should identify who ultimately provides and controls the money, not just the immediate donor. Disclosure systems that stop at intermediaries show where money moves, but not who ultimately controls it. Section 117 should require universities to report the ultimate origin of foreign funds when money passes through third countries, foundations, or financial centers. Distinguishing funding by source country and structure would help policymakers separate routine academic activity from access sought for strategic reasons. At the same time, Congress should adopt the SAFE Research Act and apply its core principle: universities should not receive federal research funding if they maintain undisclosed or high-risk ties to adversarial governments. Without this information, funding tied to adversarial strategies can look no different from benign contributions, defeating the purpose of transparency.

Oversight of foreign funding in higher education should be assigned to a financial enforcement authority, specifically the Internal Revenue Service, working with the Treasury Department. The Departments of Education and State can collect disclosures, but they lack the tools to investigate complex funding structures, trace ownership, or detect patterns of financial influence. The Treasury Department and the IRS already do this work across the rest of the economy. Applying these tools to university funding would close major transparency gaps. Institutional accountability should work alongside federal oversight and public visibility. Universities that accept foreign funding should maintain independent compliance officers who operate outside university leadership and monitor foreign financial relationships. Like financial intelligence units in banks, these offices would track who provides funding and what that funding supports. Without a financial watchdog, foreign money can enter universities with little scrutiny of its source or purpose, leaving national security risks hidden behind paperwork.

In addition, Congress should adopt a ratio-funding rule that links federal support to the amount of foreign funding a university receives for sensitive research and workforce training. Federal dollars should not be matched or outweighed by foreign money from adversarial or high-risk sources. Under this approach, universities would face proportional reductions in federal support based on the volume of foreign funding they take on. Such a mechanism would protect educational independence and prevent taxpayer dollars from subsidizing institutions that also advance foreign strategic interests.

Recent reforms show that the U.S. government is moving in the right direction. The Education–State partnership and renewed enforcement of Section 117 reflect a growing awareness that foreign funding in universities raises real economic and security concerns. But transparency alone does not solve a problem unless it helps policymakers understand what is actually happening. When disclosure focuses on filing requirements instead of the substance of funding—namely, how foreign money is used, who ultimately controls it, and why it flows where it does—it risks becoming just another administrative exercise.

https://mindingthecampus.org/2026/02/27/dont-just-track-foreign-funding-of-u-s-universities-police-it/

US Interests and a Far-Off Use of Force

American Thinker 

At times like these, we are reminded of our Founding Fathers’ warnings — especially that of President Washington in his Farewell Address — to “avoid foreign entanglements.” 

Our Founding Fathers were students of history.  Much like history students today, an overwhelming amount of their studies had been focused on conflict between nations, and prisoners of war and battlefield deaths, and the costs of war to civilians and governments alike. 

Our Founding Fathers themselves had fought in the French and Indian War (our part of the larger conflict known as the Seven Years’ War).  And then of course we fought our own War of Independence — eight painful years from start to finish. 

So they were sensible to encourage their colleagues and successors to avoid the temptation of getting ensnared in foreign struggles unnecessarily.  The royal families of Europe — whether because of personality or revenge, or greed or religious disagreement — were seemingly always fighting, and with a fortunate ocean separating us from them, our Founding Fathers had reason to hope that we could resist those particular future wars. 

But they weren’t naïve; they had no expectation of being able to avoid all war, forever.  They knew that this New World would have plenty of its own challenges and would be likely to create its own conflicts, independent of the Old World ones. 

Our Founding Fathers knew there would be border challenges and assumed there would be outright invasions — with Mexico to the south and Canada to the north, with English and French and Spanish territories to the west, and with countless American Indian tribes (some friendly, many hostile) as far as the eye could see.  And then who knew what the future would hold as nation-states developed in South America and the Caribbean? 

When our Founders said to avoid foreign wars, they may have been exercising a euphemism: They really meant we shouldn’t go looking for trouble, because trouble would find us soon enough.  Our fledgling nation would need to keep our power dry, because if we overextended ourselves by joining the wars of Europe, we might be caught unprepared by Indians, Mexicans, islanders, or South Americans. 

And even if we conclude from this that we are right to avoid unnecessary entanglements, but we should be prepared for the ones that do indeed concern us, we have another question to face, one we are seeing play out at this very moment: How exactly to define which conflicts really do concern us? 

