SARASOTA, Florida — For 47 years, the world has lived with the consequences of the Islamic jihadist takeover of Iran.
Inside Iran, more than 92 million people are trapped under an Islamic regime that took one of the great civilizations of the world and turned it into the central engine of radical Islamist expansion, even though a vast majority of Iranians reject what that regime has done to their country.
Since the revolution, Iran’s oil wealth has been used to export Islamic jihad instead of building opportunities for its own people. Women have been beaten, imprisoned, and killed for demanding basic freedom. Students, dissidents, journalists, religious minorities, Jews, Christians, Baha’is, Kurds, secular Muslims, and pro democracy Iranians have been threatened, jailed, tortured, exiled, or executed.
Almost half a century of a great civilization being hijacked by a regime that turned faith into a weapon, oil into leverage, and terror into foreign policy.
Let’s look at how the Islamic regime rose to power.
Before the revolution, Iran was a country with a large educated class, a modernizing economy, a deep Persian cultural identity, people in Western dress, women visible in universities, professions, and public life, and significant relationships with Israel and the United States. Iranian Jews had lived there for centuries. Iran had the potential to become one of the most influential bridges between the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and the democratic world if it had become a democracy.
A democracy movement emerged and protested against the Shah. The Iranian people wanted democracy.
The Islamic jihadists participated in those protests. They were a fringe.
The protests continued despite the Shah’s use of force and the killing of protesters. The protesters were demanding democracy.
The protests grew. The Shah and his family finally fled Iran.
Then the fringe Islamic jihadists moved fast. They stormed the U.S. embassy, took hostages, and seized control of government institutions before the democracy movement knew what happened.
They took power by hijacking the revolution.
That history matters but is forgotten. Now America is again being asked to misunderstand the Islamic regime. We are being asked to treat it as a government that can be managed, bargained with, normalized, and preserved with a “deal.”
That would be a mistake. America would lose, and the Islamic regime would be victorious.
The Islamic regime did not come to power as a normal government, and it has not ruled as a normal government. It came to power by hijacking a democratic uprising, taking hostages, crushing its own people, exporting jihad, and turning Iran’s wealth into a weapon against Israel, America, the West, and the Iranian people themselves.
They turned “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” into political theology.
They helped create, arm, train, fund, and inspire a network of terror movements and proxy armies: Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria, and terror cells. The Islamic regime has provided weapons pipelines, missile programs, drone warfare, propaganda operations, and hostage taking.
The regime has destabilized the region.
Now imagine what would not have happened if the Islamic jihadists had failed in 1979.
Hezbollah would not have become a state within a state in Lebanon. The 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut would not have happened, killing 241 American servicemembers. We would not have needed American Marines in Lebanon to begin with.
Iran did not start the Lebanese Civil War, but the Islamic regime helped turn Lebanon’s agony into permanent proxy warfare. Lebanon might have had a chance to rebuild itself without Hezbollah, without Iran’s money, without Iran’s weapons, and without an armed jihadist movement more loyal to Tehran than to Lebanon.
We would not have seen southern Lebanon turned into a missile platform against Israel, Hamas in Gaza become another Iranian armed pressure point against Israeli civilians, the Houthis threaten global shipping lanes with Iranian-backed missiles and drones, or Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria turn failed states into permanent battlegrounds.
And while September 11 was carried out by Al Qaeda, a Sunni jihadist movement rather than an Iranian proxy, we also have to be honest about the larger picture. Islamic jihadist movements caused the September 11 attacks. Al Qaeda did it by name. ISIS later built its own empire of terror. The Taliban still rules Afghanistan. Iran’s regime is Shia Islamist, not Sunni, but the larger danger is not limited to one sect.
The larger danger is Islamic jihadist ideology itself.
