What do the recent attacks on commercial ships in the Indian Ocean and Red Sea, Hezbollah’s hostile takeover of Lebanon, drone attacks on Ukrainian cities, Hamas’s war against Israel, Iraqi militia attacks on North American bases, and the December 26 explosion in New Delhi mean?

Connecting the dots reveals a clear picture of the Ayatollah regime in Iran. All these violent attempts are terrorist activities sponsored by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Its leaders do not hide their hostility towards the free and democratic world and do not shy away from the most violent means of propagating their totalitarian ideology, even tirelessly striving to arm themselves with nuclear weapons.

The free world cannot choose its enemies. It is the enemies who decide to impose themselves through their aggressions. Refusing to acknowledge the profound conflict between the values ​​of the free world and the ideology promoted by the radical Islamist regime of the Ayatollahs in Iran will not make it go away.

Israel is condemned to the role of scapegoat in this fateful struggle because it is the representative of the free world in a war-torn region, where Iran is deeply involved in all the conflicts. Israel remains firmly on the front lines of the free world in the face of fundamentalist threats. If Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and all other Iranian agents were to prevail, the path to the Mediterranean and continental Europe would be clear for their next aggressive phase.

Iran and Israel are separated by the vast territories of Iraq, Syria and Jordan, with Jerusalem some 1,500 km from Tehran. Israel has no animosity towards the Iranian people. In fact, Israelis and Iranians have maintained strong relations in the past, a fact that is fondly remembered by many people in both countries, who would like to restore it. On the other hand, many Iranians often criticize the Ayatollah’s self-proclaimed artificial patronage of the Palestinian cause.

But unlike the Iranian people, the ayatollahs and their allies share one thing with many Palestinian parties: their anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel, united by a common desire to eradicate a single Jewish state.

The current war began with the Hamas attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7. However, Iran has escalated it into a conflict on multiple fronts, provoking attacks by Hezbollah from Lebanon, Syrian and Iraqi militias, aggression by the Houthis from Yemen on maritime trade routes in the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. , and Iranian hackers who are causing cyberattacks around the world, such as the one that recently hit Albania.

Israel may be on the front lines of the current war, but the war is far from being fought only against Israel. It is about the fight for our common values ​​of democracy, freedom and human rights against the forces that promote fundamentalism and oppression. It’s about securing the future of the free world. (OR)