If we were right to avoid the battles between the English and the French or between the Catholic nations and the Protestant nations of that era, then surely the disagreements between the Shia and Sunni blocks of the Middle East are also too distant to warrant our involvement.  What concern of ours, we are asked, are the petty fights between Iran and the Emirates, or the Israeli unease at Teheran’s constant threats? 

For the answer to this one, we should look back at how quickly world commerce was transformed in the 18th century, and how our own third president handled that transformation at the beginning of the 19th. 

The American colonies had long had commercial vessels — privately owned merchant ships — sailing to customers in the Mediterranean.  The Barbary pirates of North Africa generally left them alone because American vessels were first protected by the English flag, then by the French flag.  But after the French Revolution, we lost any such protection, and the pirates stopped holding back and started seizing our ships and demanding bribe money with great frequency.

The Jefferson administration responded appropriately.  We sent a navy halfway ’round the world, defeated the pirates, and set a precedent that these United States would protect American interests — that means our people, our ships, our goods, our commerce — wherever in the world they were threatened.

In short, whatever today’s peacenik crowd may try to imply, America has always known that our interests don’t end at our land borders and seashores.

We may have international commitments by treaty, too, but first and foremost, American interests lie wherever there is American commerce.  The independent American ship owners and merchants who sailed the Mediterranean two centuries ago weren’t the exception; they were the rule.  If President Coolidge was right to say, “The business of America is business” — and he was — then by corollary, America’s military policy has always been to defend that business. 

So let’s take a moment to consider what that means today: Regarding the conflict with Iran, the evidence is simple.  Iran has been threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting American commerce with Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, and the eastern side of Saudi Arabia.  And Iranian puppets — the Houthis of Yemen, acting on Iran’s orders — have closed the Suez Canal and Red Sea for over two years now, disrupting ocean commerce with Egypt and the western shore of Saudi Arabia, but more importantly, costing the global economy billions of dollars per day (yes, billions per day for over two years now) by making half the world’s ocean shipping travel around Africa instead of using the Suez shortcut. 

The mullahs’ regime has rung up hundreds of other reasons that justify our action against Iran.  These two are just the most obvious ones from a commercial side. 

But looking beyond just Iran, how do we judge true American interests going forward?  What markers might indicate a reason for our naturally semi-isolationist posture to be set aside in order to take up arms? 

Education: At any given school year, there are at least 300,000 American students studying abroad, distributed across a host of countries, many in the foreign campuses of our own colleges.  That’s a clear U.S. interest.  (Remember the action in Grenada.) 

Tourism: Roughly a third of the American population travels internationally.  That means that at any moment, tens of millions of Americans may be visiting any of a hundred or more foreign countries.  While the majority are in Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean, just because of convenience, still there are countless millions on short- or long-term trips all over the world.  These millions of American travelers are a clear U.S. interest.  (Remember Ion Perdicaris.) 

Business: Countless thousands of American businesses either own foreign subsidiaries or operate other foreign operations and have long-term employees stationed abroad, either working for their own foreign plants, or working on loan for foreign vendors.  This arena covers millions of people; billions of dollars of real estate and equipment; and billions of dollars’ worth of raw materials, finished goods, and work in progress.  Then there are those employees’ families and property in those distant countries for years at a time, depending on the duration of the posting.  These are all legitimate U.S. interests. 

American Servicemen: We have long established airbases, naval bases, and army bases abroad, on every continent and in every ocean, to ensure that the American safety superstructure is complete.  This wasn’t a single, one-time choice that the American public voted on, but it has long been popularly accepted that as the leader of the free world, we need a presence everywhere.  And to protect ourselves, our allies, and the example subgroups above, this archipelago of bases and postings is a very necessary U.S. interest. 

This list doesn’t pretend to be exhaustive.  But hopefully it demonstrates the simple fact that the interests of the United States don’t end at our shores, and frankly, they never have. 

We are an international nation, the leading light of an international economy.  As long as our people, our students, our businesses, our commercial holdings are scattered all over the world, our national interest has a far-off presence as well. 

Militarily speaking, that doesn’t mean we should ever go out looking for trouble.  But it does mean that when trouble comes looking for us, we do indeed have a legitimate interest to defend, more often than not. 

The Mullahs’ Miscalculation

 The Mullahs’ Miscalculation

They thought the Ummah would rally. It recoiled.

