Making the crooked plain in the Middle East

Where Demented Dictators are the Norm

Avner Boskey

June 7, 2026

During the fog of war, a clear grasp of battlefield realities is more precious than gold. How can we make sense of the torrent of media information streaming at us non-stop regarding fast-paced Middle East events? The next few newsletters will offer some helpful guidelines.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards – Hitler’s spiritual descendants

On January 29, 2002 POTUS George W. Bush trumpeted a warning about the Iranian ‘axis of evil’:

[Iran] “aggressively pursues these weapons [of mass destruction] and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom . . . States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger . . . They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic . . . We will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology, and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction . . . I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.”

Three years later, in 2005, President George W. Bush popularized another term, ‘Islamo-fascism.’ When one blends these two concepts together regarding Iran – ‘axis of evil’ and ‘Islamo-fascism’ (think ‘Hitler with nukes’) – this may help us to better comprehend the nature of the menace facing both the Western world and Israel. Imagine, if you would, Nazi documents charting out a Middle Eastern ‘Final Solution’ for Jacob’s sons and daughters – but written in flowery Arabic calligraphy. Iran’s jihadi dream is such a dictatorship, one with Hitlerian proportions.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was not in touch with reality when he believed that he could achieve “peace for our time” with Hitler. Other major world leaders today seem to believe that they will be able to clinch a similar deal with the Shiite dictators of the Islamic Republic of Iran in our day.

Understanding Jihad 101

The Western world is for the most part deaf, dumb and blind when it comes to comprehending Islam’s Last Days jihadi vision. The yawning gap here between Middle Eastern jihadi values and Western ‘just war’ principles is immense. Islamic standards are based not on the writings of Cicero, Augustine of Hippo or Thomas Aquinas. Neither are they anchored in the US Constitution or the Bill of Rights. Islamic laws of war are firmly grounded on Mohammad’s example in prosecuting Muslim wars of conquest – a zealous jihadi foundation indeed.

Islam’s military triumph over all other religions is classic End of Days Muslim belief. When wars have broken out throughout history between Islamic warriors and the Christian West (or in our day with the Israeli army), the Muslim operating definition of what constitutes victory or success is totally different from what Westerners envision.

The Islamic perspective sees it this way: if military clashes end, and any Islamic warriors physically survive, this is seen as divine proof that ultimate jihadi victory is assured. Why is this, you may ask? Muslim theologians would answer: This is because the path of allah is of course the only right path, and allah will ultimately grant triumph to Jaish-e-Muhammad (the armies of Muhammad). From this viewpoint, what counts in the end is simply the Last Battle and Islam’s final victory.

It doesn’t matter, in the meantime, if there are temporary setbacks – if unbelievers conquer Islamic territory, destroy Islamic infrastructure or houses, take Muslims prisoner, or successfully assassinate high-level jihadi targets. According to classical Islamic principles, these actions do not signal defeat for the jihadi warrior and his leaders. Those mujahidin (jihad warriors) who survive such battles – they (or their children) will live to fight another day. When that day comes, they will ultimately crush the skulls of the infidel and vanquish the armies of the sheitan (Satan). In this final Islamist reckoning, what matters is the final Muslim conquest and the ultimate Islamic caliph, the Amir al-Mu’minin (the Commander of the Faithful) – the one who will subdue and humble all the unbelieving nations.

Western leaders need to understand that Islamist leaders who adhere to Muhammad’s example and teaching will never cease prosecuting jihad and making war on the West and on Israel. Peace between Dar al-Islam (the world of Islam) and Dar al-Harb (the world of war who refuse to bow the knee to Islam) is not a realistic and acceptable solution according to classical Islamist views.

Strategic deception as a weapon of war

After the Western world makes war, it makes peace (known as Jus post bellum, in Catholic theology). Countries formerly at war sign peace treaties and non-belligerency pacts, and even disarm. But these concepts are Western inventions; they are not realties which blossom on Middle Eastern soil. Islamist theology teaches something very different, a concept called ‘taqiyya’ – where the weaker party will agree to a treaty as a strategic deception, in order to survive, knowing that the time will come when he will break the treaty and conquer his now-weaker enemy. For a fuller discussion, see ‘How Taqiyya Alters Islam’s Rules of War’ by Raymond Ibrahim, Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2010).

