Yesterday, the New York Times published an opinion piece by the Iranian foreign minister. In it, Mohammad Javad Zarif declares Wahhabism a “death cult” responsible for most of the Muslim world’s problems and blames Saudi Arabia for spreading this “fanaticism.” All this, from a high official of the repressive Islamic-fundamentalist state that is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism. Danielle Pletka writes:

Zarif is right. Wahhabism is indeed a danger to the world, a scourge of extremist ideology that successive Saudi regimes have inflicted upon the Muslim (and Christian and Jewish) world. . . . And Zarif is right that the Saudis have used their wealth to hire lobbyists and directly to buy friends in the United States and Europe, which has surely influenced policy in their favor. But then Zarif stops, and it is in his silence where we find the hypocrisy, dishonesty, and sheer Machiavellian predacity of the Tehran regime

Because, you see, Zarif is only concerned with Sunni terrorism, but Iran is the veritable godfather of modern terrorism. . . . And worse yet, unlike the Saudi government, which has actually begun to grapple with its problems and its legacy, Iran has merely doubled and tripled down on its terror model. But let’s review the bidding, shall we?

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, men and women may not consort; women must be veiled (though not with their faces covered). Iran has executed, on average, a person a day in 2016. . . . And forget about being a minority in Iran, where only 50 percent of the population is Persian. . . .

It was the Islamic Republic that created Hizballah and sponsored the groups that kidnapped and murdered Americans through Lebanon’s long civil war. It is the Islamic Republic that funds Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It is Iran that props up the murderous Assad regime—you know, the guys that have repeatedly gassed their own people. It is Iran that has assassinated its enemies the world over, and it is Iran’s own Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (and its expeditionary Quds Force) that was responsible, during the Iraq war, for hundreds of U.S. servicemen dying.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.