For Europeans, existential threats come less from a weakened Iran than from a Nuke-powered Russia ::::: In 2007, Hillary Clinton regretted Iraq War, Obama described Libya as "worst mistake” and Andrew Sullivan wrote a book -- 'I Was Wrong'

The United States is “not perfect” and so it must have committed mistakes in the past, remarked an American Muslim at a seminar in Delhi in 2014.

He was commenting on the state of Muslims residing in the US. He was also asked to comment on the role played by the US in turning Islam, into today’s “Radical Islam” – something more identified as an instrument of Jihad. 

 

Radical Islam and terror generated by it became a matter of global concern.  But see the paradox; today the world seemed to be more concerned about Donald Trump does and says. In circa 2026 today, experts do say that “The threat of terrorism” from the Middle East was actually a consequence of American involvement, not the reason for it”.  

There is another element of irony in the entire saga.  

In an article under the headline 'America Is Now a Rogue Superpower', Robert Kagan wrote for 'The Atlantic'

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"For America’s friends and allies in Europe, the Iran war has been a significant strategic setback. 

As Russia and Ukraine wage a grinding war that will be “won” by whoever can hold on the longest, the Iran war has materially and psychologically helped Russia and hurt Ukraine. 

Even before Donald Trump lifted oil sanctions on Russia, oil prices were skyrocketing—and filling Vladimir Putin’s war chest with billions of dollars, just as Russia’s wartime deficits were starting to cause significant pain". 

Moreover, more worrying for European allies has been the evident indifference of the United States to the consequences of its actions. 

For Europeans, the existential threat today comes not from a weakened and impoverished Iran but from a nuclear-armed Russia that invaded Ukraine in the most brazen act of cross-border territorial aggression.  

Let us revert back to the issue of , “Muslims in America”. 

It is appreciated that the Muslim Americans are the most ethnically diverse faith community in America. For instance, we are told time and again in the media that American Muslims not only help their country (that is the US) through professions but also donate time and money to help America’s needy.  

But how does one really diagnose emergence of a fundamentalist Islam in the western world.

Perhaps in European perspective, the pragmatic approach to religion was ‘traditionalist Islam’ and that offered Muslims a “stable and satisfying” life. Notably, this traditionalist approach to Islam still rules the roost in remote Muslim countries such as Morocco and Yemen.

But with the advent of 18th century and an assertive –western world-European-civilization, perhaps the “traditionalist Islam” began to lose its hold. The European expansion in the fag end of 18th century caused a decline in the power and wealth of the Muslim world.  

Muslims came face to face with their poverty and what was also dished out by western intellectuals especially as ‘cultural backwardness’.  

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Notwithstanding the American role in 1970s, it is also a fact that the ‘fundamentalist’ face of Islam actually existed in some parts since the seventh century.

 According to some historians, it gained political legitimacy in some parts in the 1920s. 

Thus, the 1970s and beyond led to the easy rise of ‘fundamentalism’. 

The experience worldwide and also in America was contrary to Muslim intellectuals appetite for ‘modernization and secularism’, the Muslim masses have a greater tendency to absorb the ‘radical Islam’. 

This also had resulted in the ironical twist in Indian history in the context of Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s initial commitment for a Hindu-Muslim unity and how he partitioned India. 

In the context of the troubles we see in West Asia, it may be also stated that the United States actually carried out 'regime change' agenda in Iran way back in 1953,

Many say such external intervention also led to radicalization in that country.  

History is witness that the CIA admitted in later stage that American establishment had hired Iranians to pose as communists and stage bombings to turn the country around politically.

Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski told CNN in 2014 that the United States “organized and supported” Osama Bin Ladan and other originators of Al Qaeda in the 1970s.

CIA director and Secretary of Defence Robert Gates confirmed in his memoir that the U.S. backed the Mujahaeedin in the 1970s.

Thus, the truth of the matter is the “biggest enemy” of the US, bin Laden had left Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan after Moscow’s invasion in 1979. 

In New Delhi seminar in 2014; a few American women had shared stories about American Muslims and other Americans’ behaviour in the neighbourhood especially after the 9/11 Frankenstein’s monster-type disaster. 

“Instead of encountering hostility from the wider community, we found that half of the people at the mosque often are Americans of other faiths who come to express support and solidarity,” said one.

These could be true. 

But for many Indians among the audience, the story was FAMILIAR as after such communal holocaust a section of people ALWAYS do try to spread the message of sanity and compassion. 

Pluralism is also much cherished a norm in India like the US over religious divide or prejudices. 

But in the ultimate, the US-Iran War has changed the game a lot.  

Often the game changes and leave adverse fallout forcing people to regret. But by then nothing much can be done.  

In 2007, Hillary Clinton was repenting -- “Knowing what we know now, I would never have voted for it,” she had said about the Iraq war that year.

Barack Obama described the chaotic aftermath of Libya as “his worst mistake”. Andrew Sullivan, a known British-American commentator, began agitating for the invasion of Iraq in the hours after 9/11. 

He later compiled that writing in a book titled 'I Was Wrong'.

For Iran War of 2026; a few more people will have to come out with such caustic book titles and remarks.

ends