Christine Williams for Frontpage Magazine 

The Islamic Republic of Iran certainly had enough notice that it was headed to war, given the sheer magnitude of American military buildup — the largest in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which included the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln to the Arabian Sea on January 26, while the USS Gerald R. Ford was stationed off the coast of Israel. Add in eleven defense destroyers and several cruisers and support vessels positioned in the region. The Iranian regime did not react to American and Israeli strikes with calculated strategy and precision, but with miscalculated bluster.

When strikes came raining down on Saturday, Iran’s retaliation was swift. As expected, the Islamic Republic fired on Israel as it had vowed to do, and launched ballistic missiles against U.S. bases in several Gulf countries. Iran apparently did not expect backlash, however, from its Sunni Arab neighbors. On January 20, Iran’s parliamentary national security commission had declared that any attack on the country’s supreme leader “would amount to a declaration of war on the Muslim world.” With Khamenei dead, instead of support from its Muslim neighbors, Iran drew fury from them as it unleashed attacks against American targets inside Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. These countries confirmed they had intercepted Iranian missiles. Gulf states proceeded to close their airspace to Iran, while Saudi Arabia voiced a right to defend itself. “Saudi Arabia says reserves right of response after Iran attacks Riyadh, east,” Al Arabiya, February 28, 2026:

Saudi Arabia confirmed Saturday that Iran hit Riyadh and its eastern region with strikes, warning it reserved the right to defend itself including by retaliating.

Saudi Arabia “expressed its strongest condemnation of the blatant and cowardly Iranian attacks targeting the Riyadh and Eastern Province regions, which were repelled,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

“In light of this unjustified aggression, the Kingdom affirms that it will take all necessary measures to defend its security and protect its territory, citizens and residents, including with the option of responding to the aggression.”

The United States and Israel carried out military strikes on Iran on Saturday, targeting its top leaders and plunging the Middle East into a conflict that President Donald Trump said would end a security threat to the US and give Iranians a chance to topple their rulers…

Iran launched hundreds of missiles and drones towards the Gulf states, “forcing countries to scramble their air defenses in order to protect civilians.” Gulf countries under attack have shown unity in their condemnation of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Anwar Gargash, former UAE foreign minister and currently a foreign policy adviser to the country’s president, stated unequivocally to Iran: “Your war is not with your neighbors.”

Ironically, Gulf states hoped that hosting American bases on their turf would deter war, and they declined America permission to launch airstrikes against Iran from their territory. But now, Gulf states are no longer bystanders. According to Deutsche Welle:

Gulf states are now on the verge of being pulled into a conflict they say they want no part of, as well as potentially into an alliance with Israel, a country the majority have no official diplomatic relations with.

It is also uniting them, even though some, like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have recently had major political disagreements. The Gulf states all have their own military forces, with Saudi Arabia’s considered the most powerful and well-funded. But experts doubt that the states will enter the fighting with their own militaries. Instead, they could allow the US greater access to territory or airspace, or they could even launch limited strikes against Iran

Retired General Jack Keane warned that the Gulf states are prepared to act.” With the deaths of Iran’s Supreme Leader and the killing of a 40 senior commanders “within a minute,” Gulf countries which criticized the strikes initially are “shifting posture” at a catastrophic time for Iran.

The UK has now given its permission for the U.S. to use British bases for “defensive purposes.” Keir Starmer announced his commitment to “our partners in the Gulf,” who he says “have asked us to do more to defend them.” He added:

 And it’s my duty to protect British lives. We have British jets in the air as part of coordinated defensive operations which have already successfully intercepted Iranian strikes, but the only way to stop the threat is to destroy the missiles at source, in their storage depots or the launchers which are used to fire the missiles.”

The Iranian regime isn’t decelerating despite its isolation, while the Gulf states are responding “with technology supplied by the U.S.,” according to General Jack Keane. He continues:

 “Publicly, they were supporting the Iranians and resisting the strike. Privately, they were supporting the U.S. and the IDF. I think we should knock that nonsense off once and for all. You’re with us publicly and privately.”

The Iranian regime is hanging by a thread as it deals with the death of its supreme leader, the ongoing hammering by the overwhelming power of the U.S. military and Israel, an apparently unexpected united retaliation from the Gulf states, and opposition from its own population, with many, if not most, Iranians even willing to die to be rid of this regime.

Still, immense force will likely be needed to break definitively the current regime’s hold on power. And it is still unknown what will replace the Islamic regime, and whether – or to what extent – current regime actors might play a role in a future government. Given the resilience the regime has shown in past and currently, its commitment to “martyrdom,” and the sheer level of its hatred, propelled by its own Islamic religious zeal that was routinely echoed in its collective chant of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” it will not go down without much more bloodshed.

