Order Robert Spencer’s new book, Holy Hell: Islam’s Abuse of Women and the Infidels Who Enable It: HERE.
As with the “Palestinian” Arab jihad against Israel, so also in the Islamic Republic of Iran: the leaders always describe their conflict with America in terms of Islam, the one element of the conflict that American analysts universally ignore.
“We have spilled blood to establish this Islamic regime and we will not retreat an inch,” Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei declared on Friday, January 9, 2026, and the “Islam” part of that statement was not incidental. On December 27, 2025, according to Iran International, Khamenei explained that “the problem between the Islamic Republic and Western powers ‘is not the nuclear issue,’ but opposition to Iran’s plan ‘to establish a national and international Islamic order.’” He said this, significantly, to “the annual meeting of Islamic student associations in Europe.”
Nor was this kind of rhetoric anything new. As The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran shows, Khamenei declared back in November 2015 that Iran’s foreign policy was “based on Islam and stems from the aspirations and goals of the Revolution.” No less an authority than the Ayatollah Khomeini had said from the beginning that the goals of that Islamic revolution were global: “We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry ‘There is no god but Allah’ resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle.”
A key Islamic Republic official, Mohsen Rezaee, once told a cheering Iranian crowd: “We will build a force that will demolish the enemies of Islam, continue the path of our great prophet Muhammad, and raise the flag of Islam in all corners of the world.” A neon sign in Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport reads, in English, “In future Islam will destroy Satanic sovereignty of the West.”
Iran’s commitment to world conquest in the name of Islam—and to the defeat of America in particular—precludes lasting peace with the United States. According to IRGC deputy commander Hossain Salami on February 1, 2014, Israel and the U.S. could be defeated—if only Muslim unity could be achieved: “This region is ideologically united by similar faiths and common goals. If these goals can be merged, and the Muslim peoples are ideologically, strategically, and politically united, then Western, and particularly American, political breathing space will be restricted. Even the Zionist regime, which is America’s political, military, economic, and security bridgehead, will have no air to breathe.”
Salami also issued this threat: “Whoever seeks to talk to our nation in intimidating language — we will not be deterred by geographic borders from endangering their interests. Wherever they may be — we will be there as well. We will not confine the conflict to any border. We announce this loud and clear.”
Apparently even the lack of unity in the Muslim world was the fault of America and Israel. A month after the conclusion of the nuclear agreement, Supreme Leader Khamenei accused the United States and Israel of trying to prevent Muslim unity from being achieved. They were conspiring, he said, “against the [Qur’an] and not Shiism and Iran, because they know that the [Qur’an] and Islam are the center of awakening nations.”
The “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” chants were popular among Iranians, he said, because they “realized that their real stubborn enemy is the world arrogance of Zionism.” Khamenei claimed that “the world bullies are fully, seriously seeking to stir violence and discord under the name of Islam and are trying to disrepute the religion of Islam, foment internal fights among Islamic nations and even among the people of one nation to weaken the Muslim Ummah [the worldwide Islamic community].”
Speaking to Iranian officials in charge of the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, Khamenei offered to strike back against these attempts to divide Muslims by “transferring the Iranian nation’s experience about unity and recognition of the enemy to other nations in the Hajj season,” which, he said, “can defuse these plots.”
The next month, he wrote, “In these days, the evil policy of America in this region is causing war and bloodshed, destruction, displacement, poverty, backwardness, and religious and sectarian division…. The plots of the global tyranny [the U.S.] in this matter must be identified, and ways to resolve [this matter] must be considered. The nations must demand this of their governments, and the governments must be true to their responsibilities…”
This from a government that for years has prioritized the jihad against Israel and the empowering of its proxies that are waging that jihad over the well-being of its own people. And now, once again, those people are rising up. The confident advance of Islam may be somewhat delayed.
