Iran’s new President Ebrahim Raisi takes the oath during his swearing-in ceremony at the parliament in Tehran, Iran, August 5, 2021. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/ via REUTERS

The extension of US gestures and concessions to Islamic terrorists, and the waiving of a US military option while negotiating with Iran’s regime of terror, are perceived as weakness by terrorists, adversaries, and allies of the US.

Such a policy ignores, or takes lightly, the well-documented track record of Islamic terrorism, while emphasizing the subjective and speculative future track record of terrorists.

Such a policy erodes the US posture of deterrence, which is a prerequisite to the minimization of global turbulence, undermining US interests in the international arena, and bringing the threat of Islamic terrorism closer to the US mainland.

Such a policy is based on the assumption that Islamic terrorism is driven by despair (diplomatically and economically). However, Islamic terrorism has been driven by a radical interpretation of Islam, and often by the imperialistic religious vision to establish a universal Islamic society.

Such a failed US vision is based on the assumption that Islamic terrorism is driven by American foreign policy. However, Islamic terrorism has haunted the US since the late 18th century, during Democratic and Republican administrations.

For example:

During the 1980s, it was US diplomatic, financial, and military assistance which enabled the Mujahideen to drive the USSR out of Afghanistan. But soon many of those same people turned against the United States, culminating in the 9/11 attacks.

In 2015, the US engineered the nuclear accord with Iran’s ayatollahs (the JCPOA), which generated a mega-billion dollar bonanza to Iran’s treasury. But Iran’s ayatollahs reacted by vastly bolstering their role as a regional and global epicenter of subversion, terrorism, civil wars, the proliferation of ballistic capabilities, and drug trafficking in the Persian Gulf, the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, Europe, and South and Central America. They also continued racing ahead with their nuclear program.

In 1982/83, the US sent its soldiers to Lebanon, in order to slow down Israel’s military pursuit of Palestinian terrorists. But in 1983, Islamic terrorists truck-bombed the US embassy and Marine barracks in Lebanon, murdering 250 Americans.

In 1993 and 2005, Israel made unprecedented concessions — which no Arab country ever did — by extending Palestinian rule to major parts of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and the Gaza Strip, importing some 100,000 Palestinian terrorists from Tunisia, Lebanon, Yemen, and the Sudan. The reaction by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to the unprecedented concessions has been an unprecedented wave of anti-Israel terrorism and hate-education, which reflect the Palestinian vision of eliminating the Jewish State.

Against the backdrop of the aforementioned developments, one should not subordinate the reality of Islamic/Arab/Palestinian terrorism to well-intentioned oversimplification, lest it erodes the US posture of deterrence and security.

Unlike the post-World War II Japanese and German populations, which were ready — historically, culturally, ideologically, politically, and educationally — to accept democracy, peaceful-coexistence, and human rights, the Islamic/Arab/Palestinian terrorists are not.

They don’t accept peaceful co-existence with America, and certainly not Israel.

Therefore, it behooves Western democracies in general, and the US in particular, to enhance their military posture of deterrence, and pursue peace-through-strength rather than peace-through-gestures, concessions, and retreats.

Yoram Ettinger is a former ambassador and head of “Second Thought: a U.S.-Israel initiative.”