Sunni or Shia, Al Qaeda or Hezbollah, ISIS or the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Hamas or Islamic Jihad, the common thread is the same: a totalitarian religious ideology that believes violence, terror, intimidation, hostage taking, propaganda, and martyrdom are legitimate tools against Israel, Jews, America, the West, democracy, women’s freedom, religious minorities, and secular civilization.
The Islamic regime gave revolutionary jihad one of its most powerful state sponsors. It proved that radical Islamists could seize state power, weaponize religion, build global networks, finance proxy wars, and wage a long war against America, Israel, Jews, the West, and democratic civilization itself.
The world should also remember what this regime has done to its own people.
The Iranian people are done with the Islamic regime. Millions of Iranians have taken to the streets and protested in every major city in Iran. During the recent crackdown on Iranian protesters, verified death counts reached into the thousands. Other reports and opposition sources have alleged that the real number may be far higher, with estimates discussed publicly reaching into the tens of thousands. Iran International reported that more than 36,500 Iranians were killed during the January 8 and 9 crackdown, based on documents it said it reviewed.
Whatever final number history confirms, the moral fact is already clear.
This regime is willing to massacre its own people to stay in power.
A government willing to slaughter Iranians in the streets will not suddenly become a trustworthy partner because diplomats produce another agreement. A regime that fears its own women, students, workers, and dissidents will not become moderate because oil markets want calm.
For 47 years, the world has mostly adjusted to this as if it were normal.
It is not normal for a regime to make women’s hair a matter of state violence, turn a nation’s oil wealth into the financial bloodstream of terrorism, and force a great people to live under rulers who fear singers, students, unveiled women, free speech, free elections, and peace with Israel.
The last 47 years have shown us what this regime does with power.
So now imagine the next 50 years if that regime survives because the world settles for another deal.
Do not imagine moderation.
Imagine emboldenment.
If the regime survives this moment, it will call survival victory. It may take a few years to rebuild parts of its military infrastructure, but terrorism does not require decades. Missiles are now being built. Drones are now being manufactured. Smuggling routes exist. Propaganda can restart instantly. Proxy networks can be rearmed. The Revolutionary Guard can shift money, training, and weapons into the shadows and wait for the world to get tired again.
That is what this regime does. It survives one crisis and prepares for the next.
If the Islamic regime survives, it will not come out humbled. It tells its supporters that it defeated America, survived Israel, endured sanctions, outlasted pressure, and forced the world back to the table. That is not defeat. That is a recruitment poster, a fundraising pitch, and a message to every proxy from Lebanon to Gaza to Yemen to Iraq and Syria: keep going.
Iran would like nothing more than to prove it can strike America harder than America expects. Al Qaeda gave the world September 11. Iran’s regime has had nearly half a century to build state-sponsored networks, proxies, missile programs, drone warfare, cyber capabilities, propaganda machines, terror infrastructure, and nuclear ambitions.
If the regime survives because the West lacks the will to finish the job, it will not become more moderate. It will become more patient, more strategic, and more dangerous.
The next attack does not have to look like the last attack. That is the lesson of terrorism. Islamic jihadist ideology studies weakness, division, Western hesitation, and how to use our freedoms, media, campuses, politics, and guilt against us.
If the regime survives, we should expect another generation of Islamic terror, Islamic proxies, and Islamic jihadist organizing, not only in the Middle East, but throughout Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia.
Those things are already happening.
Radical Islamist propaganda has learned how to speak the language of Western politics, present itself as social justice, enter universities, activist spaces, media narratives, and political coalitions, turn Israel into the villain, Hamas into “resistance,” and Jews into acceptable targets again.
If Islamic jihadist propaganda can infiltrate parts of the Democratic Party by speaking the language of identity politics, anti-colonialism, and social justice, it can also target Republicans with isolationism, anti-government rage, antisemitic conspiracy theories, and contempt for democratic institutions.
They do not want one faction of America. They want all of America weakened, divided, demoralized, and confused.
That is why this is not only about Israel.
It is about the future of the West.
