RUTHFULLY YOURS

The western Asian nation of Iran is on the cusp of expanding its reach all the way to the Mediterranean Sea and Israel’s northern border – a drive that will make its nuclear pursuit, ballistic missile development and terror sponsorship that much more dangerous to the United States and its regional allies.

This budding hegemony is a product of Iran’s growing presence in, or influence over, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. It is being accomplished through Tehran’s own political or military activities, through the growing regional activities of its most important terrorist client, Hezbollah, and through Shiite militias that are pursuing Iranian interests in Syria and Iraq.

Iran’s progress, which is setting off alarm bells not just in Jerusalem but in Riyadh and other Sunni Arab capitals as well, is largely the result of a U.S. decision to focus its regional military efforts on pushing the Islamic State group out of Syria and Iraq without caring about, or focusing sufficiently on, the ability of Iran or its proxy forces to fill the vacuum in both countries.

What the United States is missing is a military and diplomatic strategy to defeat the Islamic State group without leaving Iran well-positioned to pursue its grand designs for the region – which include destroying Israel and replacing hostile Sunni governments with friendlier alternatives.

Iran borders Iraq and Turkey to its west. Iraq borders Syria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia to its west. Thus, Iran’s growing influence over Iraq, Syria and Lebanon extends its reach all the way to the Mediterranean Sea (which Syria and Lebanon border to their west) and Israel (which Lebanon borders to its south).

The implications of Iran’s geographic expansion are ominous. It will enable the radical regime in Tehran to send arms more easily to, for instance, besieged Syrian strongman Bashar Assad, as well as to Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia, which is based in Lebanon but currently teaming with Iran and Russia to prop up the Assad regime. And it will allow Iran to implant its own clerical army, the Revolutionary Guards, more easily in Syria and elsewhere.

Before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein, Iraq was a fierce rival of, and counter-balance to, the Islamic Republic. Today, however, Iranian-backed militias are gaining ground as they fight alongside Iraqi forces in Anbar province and in the battle to retake the town of Tal Afar from the Islamic State group.

Syria has been an Iranian ally and terror partner since the days of Assad’s father, Hafez, and little has changed. Syrian troops are now working with the Revolutionary Guard, Hezbollah and an assortment of Shiite militias to defeat not only the Islamic State group but also U.S.-backed anti-government rebels – all to keep the country’s brutal dictator in power. What was once a partnership of equals between Iran and Syria, however, has evolved into a patron-client relationship that helps to enhance Iran’s sway.

Meanwhile, in Lebanon, Iran is moving to build its own weapons factories, enabling Tehran to more easily arm Hezbollah for its next war with Israel. One factory in the country’s north reportedly will build Fateh 110 missiles, which have a range of 190 miles and can threaten most of the territory of the Jewish state. Iran’s assistance only amplifies the growing threat from Hezbollah. The terror group, which fought a war with Israel back in 2006, when it had an arsenal of some 15,000 rockets, already has a far more sophisticated stash that numbers an estimated 130,000 to 150,000 missiles.

Iran’s emerging reach into the Mediterranean is occurring while it continues to hide the ball on its nuclear program. In recent days, Iranian leaders have reiterated that Tehran won’t give nuclear inspectors access to military sites and warned that, if the United States withdraws from the 2015 global nuclear agreement, it can resume enriching uranium to 20 percent (a short step to weapons-grade levels) within five days.

In addition, Iran continues to ignore global concerns by testing increasingly sophisticated ballistic missiles that can carry nuclear warheads. It’s also expanding its conventional weaponry for potential battles on land or at sea.

On August 8, I wrote here in praise of Sylvi Listhaug, Norway’s Minister of Migration and Integration, who has criticized hijab in her country’s schools, warned that there are “wolves in sheep’s clothing” in Norway’s Muslim community, and complained about so-called asylum seekers who have been taken in by Norway but who vacation in the countries they supposedly fled from. Recently, Listhaug visited Rinkeby, the Stockholm suburb that is internationally notorious for having become one of the worst of that nation’s large and ever-increasing number of no-go zones. Listhaug said that she was there to study the nightmarish stew of gang crime, welfare dependency, self-segregation, and Islam that has come to be known as “Swedish conditions.” This explanation of her trip made total sense, since her most important job is to prevent Norway from coming any closer than it already is to those “conditions.”

Listhaug’s frankness outraged the Swedish political elite, leading to what Anders Lindberg, editor of Sweden’s largest daily, Aftonbladet, called “a small-scale diplomatic crisis” between the two countries. Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, rejecting Listhaug’s claim that immigration is a big problem in Sweden, insisted that Swedish society is “well-functioning.” Social Democrat Karin Wanngård, head of Stockholm’s city council, accused Listhaug of “taking advantage of our hospitality to make populist and untrue points in the Norwegian election campaign.” (Norway’s general election is scheduled for September 11.) Kahin Ahmed, a local politician in Rinkeby, advised Listhaug to put her energy into “creating a more inclusive society.”

