On October 22, a French-Chechen Muslim beheaded a schoolteacher in a Paris suburb for showing cartoons of Mohammad. Since then, there have been several other acts of terror in France. (It is not yet clear, as of this writing, whether last night’s murderous attack near a Vienna synagogue is related.) Meanwhile, Islamist leaders around the world have responded with further incitement. Jonathan Michanie urges the West to stand firm:

Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that Emmanuel Macron’s [condemnation of Islamic extremism is] comparable to [the behavior] of the Nazi party during the 1930s and to the propaganda preceding the 1995 massacre of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica. Putting their geopolitical disputes aside, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweeted in solidarity: “Why is it a crime to raise doubts about the Holocaust? Why should anyone who writes about such doubts be imprisoned while insulting the Prophet (pbuh) is allowed?” It should be noted that neither of these leaders condemned the brutal murder of [the schoolteacher]—condoning and excusing terrorism is nothing out of the ordinary for these regimes.

Similar condemnations of the French government were made by the Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan, . . . and on October 29, Malaysia’s ex-prime minister claimed that “Muslims have a right to kill millions of French people,” [even if they have demonstrated admirable restraint in not exercising this right].

[Such] rhetoric is not just an assault on Western values, but [also] serves as ammunition for the atrocious human-rights violations that are being carried out by these extremist regimes.

[I]mmediate and harsh targeted sanctions need to be placed on Iranian, Turkish, and Pakistani officials. Every antagonizing action by these radical regimes will not only perpetuate the human-rights abuses they are carrying out but will weaken the West’s ability to deter the rising aggression by Islamic authoritarian regimes. Silence and complacency are not an option.

Last week, the New York Times reported, based on unnamed sources within the Trump administration, that the president had asked Israel not to carry out a planned strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. That is, somebody deliberately gave this information to the press, which later tried to confirm it by speaking with other officials. Amit Segal writes that, “according to figures in Israel’s security establishment,” this is “the most serious leak in Israel’s history.” He explains:

As Israel is reportedly planning what may well be one of its most consequential military operations ever, the New York Times lays out for the Iranians what Israel will target, when it will carry out the operation, and how. That’s not just any other leak.

Seth Mandel looks into the leaker’s logic:

The primary purpose of the [Times] article is not as a record of internal deliberations but as an instrument of policy itself. Namely, to obstruct future U.S. and Israeli foreign policy by divulging enough details of Israel’s plans in order to protect Iran’s nuclear sites. The idea is to force Israeli planners back to the drawing board, thus delaying a possible future strike on Iran until Iranian air defenses have been rebuilt.

The leak is the point. It’s a tactical play, more or less, to help Iran torpedo American action.

The leaker, Mandel explains—and the Times itself implies—is likely aligned with the faction in the administration that wants to see the U.S. retreat from the world stage and from its alliance with Israel, a faction that includes Vice-President J.D. Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and the president’s own chief of staff Susie Wiles.

Yet it’s also possible, if less likely, that the plans were leaked in support of administration policy rather than out of factional infighting. Eliezer Marom argues that the leak was “part of the negotiations and serves to clarify to the Iranians that there is a real attack plan that Trump stopped at the last moment to conduct negotiations.”