In the best-case scenario, Syria could be seeing a lifelong jihadist putting away his AK-47 and presiding over an orderly state that tolerates religious minorities and has good relations with Israel and the West. Of course, one could hardly expect Syria to become a Western-style liberal democracy, but one can reasonably hope for something better than the secular totalitarianism of Bashar al-Assad or the Islamist totalitarianism of Islamic State. Meanwhile, President Trump praised the Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman for his transformative effect on his country—a transformation that includes turning it from a major incubator, exporter, and funder of the most extreme forms of jihadism to a force acting against them.

Could it be that the era of Islamism is coming to a close? Like Syrian liberal democracy, that might be overly optimistic. But these developments make Hussein Aboubakr Mansour’s reflection on the roots of Islamism especially germane. Those roots are not, Mansour contends, especially Islamic; rather he argues—citing the work of the great Bernard Lewis—that it is an ideology driven by resentment:

The radical is not simply angry; he is humiliated. And that humiliation is not processed as tragedy, but as betrayal—by history, by the West, by internal decadence, and above all, by the silent God who no longer seems to answer.

In classical Islam, dignity (karāma) was grounded in submission to divine law. But that law has been politically neutralized and culturally forgotten. In its absence, dignity must now be asserted through power. Not the power of intellectual excellence or moral exemplarity—but the brute power of retaliation. The jihadist does not want to purify society; he wants to punish it. His religion is not a source of transcendent humility, but of absolute self-righteousness. His God does not judge him; his God affirms him.

This inversion is critical: the classical Muslim feared God; the radical invokes Him to sanctify his fury. . . . There is no room [in the radical’s worldview] for confusion, ambiguity, or introspection—only the raw certitude of the aggrieved.

And central to this aggrievement is the Jew.

The Jew, especially the sovereign Israeli Jew, embodies everything the radical cannot reconcile: historical continuity, technological competence, democratic survival, theological confidence. The Jew is not hated as a person, but as a mirror. A mirror that reflects the Arab world’s fall, and thus must be shattered.

Yesterday, the Iranian foreign minister flew to Geneva to meet with European diplomats. President Trump, meanwhile, indicated that cease-fire negotiations might soon begin with Iran, which would presumably involve Tehran agreeing to make concessions regarding its nuclear program, while Washington pressures Israel to halt its military activities. According to Israeli media, Iran already began putting out feelers to the U.S. earlier this week. Aviram Bellaishe considers the purpose of these overtures:

The regime’s request to return to negotiations stems from the principle of deception and delay that has guided it for decades. Iran wants to extricate itself from a situation of total destruction of its nuclear facilities. It understands that to save the nuclear program, it must stop at a point that would allow it to return to it in the shortest possible time. So long as the negotiation process leads to halting strikes on its military capabilities and preventing the destruction of the nuclear program, and enables the transfer of enriched uranium to a safe location, it can simultaneously create the two tracks in which it specializes—a false facade of negotiations alongside a hidden nuclear race.