It is about whether democratic societies can recognize the difference between legitimate criticism, human rights language, and an ideological war being waged against them from within and without.
What if 2026 becomes the last year of the Islamic regime?
Imagine the regime fails.
Imagine the Iranian people, who have already shown extraordinary courage, finally reach the point where fear breaks, and the regime’s institutions begin to crack. Iranian women, students, workers, dissidents, minorities, and pro democracy forces no longer stand alone. Israel continues to weaken the regime’s military machinery while the Iranian people rise against the system that has stolen their country. America is making clear that it stands with the Iranian people, not the clerics, not the Revolutionary Guard, not the hostage takers, not the missile builders, and not the men who turned a great nation into one of the world’s leading exporters of jihadist terror.
Retired General Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and former Democratic presidential candidate, put it plainly when he said on The Situation Room, aired May 25, 2026, “We’ve got to openly support the rights of the Iranian people to resist, and to choose their own government.” That line matters because this should not be a partisan issue. Democrats should support the Iranian people. Republicans should support the Iranian people. Anyone who believes in democracy should support the Iranian people.
I do not know what President Trump is doing behind the scenes. Maybe some of the public drama is theater. Maybe some of it is a distraction. Maybe, just maybe, the United States and Israel understand that the future of Iran cannot be decided only from the air. It must be decided by the Iranian people themselves.
But if that moment comes, the free world should not hesitate morally.
Israel cannot liberate Iran for Iranians. America cannot liberate Iran for Iranians. But America and Israel can help create the conditions in which the Iranian people have a chance to liberate themselves. America and Israel, with intelligence, satellite, and air support, can help the Iranian people take back their government without ground troops. Securing or removing enriched uranium may require limited military action by special forces, but no occupation is needed.
That is the future worth imagining.
A free Iran would not merely weaken Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Houthis.
It begins the collapse of the entire Iranian-backed proxy empire.
Hamas without Iran is done. So are Hezbollah and the Houthis. Israel will destroy the remaining Iranian-backed threats across the region.
Saudi Arabia would finish the Houthis politically and militarily.
Worldwide Islamic jihad without Iran will dwindle. Qatar will still have to be confronted over its funding of propaganda, including billions flowing into Western universities, as well as its hosting, broadcasting, and amplification of Islamist influence.
The architecture collapses: money dries up, weapons pipelines shrink, training networks fracture, propaganda loses its state sponsor, confidence breaks, and fear shifts sides.
Now imagine the alternative future in one picture: a free Iran, perhaps even choosing to revive the name Persia in the way the world once knew it, with Persian women, students, artists, scientists, entrepreneurs, journalists, athletes, engineers, doctors, teachers, writers, Jews, Christians, Baha’is, Kurds, secular Muslims, and dissenters finally free.
Imagine the remaining Jewish community in Iran, now believed to be fewer than 10,000 after most Jews left in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution, no longer forced to live under the shadow of a regime built on anti Zionist and antisemitic hatred.
Imagine Persian parents no longer afraid that their children will be arrested for protesting, singing, dancing, uncovering their hair, posting online, or demanding democracy.
Imagine the Revolutionary Guard gone, Iran’s oil wealth rebuilding Iran instead of funding missiles, drones, tunnels, militias, and hostage takers, and a Persian democracy embracing regulated capitalism, free trade, Western partnerships, and the global economy. More than 92 million people would be added to the consumer world marketplace.
Imagine Iranian universities connected to the world, Iranian scientists working on medicine, water, agriculture, solar energy, technology, and public health instead of missile systems and drone warfare.
Imagine the Persian Gulf without Iran threatening shipping lanes, Lebanon without Hezbollah dominating its politics, Gaza without Hamas sacrificing Palestinians in endless war against Israel, Syria and Iraq without Iranian-backed militias turning failed states into permanent battlegrounds, and Yemen without a civil war, with the Houthis no longer attacking ships and destabilizing global trade.