The mullahs will not surrender their power without a fierce fight. So it now comes down to the strength and organization of the resistance to the regime, which has been deep underground for decades, given the regime’s ruthlessness and commitment to breaking it. Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi stated on X:

Following the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei, Donald Trump posted that there are many leaders inside the regime who no longer want to fight, and who are looking for immunity from America:

In an update, a “newly installed leadership” in Iran wants to resume negotiations, according to Trump. As Robert Spencer comments:

“It is unlikely in the extreme that the new leaders of the Islamic Republic have given up or will give up the regime’s longterm goals, or its deeply ingrained hostility toward the U.S. and Israel.”

Iran International states:

“America’s suppression and destruction of enemy air defences exemplify refined and developed capabilities. The question is what that freedom achieves politically, and how long the US can sustain its acquisition…..A fantasy of a rapid collapse clashes with the reality of authoritarian resilience. Authoritarian regimes often plan to outlast their opponents’ attention spans. The regime only needs to endure. The US system, by contrast, is highly sensitive to time: news cycles, polling, congressional chatter, and election schedules.”

Yet the world knows that Trump is not one to back down, particularly given the severity of consequences should the current regime rise again, as it did after Operation Rising Lion in June, which targeted Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and ballistic missile capabilities. That operation failed to neutralize Iran as a threat; hence the necessity for the current operations.

General Keane concluded that the remaining war:

“will focus on neutralizing Iran’s remaining retaliatory capabilities — including ballistic missiles and drone stockpiles — to prevent further attacks on U.S. troops, Israeli civilians and American allies in the Gulf.”

The time may prove longer than anticipated, but Trump estimates four weeks or less. Trump also vows to avengethe deaths of three slain American service members.

Incidentally, this war has caused a deep fracture in the Muslim ummah. Iran is the chief Shia state, and its Arab Gulf neighbors did not support it at a critical juncture. This will not be forgotten anytime soon, and erodes international Islamic unity.

The Iranian regime’s defeat will only be a beginning for Western interests. It isn’t the Democrats who will alleviate the ongoing jihad threat to America and Israel, which includes Iranian proxies, but also the Muslim Brotherhood, which rapidly multiplied during the Obama and Biden administrations. Operation Epic Fury (US) and Operation Roaring Lion (Israel) are together showing promise of a major victory, but the work will be far from finished in the global fight against the global jihad.

Is It ‘America Alone’ In The Fight To Save The West From China And Islam?

American Thinker 

The signs were obvious two decades ago, and the insightful Mark Steyn—the conservative Canadian author—addressed them then. In numerous books, written in his sharp, convincing style, he warned that America would soon become isolated in its fight against Islamist jihad. Today, that loneliness appears to be fully realized.

His 2006 book America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, convincingly argued that much of the Western world would not survive the 21st century. Europe, with its declining birthrate, would be the first to go—thanks to white people being “too self-absorbed to breed,” while Muslims worked to change the demographics in their favor.

It also predicted that Europe would be defeated by its obsession with multiculturalism—essentially a surrender to Islam—and its welfare-driven laziness. Only America, dedicated to individual effort, morals, and economic growth, would be able to resist the onslaught of civilizational jihad.

Just five years later, in After America: Get Ready for Armageddon, Steyn lamented that America was also in serious danger of joining the rest of the Western world in an unavoidable decline. He observed that the growth of government, rising debt, the focus on diversity over excellence, and cultural shifts—away from individualism and self-reliance toward state handouts—were hollowing out America.

Fifteen years later, not only is the mood in Europe and the U.S. against America, but our neighbors, Canada and Mexico, too, are hesitant to join us in confronting a three-pronged threat: Islamists, the unchecked Trojan horse tactics of communist China, and the drug and smuggling cartels at our borders. Canada has fallen under the influence of both Islam and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), while powerful criminal cartels aligned with China have a firm grip on Mexico.

Europe, as Steyn observed, has become unrecognizable. The influence of so-called liberalism, far from transforming all nations into Sweden and eradicating war, has altered the very character and demographics of the continent. Ask a Jew in Malmo, Steyn writes, if you can find one! The same story is unfolding in Britain.

