After witnessing the Islamic Republic of Iran systematically violate human rights, persecute religious minorities, adopt sharia law, murder dissidents, and force the judiciary to serve the Ministry of Intelligence, I’ve reached a stark conclusion: the worst thing that can happen to any free Western nation is allowing Islamic fundamentalists to gain control of government.

Most of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims pray in Arabic, even if it’s not their mother tongue—this includes most Iranians. The problem isn’t lost in translation. The problem is bad ideology.

The 9/11 Blueprint

Fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian. Two more came from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt, and one from Lebanon. All hailed from Arabic-speaking countries where the terrorists presumably read Islamic scripture in its original form. Muslim scholars didn’t unite to condemn this act of terrorism. Many celebrated it as a victory, because the Quran contains passages that explicitly permit violence to expand Islam.

Most so-called Muslims are peace-loving precisely because they don’t follow the rules. They practice Islam à la carte—essentially creating a new religion for themselves.

The Saudi Problem

Consider Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, the highest religious authority in Saudi Arabia, home of Mecca. This man studied Islamic scripture in the original Arabic. He speaks regularly in Mecca and heads the Permanent Committee for Islamic Research and Issuing Fatwas. In 2012, he issued a fatwa calling for the destruction of all churches on the Arabian Peninsula. In plain English, he incited terrorism.

Saudis are mainly Sunni Muslims, many following the ultra-conservative Wahhabi teachings of 18th-century scholar Mohammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. Around 10-15% of Muslims are Shias, including most Iranians. Since Sunnis and Shias have maintained a blood feud dating back to Mohammad’s succession, many Iranians interpreted the Grand Mufti’s fatwa to include destroying Shia mosques. Fundamentalist Muslims wage war against each other and against non-Muslims.

This sectarian divide creates dangerous regional alliances. Iran’s 90% Shia population has natural cultural bonds with Iraq’s 55% Shia majority, while Iraq’s Sunni minority maintains sympathies with Saudi Arabia’s even more fundamentalist Wahhabi Sunnis. These religious fault lines turn local conflicts into proxy wars, with each sect’s sponsoring nations fueling violence across the Middle East.

According to the 9/11 Commission Report, Saudis and Qataris funded Osama bin Laden. Current intelligence suggests Saudi Arabia helped fund the terrorists who formed ISIS to advance the Sunni agenda on the Arabian Peninsula. ISIS dutifully destroyed churches and Shia mosques, targeting Christians, Shia Muslims, and other minority religious groups for persecution, rape, murder, and enslavement.

If Saudi Arabia did bankroll ISIS, they now regret it—their monsters went rogue. ISIS formed its own Wahhabi-based caliphate claiming to speak for all Muslims worldwide. King Abdullah and other Gulf governments would rather not be replaced by newer zealots.

Iran’s Terrorist Network

Arabic-speaking Muslim countries aren’t alone in supporting terrorism. Iran gives aid and comfort to terrorist groups and still supports the death fatwa issued by the long-dead Ayatollah Khomeini against Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses—a novel that mocked certain Islamic practices.

Iran’s late Ayatollah Vaez-Tabasi called for “perpetual holy war.” He presided over the Imam Reza shrine, one of Islam’s holiest sites, drawing as many annual visitors as Mecca. This wasn’t some fringe cleric—this was mainstream Islamic leadership.

The Muhammad Standard

Fundamentalists view Muhammad as the perfect man. Yet Muhammad led violent followers who raped, enslaved war captives, and murdered unbelievers as part of Islam’s expansion program. Islamic terrorists in Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, and elsewhere emulate this behavior today.

Muhammad had several wives, including a slave given to him as a gift. In his fifties, he asked for a friend’s six-year-old daughter and consummated the marriage when the child was nine. By contemporary American standards, this constitutes statutory rape. Fundamentalists use Muhammad’s example to justify forced marriages of female children in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Gulf States, and Iran.

If fundamentalist Muslim leaders can’t grasp how this ideology appears to the West, they’re not trying hard enough.

The Cartoon Jihad

In 2005, Kurt Westergaard drew a cartoon mildly satirizing Muhammad for a Danish newspaper. Muslim clerics worldwide cried blasphemy and called for his death. A Pakistani cleric offered a million-dollar bounty for murdering the Dane. Thousands of Muslims protested. In 2010, an axe-wielding Muslim attacked Westergaard in his home, but he escaped to a panic room.

Western governments must stand firm against those who would blackmail us into surrendering our freedoms. No intelligent government should compromise free speech to appease terrorists who falsely claim victimhood while acting as calculating aggressors.

The Moderate Muslim Myth

Most of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims don’t support violence and human rights violations, but fundamentalists aren’t a fringe group—they occupy senior positions in Muslim clerical hierarchies. There are tens of millions of them, and they believe their interpretation of Islam is the only correct one.

Moderate Muslims complain about being lumped together with extremists, but if they’re claiming a schism, they haven’t been clear about it. When Martin Luther repudiated core Catholic teachings, he acknowledged he was no longer Catholic. He started the Protestant Reformation, and his followers became Lutherans.