Sweden’s establishment media went berserk, too. Heidi Avellan, chief political editor of Sydsvenskan and Helsingborgs Dagblad, charged Listhaug with presenting “an incorrect picture of Sweden.” The above-mentioned Lindberg – who has previously described Listhaug’s party, the Progress Party, as “fascistic” and maligned Denmark, owing to its sensible immigrant reforms, as “a nation of racists” – targeted Listhaug with the worst insult he could think of: he called her “Norway’s answer to Donald Trump.” And Swedish author Lars Åberg, while acknowledging that there are areas in Sweden where “police, fire trucks, and ambulances have been met with stone throwing, aggression, and threats,” managed somehow to deny that these are “no-go zones,” a term he dismissively identified with “far-right bloggers.”

But it wasn’t just the powers that be in Sweden who flipped out over Listhaug. So did their Norwegian counterparts. In an interview with NRK, University of Oslo law professor Mads Andenæs compared Listhaug to the Nazis and actually blamed her for a murder that she had nothing to do with. After being accused of libel by other law experts, Andenæs doubled down on Listhaug for “categoriz[ing] an entire group who don’t look like her, with [her] blonde hair.” His NRK interviewer plainly thought his remarks were true (and delightful), and they were admiringly quoted throughout the Norwegian media. If that weren’t enough, Aftenposten gave Wanngård space in its pages to further smear Listhaug as a liar – and to lie herself about Stockholm’s social harmony and “strong economic growth.” Like Andenæs’s insults, Wanngård’s falsehoods were enthusiastically cited all over the place. Oh, and veteran publisher William Nygaard, who over a decade ago put out the memoirs of child-murdering terrorist Mullah Krekar, called Listhaug a dangerous fascist.

It was the Swedish author Katerina Janouch – writing at an independent news website, Nyheter Idag, that Åberg would doubtless defame as “far-right” – who most forcefully responded to the Scandinavian elite’s assaults on Listhaug. Janouch began her powerful August 30 op-ed by making the obvious point that the Swedish government was more worried about Listhaug’s rhetoric, and about the impact it might have on Sweden’s image, than about the ghastly truth about Swedish society. “It is becoming increasingly clear,” Janouch wrote, “that our politicians have no contact with the reality their voters live with, and apparently zero interest in trying to remedy the problems.” Janouch expressed the wish that she could take Winngård and a couple of the other female politicians who were bad-mouthing Listhaug and force them to live in Rinkeby, to shop in grocery stores that have signs only in Arabic, to experience “the judging male glances if they show too much skin,” to know what it’s like to have rocks thrown at them and be called whores by teenage boys.

Washington and Pyongyang exchange threats as the latter continues to evoke the wrath of world powers with its latest nuclear test.

The nuclear confrontation between the US and North Korea entered a critical phase Sunday with North Korea’s conduct of an underground test of a thermonuclear bomb.

If the previous round of this confrontation earlier this summer revolved around Pyongyang’s threat to attack the US territory of Guam, Sunday’s test, together with North Korea’s recent tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the continental US, was a direct threat to US cities.

In other words, the current confrontation isn’t about US superpower status in Asia, and the credibility of US deterrence or the capabilities of US military forces in the Pacific. The confrontation is now about the US’s ability to protect the lives of its citizens.

The distinction tells us a number of important things. All of them are alarming.

First, because this is about the lives of Americans, rather than allied populations like Japan and South Korea, the US cannot be diffident in its response to North Korea’s provocation. While attenuated during the Obama administration, the US’s position has always been that US military forces alone are responsible for guaranteeing the collective security of the American people.

Pyongyang is now directly threatening that security with hydrogen bombs. So if the Trump administration punts North Korea’s direct threat to attack US population centers with nuclear weapons to the UN Security Council, it will communicate profound weakness to its allies and adversaries alike.

Obviously, this limits the options that the Trump administration has. But it also clarifies the challenge it faces.

The second implication of North Korea’s test of their plutonium-based bomb is that the US’s security guarantees, which form the basis of its global power and its alliance system are on the verge of becoming completely discredited.

In an interview Sunday with Fox News’s Trish Regan, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton was asked about the possible repercussions of a US military assault against North Korea for the security of South Korea.

Regan asked, “What are we risking though if we say we’re going to go in with strategic military strength?… Are we going to end up with so many people’s lives gone in South Korea, in Seoul because we make that move?” Bolton responded with brutal honesty.

“Let me ask you this: how do you feel about dead Americans?” In other words, Bolton said that under prevailing conditions, the US faces the painful choice between imperiling its own citizens and imperiling the citizens of an allied nation. And things will only get worse. Bolton warned that if North Korea’s nuclear threat is left unaddressed, US options will only become more problematic and limited in the years to come.