Commenting in The New York Post, Melanie Phillips states that Britain’s response to the issue of Muslims being smuggled into the country and their involvement in terrorism, espionage, and arms smuggling has been “craven.” Muslims refuse to integrate into British society, and the government has gone out of its way to accommodate them, allowing them 85 sharia courts so far.

Instead of addressing this security crisis, Prime Minister Kier Starmer’s government suppresses criticism of Islam by raising the false idea of Islamophobia. Tommy Robinson, who the previous government jailed for criticizing Islam, mass Muslim immigration, and Muslim rape gangs, still faces danger and is labeled an extreme right-winger. Similarly, in a serious violation of free speech, political candidate Paul Weston was charged in 2014 with a racially aggravated crime for quoting an excerpt critical of Islam from Churchill’s The River War.

For decades, Muslim gangs have been grooming and assaulting underage girls, but Starmer has been hesitant to investigate and prosecute them. He also ignores widespread antisemitism among Muslims. In 2024, a Jewish man was prevented from crossing a street under threat of arrest for being openly Jewish and thereby “antagonizing” pro-Palestine marchers. Britain’s recognition of Palestine following the October 7 massacre by Hamas signals Starmer’s capitulation to Islam.

Starmer’s interactions with China symbolize Britain’s waning influence and capitulation to the CCP. During his trip to Beijing, the prime minister was not met with the usual protocols. CCP leader Xi Jinping gave Starmer a brief, informal meeting and spoke to him as if he were subordinate.

Starmer failed to press Xi on several key issues: human rights, especially the detention of activist Jimmy Lai; cyberattacks on British companies; covert Chinese interference in the UK government; and trade deficits. He approved China’s plan to build a massive embassy near critical fiber-optic cables and sensitive U.S. infrastructure, a move that could threaten intelligence partnerships with the U.S.

To our north, Canada has increased the risk by entering a new “strategic partnership” with China, shifting Canada’s economy away from its long-standing reliance on America. During his visit to Beijing, Prime Minister Mark Carney avoided discussing Jimmy Lai’s incarceration, the execution of seven Canadians in China on drug charges (which is ironic since China is a major exporter of fentanyl precursors to North America), and interference in Canadian elections.

Carney returned with agreements on cooperation against drug trafficking and cybercrime, along with a pledge to increase cultural exchanges. Given how China operates, security experts have no doubts about what ‘cooperation’ and ‘cultural exchanges’ will actually entail. Additionally, it is hard to understand how a liberal government has reconciled with an authoritarian regime.

At the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Carney expressed excitement about recalibrating Canada’s relationship with China: he stated that Canada had aligned itself with the “new world order,” would pursue global governance, and move away from the U.S., its largest trading partner. He urged other countries to do the same.

According to a 2025 report by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), Muslim Brotherhood organizations have infiltrated Canada’s civil, academic, political, and economic sectors. They promote radical Islamist ideology using federal funding.

The report provides strong evidence that Canada has become a hub for money laundering and a gateway for terrorists entering the U.S. But instead of designating these groups as terrorist organizations, Carney was a guest at a recent Eid celebration hosted by the Brotherhood-linked Muslim Association of Canada.

Unchecked immigration, wokeism, the romance with multiculturalism, and a fragile national identity have allowed not only the Brotherhood but also networks connected to China, Russia, Iran, and Qatar to entrench themselves in Canada. Collectively, they pose a serious security threat to the U.S.

A recent seizure of carfentanil—originally developed to tranquilize elephants—revealed that the U.S. now faces a dangerous flow of synthetic drugs across its southern and northern borders. The drug was being smuggled into the country by a Montreal-based cartel.

China is the primary source of raw materials and equipment for drug production, including fentanyl. Therefore, there is reason to suspect a Chinese connection, similar to Mexico, where Chinese gangs have established themselves on the drug scene. These gangs, it goes without saying, cannot operate without the CCP’s approval.

The Bureau’s report on the carfentanil seizures quotes former DEA chief Derek Maltz: “We are getting crushed with carfentanil, xylazine, etizolam, isotonitazene—all those new psychoactive substances which are coming out of China. So, it’s just another phase of the attack.”

In 2023, there were over 72,000 drug-related deaths, mostly caused by illicit fentanyl brought into the U.S. from Mexico by sophisticated cartels, armed with RPGs and exploding drones, and collaborating with China. Chinese gangs have extensive networks in Mexico’s drug hubs, laundering money through cryptocurrencies and digital payment platforms.