The 48^th sura (chapter) of the Quran (Al-Fatḥ), describes in detail something called ‘the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah,’ a ten-year pact established in March 628 AD between Mohammad and the Arabian tribe of Quraysh. Mohammad broke that treaty two years later, in January 630 AD, when his jihadi forces – having re-armed and grown strong during the interim – subjugated the Quraysh tribe, and then moved on to conquer Mecca.

PLO leader Yasir Arafat cited this Islamic precedent a number of times when signing the Oslo Accords with the Jewish state. It was his justification for ‘supposedly recognizing’ Israel and ‘supposedly renouncing’ terrorist activities. The following quote from the Arabic-language newspaper al-Quds, published in Jerusalem on May 10, 1998, illustrates Arafat’s strategy:

Question: “Do you feel sometimes that you made a mistake in agreeing to Oslo?” Arafat: “No – no! Allah's messenger Mohammad accepted the al-Hudaybiyyah peace treaty and Salah a-Din accepted the peace agreement with Richard the Lion-Hearted” (n.b.: Salah a-Din was the Muslim leader who, after a cease-fire, declared a jihad against the Crusaders and captured Jerusalem).

Helpful background on Arafat’s deception of the US State Department can be seen here in our November 9, 2023 newsletter.

Western leaders who attempt to manipulate jihadi governments into signing and certifying ‘peace agreements’ are ignoring 1400 years of Islamist realpolitik. They are getting dragged into an Islamist desert illusion, a mirage, whose ultimate goal is to destroy the Christian West and Israel.

Kamikaze in the Persian Gulf

The importance of avoiding battlefield casualties – whether military or civilian – is a Western military value. But the Islamic Middle East sees the matter differently. Muslim theology teaches that it is the final triumph of jihad which is the ultimate value, no matter what the cost it takes to get there in soldiers’ or civilians’ lives.

The practice of strategic taqiyya deception can be clearly seen in the way Hamas has brazenly used Gazan civilians as human shields while shooting its jihadi rockets at Israeli civilians located in kibbutzim, villages and cities. Hamas is quite willing to destroy their own people if, by doing this, they can also destroy the Jewish state.

Iran’s use of taqiyya deception is also patently clear in the IRGC’s repeated declarations that they are not seeking nuclear weapons – while secretly moving full speed ahead to do just that.

On October 25, 1944 the first 24 kamikaze (‘divine wind’) volunteer suicide bombers of the Japanese 201^st Navy Air Group attacked American naval vessels, killing 100 Americans and taking down 34 ships. This willingness to die in pursuit of military aims is also very much a part of the jihadi mentality, as Mohammed taught on numerous occasions in the Hadith:

“Truly allah has purchased of the believers their lives and their properties; for theirs (in return) is Paradise. They fight in his cause, so they kill (others) and are killed” (Sahih al-Bukhari 51:1)

“So narrated Al-Mughira bin Shu’ba, ‘Our prophet told us about the message of allah that “whoever amongst us is killed will go to Paradise” (Sahih al-Bukhari 51:2)

“So narrated Anas bin Malik, ‘The prophet said, “Nobody who dies and finds good from allah… would wish to come back to this world even if he were given the whole world and whatever is in it – except the martyr who, on seeing the superiority of martyrdom, would like to come back to the world and get killed again” (Sahih al-Bukhari 51:6)

Westerners find it hard to understand the dogmatic nature of this murderous hatred. They find it difficult to grasp that Muslims who accept the literal words of the Quran believe in a ‘jihad without end’ – a process that must continue until all non-Muslims either bow, are put to death or are enslaved. Many in the West respond in shock, saying “Surely there must be some other way to change Islamic minds and to modernize their world-view!”

But the truth is unappetizingly simple: If one doesn’t take jihad seriously, one can’t understand the Middle East. And to take it a step further: to weigh the Abraham Accords from the perspective of taqiyya, one would have to conclude that its Western formulators are blind to classic Islamic realities. Those in the West who sign on the dotted line of such deceptive accords (and that would include the businessmen who initialed both Camp David and Oslo) are unfortunately what Russians call ‘useful idiots’ (полезные дураки, polezniye duraki).

How should we then pray?

Pray that POTUS and Israel’s leaders will receive clear understanding that no agreement signed with those who practice taqiyya is worth the paper it is written on

Pray for POTUS and Israel’s leaders to receive clear understanding of the absolute and insidious nature of jihad as a deal-breaker which is forever at war with the West and the Jewish State. May they receive revelation to stand on guard for God’s purposes on the earth here, including the security and the survival of the Jewish people