Jerusalem, Israel - I agree with the four-week track on the Global Power Barometer that, for the moment, Iran and the Islamists are winning and the U.S. and Israel are losing. But this snapshot of current trends does not really say much regarding the real balance of forces in the global battle between Islamists and the West.
The Islamists, fortunately, have a real problem: The only way they can win is if the West continues to decide not to lift a finger in its own defense. Unfortunately, the self-correcting mechanism for Western passivity is a painful one.
The weaker the West looks and acts, the more the Islamists will be emboldened and the more they will attack. Eventually, these attacks will spur the U.S., and perhaps even Europe, back into action. When that happens, the combined economic, diplomatic, and military power of the U.S. and Europe will prove much greater than that of the lead rogues, Iran and Syria.
The main question is what it will take to reawaken Western defenses, and what price will be paid for having already forgotten the lessons of 9/11. We are back in the 1930s, a time when a totalitarian threat could have been easily thwarted if the voices of appeasement had not held sway. Even now, it is not too late to stop Iran, possibly even without military action. But time is quickly running out.
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