Mexican governments have long collaborated with the cartels, which are viewed as sources of profit and power. However, President Donald Trump has pressured the current Mexican government to combat the cartels. The recent killing of Jalisco cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes—‘El Mencho’—in a joint U.S.-Mexico operation highlights Trump’s dedication to securing the border and stopping trafficking.

If America is to stand alone in the asymmetric war launched by China and the Islamists, we need strong leadership to exert pressure and defend our borders. On a civilizational level, however, we are lost unless the West unites. Steyn opened the first chapter of America Alone with a chilling quote from historian Arnold Toynbee: “Civilizations die from suicide, not murder.” The West should remember that.

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The Iran Attack Presents A Series Of Reality Checks For The World

American military power is unrivaled, while Europeans and Canadians give speeches about shoving the American military aside and becoming rival powers. This is not real.

The Federalist

Less than a month ago, Politico put this remarkable statement in a headline: “Top NATO allies don’t think US helps deter enemies anymore.” The body of the story went on to explain that “American military power is increasingly seen as an uncertain asset,” while fewer Europeans “still see the U.S. as an effective deterrent against enemy attacks.”

Doubting the value of American hard power, Europeans have called for a transition to a new era of security independence in which they can confront enemies like Russia without the handicap of being yoked to a dumb and declining United States. “Europe needs not only to strengthen its defence capabilities but to increase the resilience of its societies,” a policy brief published by the European Union warned in December. Get strong, get armed, and get ready for a world without American intervention. If democracy ever needs to be saved in Europe, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that same month, “we would manage that alone.” American military power, dead just short of its 250th birthday.

That fantasy has been spreading. In Davos this year, in a speech I’ve already spent half my waking hours mocking, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney laid out a plan for a new security coalition of “middle powers” that would arm up and challenge American dominance. At the New York Times, a reliably stupid columnist declared that Carney had “marked out a path of allied integration and cooperation that could create, in essence, a new great power rival to the United States.”

This has been the emerging consensus among professional opinion-havers, who mostly manipulate symbols as symbols, not noticeably connecting to things in what we used to call meatspace. American power has faded into the past, because Mark Carney and Friedrich Merz said that American power has faded into the past. Speeches say what reality is. In this sense, Trump really is our last Boomer president: He engages symbols in real life. He perceives the thingness of things, and blows them up.

I’m skeptical of American military intervention in the Middle East, after a series of poor-to-terrible outcomes. I’m looking at you, Hillary. There are a half a dozen fair debates to be had around the current American military intervention in Iran, some of which are difficult to have in an environment of limited information. Should Americans die for Iran? Can we be certain that regime change in Iran will lead to something better? Some of those debates will shift around outcomes, as the administration measurably fails or succeeds at the effort, and some of those debates will shift as the cost — in American lives, in Iranian lives, and in time, weapons, and debt-funded federal spending — become clear.

But the immediate impact of a massive military operation, executed with lethal competence on effective intelligence and solid planning, reveals the extraordinary silliness of Mark Carney and Friedrich Merz declaring the emerging meaninglessness of American hard power. If you agree with the claim in the New York Times that Canada might plausibly organize “a new great power rival to the United States,” lay out the path by which Canada could soon have the military power to carry out a comparable operation in the near future: successful decapitation strike, immediate nationwide destruction of air defenses and ownership of the sky, deep and sustained military operations against a country that’s about four times bigger than California.

The U.S. Navy launched cruise missiles at Iran from destroyers, by the way, which Canada doesn’t have. So “a new great power rival to the United States” how? When? By what means? Compare the number and type of combat aircraft that the US appears to be operating in the skies above Iran to the number and type of combat aircraft Canada and the next two or three potential “middle powers” actually have.

American military power is unrivaled, really obviously, while Europeans and Canadians give speeches about shoving the American military aside and becoming rival powers. Like so much of what currently passes for governance in the world, this is not real. Remarkable amounts of political, media, and academic discourse is pure fantasy.

Similarly, a developing story from both Iran and Venezuela is that those countries are clients of Russia and China, and defend themselves with military systems — like air defense systems — from those countries. The joke currently all over the Internet in varying forms: “China’s anti-stealth radar detects the presence of stealth aircraft by exploding, thus alerting defenders that a stealth aircraft is definitely in the area.”

A series of global fantasies are dying this week in the face of the unavoidable realities of war, which turn out to be more real than giving speeches. You don’t have to agree with the war to see that point.