Recently the State Department and USAID produced a document titled Joint Strategy on Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). Not once in the entire report do the words “Islam,” “Islamism,” or “Muslim” appear. The fact that the devisers of this strategy are unable to name their opponents is testimony, writes Elliott Abrams, to the bankruptcy of their thinking—and that bankruptcy in turn encourages anti-Muslim demagogy:

There are some ideas in this “strategy” for what is now called CVE, but at bottom it is hopeless. If this is really the U.S. strategy, we are in even bigger trouble than we thought. . . .

When we seek to understand why voters in Europe and the United States listen to demagogues and even form [harsher] views of their own, we should remember this [report]. When governments put out documents like this one, they are helping feed demagogy and . . . harming the effort to formulate effective and sensible efforts against extremism.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.