Moderate Muslims still call themselves Muslims. But there will never be a Quran 2.0. According to fundamentalists, moderates don’t follow the rules—and fundamentalists are correct on this point. They view moderates as bugs in the program.

The Integration Delusion

European leaders promote “integration” over “assimilation,” but this distinction matters enormously. Integration suggests both sides adapt to each other. Assimilation means newcomers adopt the host country’s values and customs. When Muslim populations reach critical mass, “integration” often means non-Muslims accommodate Islamic practices rather than Muslims adapting to Western norms.

Political correctness has enabled systematic cover-ups of religiously motivated crimes across Britain. Authorities ignored the rape and trafficking of thousands of children by predominantly Muslim Pakistani gangs for over a decade to avoid “rocking the multicultural boat.” This wasn’t integration—it was capitulation.

Economic Warfare

Having lived through Iran’s currency crisis during the revolution, I understand how fundamentalist regimes weaponize economics. When Iran’s rial collapsed 60% in eight days, citizens hoarded food as prices skyrocketed. The government imposed capital controls, preventing currency conversion while maintaining the fiction of an official exchange rate.

Citizens couldn’t legally take more than $1,000 out of the country. Black markets flourished despite severe penalties. People bought diamonds and gemstones as portable wealth. They bartered land and Persian carpets for hard currency. Money became meaningless, so they purchased appliances and electronics—anything tangible with value.

This economic manipulation serves fundamentalist political goals. Currency crises and capital flight restrictions help regimes maintain control while pursuing ideological objectives regardless of economic consequences.

Regional oil infrastructure presents another vulnerability. Fundamentalist regimes understand that energy markets create leverage over Western economies. Corruption and theft can cripple production—in Iraq, an estimated 500,000 barrels per day disappeared through graft rather than violence. When sectarian conflicts threaten oil supplies across multiple countries simultaneously, price shocks can cost Western economies trillions while funding the very regimes that sponsor terrorism.

Nuclear Implications

Iran’s theocratic regime now pursues nuclear weapons while supporting international terrorism. Unlike secular governments accountable to voters, theocratic regimes answer primarily to religious authority that may prioritize theological objectives over rational state interests.

The combination of nuclear technology with religious ideologies sanctioning martyrdom and viewing conflict with non-Muslims as divinely mandated creates unprecedented security challenges. Traditional diplomatic frameworks weren’t designed for opponents who welcome apocalyptic scenarios.

The Failure to Reform

Islam has never undergone reformation comparable to Christianity’s Protestant movement. Muslims believe the Quran represents Allah’s direct, unalterable words—like the Ten Commandments but for an entire religion. No one can claim Allah didn’t mean what Allah reportedly said.

This theological rigidity prevents the textual reexamination that enabled Christian reformation. Moderate Muslims who reject violent interpretations often cannot provide scriptural justification, weakening their credibility in Islamic theological discourse.

Clear Choices Ahead

The West’s intelligence failures compound these challenges. After years of military engagement in the Middle East, American diplomatic missions still operate with embarrassingly few Arabic speakers. During Iraq’s peak crisis, the 1,000-person U.S. embassy had only six staff members who spoke Arabic fluently. The Defense Intelligence Agency had fewer than ten analysts with more than two years’ experience analyzing insurgencies. This cultural and linguistic blindness ensures continued policy failures.

Terrorists from different countries and cultures have united under Islam’s banner to commit mayhem and murder authorized by Islam’s highest clerical levels. Iran’s leaders, including former President Ahmadinejad, understand they hold high cards in Middle Eastern power games. They exploit Western diplomatic ineptitude and cultural ignorance while building nuclear capabilities that could destabilize global energy markets and threaten international security.

If moderate Muslims want to claim Islam is a tolerant religion perverted by fundamentalists, let them deliver that message to Saudi Arabia’s leaders, Gulf State rulers, Afghanistan’s Taliban, Pakistan’s fatwa-issuing clerics, Iran’s ayatollahs, and dozens of global Islamic terrorist organizations.

The West faces a choice: honest assessment of incompatible ideologies or continued delusion about universal human values. Nuclear proliferation among fundamentalist regimes makes this more than an academic debate—it’s a matter of survival.

Western governments must ensure democratic institutions remain supreme over religious law, individual rights are protected regardless of religious affiliation, and equal treatment under secular law applies to all citizens. This isn’t discrimination—it’s preservation of the principles that make free societies possible.

The Iranian model demonstrates how quickly secular societies can become theocratic states threatening both their populations and international stability. As nuclear technology spreads, preventing fundamentalist ideologies from gaining state power becomes essential for maintaining civilization itself.

About the Author

.Janet Tavakoli is president of Tavakoli Structured Finance and the author of Unveiled Threat: A Personal Experience of Fundamentalist Islam and the Roots of Terrorism, a non-fiction book about the current negative implications of Islamic fundamentalism for the United States.

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