US, Israel face the mutual threat of Islamic terrorism

FBI Director Christopher Wray is driven by Middle East reality, not by alternative, less frustrating but self-destructive fantasy.

By YORAM ETTINGER

FBI Director Christopher Wray, October 2019. Credit: Courtesy of FBI News (FBI.gov).

FBI Director Christopher A. Wray visited Israel on Feb. 14, 2024, meeting with leaders of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency and Israel Police. The goal of the visit was to benefit from Israel’s unique urban and tunnel warfare experience against Islamic terrorists, who are advancing the vision of Iran’s ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Director Wray considers Israel’s to be the most effective battle-tested laboratory for the U.S. armed forces, law enforcement agencies and defense industries.

He is aware of the ayatollahs’ and Hezbollas’ growing entrenchment in Mexico, along the U.S.-Mexico border and throughout Latin America. In fact, since the early 1980s, Iran’s ayatollahs and Hezbollah have entrenched themselves in Latin America, bolstering collaboration with the drug cartels of Mexico, Columbia, Bolivia, Ecuador and Brazil, all Latin American terror organizations and anti-U.S. Latin American governments. They supply the drug cartels with tunnel construction equipment and train them in the preparation of car bombs and Improvised Explosive Devices. In addition, they have leveraged the convoys of illegal aliens from Guatemala to the U.S.-Mexico border, smuggling terrorists and drug traffickers into the United States.

Islamic terrorism has targeted the United States since the early 19th century irrespective of U.S. policy and independent of the identity of the U.S. President. Thus, Islamic terrorism afflicted the United States during the presidencies of both Trump and Obama, G.W. Bush and Clinton, Reagan and Carter.

Hamas is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood—the largest Sunni terror organization in the world, with religious, educational and welfare branches and whose charter aims to topple all national Islamic regimes, establish a universal Islamic society, bring the Western “infidel”—and especially the United States—into submission and establish Islam as the only legitimate and divinely-ordained religion.

Since February 1979 when it toppled the Shah of Iran, the ayatollahs’ regime has transformed Iran from “the American policeman of the Gulf” to the leading anti-U.S. epicenter of global terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and the proliferation of advanced military systems.

Israel’s war against Hamas and Hezbollah terrorism has bolstered the United States’ defense against Islamic terrorism.

On Nov. 15, 2023, Director Wray testified at the House Committee on Homeland Security:

“The war in the Middle East has raised the threat of an attack against Americans in the U.S. to a whole other level…. Since Oct. 7, we’ve seen a rogue’s gallery of foreign terrorist organizations call for attacks against Americans and our allies. Hezbollah threatened to attack U.S. interests in the Middle East. Al-Qaida issued specific calls to attack the U.S. Al-Qaida called on jihadists to attack Americans and Jewish people everywhere. ISIS urged its followers to target Jewish communities in the U.S. and Europe.

The bottom line is that Wray is driven by Middle East reality, not by alternative, less frustrating but self-destructive fantasy. Therefore, he does not subscribe to the diplomatic option in the battle against Islamic terrorism, and does not propose to negotiate with—and make financial and diplomatic concessions to—terrorists. He does not expect Iran to accept peaceful coexistence with its pro-U.S. Sunni Arab regimes, conduct good faith negotiation, or abandon its 1,400-year-old fanatic vision.

Director Wray attempts to defeat Iran-controlled Islamic terrorists. He does not expect Israel to slow down its war on Hamas, which is a proxy of Iran. Just like Saudi Arabia and all other pro-U.S. Arab countries, He is aware that the obliteration of Hamas, militarily, politically and educationally, will bolster the posture of deterrence of both Israel and the United States, reducing terror assaults on pro-U.S. Arab countries (e.g., Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco) and in the U.S. mainland.