Imagine Israel and a free Iran, no longer enemies, but two ancient civilizations with the capacity to trade, cooperate, innovate, and enrich the region: direct flights between Tel Aviv and Tehran, Israeli water and agricultural technology shared with Iran, Israeli medical innovation and Persian scientific talent working together, and tourism, business, universities, cultural exchanges, music, food, history, language, and trade replacing missiles, proxies, slogans, and fear.
That is not fantasy. That is the future the Iranian people have been yearning for.
The world should want that for them, not because we hate Iran, but because we respect the people of Iran. Not because we want war, but because we want a future in which Iran is not permanently trapped inside a revolutionary war against its own people, Israel, America, and the democratic world.
A free Iran would change the Middle East more than any peace conference, United Nations resolution, or temporary ceasefire. It would give the region a new center of gravity.
That is why this moment matters.
The question is not only what America does about oil prices.
The question is whether America, Israel, Europe, and the democratic world can finally understand that the Islamic regime is not a normal government with normal interests. It is an ideological regime that has spent nearly half a century radicalizing, arming, funding, threatening, repressing, destabilizing, lying, waiting, surviving one crisis, and preparing the next.
That is why another deal that simply preserves the regime, calms oil markets, and gives everyone a temporary sigh of relief may be the most dangerous option of all.
A bad deal can look like peace for a few months. It can make oil prices drop, calm Wall Street, and give diplomats something to announce.
But if the deal leaves the Islamic regime stronger, richer, safer, and more able to fund jihadist movements, then it is not peace. It is a delay. It is a pause before the next round.
The world has already lived through 47 years of this.
Why would anyone want to guarantee another 50 years of terrorism?
The Abraham Accords should not become a diplomatic trophy that hides a dangerous deal with Iran.
If President Trump wants to expand the Abraham Accords, that is a worthy goal. Normalization with Israel matters. Regional peace matters. Arab and Muslim countries recognizing Israel matters, but not under coercion.
But Qatar cannot be allowed to join the Abraham Accords as a public relations prize while continuing to fund, host, excuse, or amplify Islamist propaganda and anti-Israel radicalization around the world. Reuters reported that Trump is urging several countries, including Qatar, to join the Abraham Accords as part of a broader push connected to a prospective Iran deal.
Qatar is not Iran, but Qatar has functioned too often like a junior partner in the same larger war of influence. Iran arms and funds the hard power. Qatar has helped fund, host, broadcast, and legitimize the soft power.
That must end.
If Iran’s Islamic regime falls, Qatar will be far more isolated. The rest of the Arab world should pressure Qatar to decide which future it wants. Does it want to be part of a stable Middle East tied to trade, peace, technology, and recognition of Israel? Or does it want to remain a funder and amplifier of Islamist narratives that radicalize universities, political movements, media spaces, and activist networks throughout the West?
Qatar should not get the prestige of normalization without the responsibility of reform.
The goal should not be a cosmetic deal that lets the Islamic regime survive, regroup, and claim victory.
The only acceptable deal with the Islamic regime is the surrender of power.
The clerics, Revolutionary Guard leaders, hostage takers, missile builders, and terror financiers can step down, give up power, and live.
That is the deal.
Not another agreement that saves the regime. Not another agreement that calms oil markets for a few months. Not another agreement that allows diplomats to celebrate while Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, and global Islamist propaganda networks begin preparing the next phase.
The regime has had 47 years to show the world what it does with power.
It has shown us.
This is where President Trump still has a window.
I am not writing this to take down Trump. I am writing this because there is still a path for him to do something big, practical, popular, and historically important.
Now it would be much easier to get the American public to buy in if gas prices were under $3 a gallon. Americans are not inclined to support paying more at the pump while oil companies collect windfall profits and hostile regimes gain leverage from global panic.
