While Islamic terrorist groups multiply and expand throughout the Middle East—beheading U.S. citizens, attacking Israelis, crucifying Christians, raping children, seizing commercial jetliners, and promising Americans, “see you in New York”—now is a good time to recount the essential nature of the problem and to specify what the United States should do about it.
Although Islamic terrorist groups such as al Qaeda and Hezbollah have murdered many Americans and seek to murder many more, and although Americans are legitimately outraged by the recent atrocities and beheadings committed by Islamic State (aka ISIL and ISIS), such groups are not the fundamental problem. They are, relatively speaking, swarms of worker bees. The fundamental problem is the beehives—the Islamic regimes that spawn, sponsor, and enable such terrorist groups—especially the regimes in Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Of course, these regimes are not always happy about the terrorist groups they spawn. For instance, both Iran and Saudi Arabia are currently unhappy about the dramatic rise of Islamic State. The Shiite Iranians dislike the Sunni group because it is Sunni and because it threatens Iranian power in the Middle East; the Sunni Saudis dislike the Sunni group because it is too overtly brutal for Saudi taste and because it threatens Saudi control of Mecca and Medina. . . .