That is why the world oil market matters. America, Canada, and possibly Mexico need to separate from the world oil market and form a North American oil market with a cap near $67 a barrel.
On April 9, 2026, TheJ.ca published my article, “Call Grows for U.S. Energy Emergency to Shield Economy from Global Oil Shocks.” In that article, I made a detailed argument that the United States should consider an energy emergency approach to shield American families and the American economy from global oil shocks. I do not need to repeat all those details here. Here is a link.
But the core point is more urgent now.
If America is energy independent, American families should not be forced to pay global crisis prices every time Iran creates chaos, oil traders panic, or oil companies benefit from fear. We are not living in the late 1970s. We are not the same country that stood in gas lines while foreign oil producers dictated our economic fate. America has spent decades building energy capacity and efficiency. The United States, Canada, and possibly Mexico have enough North American energy strength to think strategically about protecting this continent from global oil panic.
So use it.
Isolate the North American oil market from global oil markets. If full isolation cannot be done immediately, impose a domestic emergency pricing ceiling tied to prewar oil levels, around $67 a barrel, roughly the January average before this crisis pricing took over.
That does not mean America ignores the world. It means America refuses to let a hostile regime in Tehran, panic in global oil markets, or windfall profits for oil companies become the reason Americans are pushed into accepting a bad deal.
Higher gas prices are not just an inconvenience. They are inflationary. They hit working families, small businesses, transportation, shipping, inventory, delivery, commuting, airline prices, grocery prices, and every product that has to move from one place to another.
That is how Iran gains leverage. That is one of their weapons. Oil traders gain leverage, oil companies collect windfall profits, and public pressure builds for a deal, any deal, even a bad deal.
So remove that leverage.
The American people should not be pushed toward accepting a bad deal with the Islamic regime because gas prices are rising.
We do not want a deal that preserves the regime.
We want the regime over.
President Trump has often been willing to break norms. This is a norm worth breaking. The norm that says American families must automatically pay global panic prices when a crisis erupts in the Middle East should be challenged. The norm that says oil companies can collect enormous windfall profits from fear while working families absorb the pain should be challenged. The norm that says Iran can gain leverage because the world is afraid of oil disruption should be challenged.
If President Trump wants to unite Americans behind a stronger policy toward Iran, this is how he does it: protect American families, protect the American economy, stop the inflationary oil shock, take oil panic out of Iran’s hands, and make clear that America’s energy independence will serve the American people, not just oil company profits.
President Trump once said, in effect, that when oil prices go up, “we make a lot of money.”
That sentence stuck with me.
When a president says “we,” many Americans wonder who “we” really means. I think he was referring to himself and or political friends positioned to profit. Because when oil prices spike, the people making money are not the families filling up their cars, workers commuting to jobs, small businesses trying to survive higher costs, or seniors living on fixed incomes, It is the American oil industry.
Somebody makes money when oil prices rise.
But it is not most Americans.
The oil industry has already made enough. The question now is whether America will use its energy independence for the purpose it was supposed to serve, the people.
Will the next 50 years look like the last 47?
Will the Islamic regime survive, regroup, enrich itself, and continue funding terror, crushing women, threatening Israel, manipulating oil markets, and exporting jihad?
Or will the world finally have a free Iran, a safer Israel, a Middle East free of proxies and militias, an America less vulnerable to oil panic, and a world in which Iranian talent builds life instead of a regime exporting death?
That is the future worth supporting.
The last 47 years have shown what happens when Islamic jihadists control Iran.
The next 50 years do not have to repeat that tragedy.
President Trump still has a window. America still has a choice. The democratic world still has a responsibility.
We can keep managing the threat, negotiating around the threat, pricing in the threat, and pretending the regime will become normal.
Or we can finally say what should have been obvious long ago.
Iran is not the enemy.
The Iranian people are not the enemy.
The Islamic regime is the enemy of Iran, Israel, America, and every person who wants the next 50 years to be better than the last 47.
