Over the course of a single day this month, a pattern repeated itself across the West. Two Muslims murdered at least 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney. Five Muslims were arrested for plotting an attack on a Christmas market in Germany. French authorities canceled a concert in Paris due to credible threats of an Islamist terror attack. Two Iowa National Guardsmen in Syria were murdered by an Islamist while we play footsie with an illegitimate regime.

None of this represents an anomaly. It represents the accumulated failure of a strategy best summarized as “invade the Muslim world, invite the Muslim world.”

This conflict has never been about Jews alone. Jews are the first target, not the last. Islamist ideology ultimately targets all non-Muslims and any society that refuses submission.

That doctrine has produced neither peace abroad nor safety at home.

A contradiction the West refuses to resolve

Western governments spent the better part of a generation importing millions of migrants from unstable regions while simultaneously deploying their own soldiers to those same regions to manage sectarian civil wars.

The contradiction remains unresolved: We accept the risks of mass migration while risking our troops to contain the same ideologies overseas.

Islamist movements do not confine themselves to national borders. Whether Sunni or Shia, whether operating in Syria, Europe, or North America, the targets remain consistent: Jews, Christians, secular institutions, and Western civil society.

Yet our policy treats these threats as isolated incidents rather than the expression of a coherent ideology.

Strategic incoherence in Syria

Nowhere does this incoherence appear more starkly than in Syria.

On one hand, the Trump administration has moved toward normalizing relations with Syria’s new leadership. In June, President Trump signed an executive order terminating U.S. sanctions on Syria, including those on its central bank, in the name of reconstruction and investment. Last month, Syria’s new leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani — a former al-Qaeda figure rebranded as a statesman — visited the White House, where Trump publicly praised developments under the new regime and said he was “very satisfied” with Syria’s direction.

At the same time, Trump floated the idea of establishing a permanent U.S. military base in Damascus to solidify America’s indefensible presence and support the new government.

This would be extraordinary. The United States would be embedding troops deeper into one of the most volatile theaters on earth, effectively placing American soldiers at the mercy of a regime whose leadership and allies only recently emerged from jihadist networks — including factions accused of massacring Christians and Druze.

Simultaneously, the White House pressures Israel to limit its defensive operations in southern Syria, including its buffer-zone strategy along the Golan Heights, even as Israeli forces do a far more effective job degrading jihadist threats without sacrificing their own soldiers.

The result is perverse: America risks lives to stabilize an Islamist-adjacent regime while restraining the one ally actually capable of enforcing order.

Wars abroad, chaos at home

The contradiction deepens when immigration policy enters the picture.

Despite Syria remaining one of the world’s most unstable countries, with no reliable vetting infrastructure, the United States continues admitting Syrian migrants while maintaining roughly 800 troops inside Syria with no clear mission, no defined end, and no defensible supply lines.

Worse, U.S. forces increasingly find themselves aligned with terrorist factions tied to al-Jolani’s coalition to manage rival Islamist groups — placing American soldiers in the same position they occupied in Afghanistan, where “allies” repeatedly turned on them.

That dynamic produced deadly ambushes then. It is happening again.

Qatar’s fingerprints all over

The common thread running through Syria, Gaza, immigration policy, and Islamist indulgence is Qatar.

Qatar (along with our NATO “ally,” Turkey) invested heavily in Sunni Islamist factions during Syria’s civil war and backed networks tied to the Muslim Brotherhood for more than a decade. Qatar hosts Islamist leaders, bankrolls ideological infrastructure, and operates Al Jazeera, a media outlet that consistently amplifies anti-Western and anti-Israel narratives.

Yet Qatari preferences increasingly shape Western policy. We remain in Syria. We soften pressure on Islamist factions. We tolerate Muslim Brotherhood networks operating domestically. We allow Al Jazeera to function with broad access and influence inside the United States.

These choices do not occur in isolation. They align consistently with Qatari interests.

Unfettered immigration kills

Which brings us to the attack in Sydney that killed at least 15 people and wounded dozens more, when two Muslim terrorists opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration — using weapons supposedly banned in a country that prides itself on gun control, but not border control.

The alleged attackers, Sajid Akram and Naveed Akram, were a father-and-son pair of Pakistani origin. Sajid Akram entered Australia from Pakistan in 1998 on a student visa, converted it to a partner visa in 2001, and later received permanent residency through resident return visas.

In other words, this was not a transient or marginal figure. Akram was educated, had lived in Australia for more than 25 years, raised an Australian-born son, and still became radicalized enough to murder Jews in his adopted country.

Pakistan is one of the countries the Trump administration continues to treat as an ally, allowing large numbers of its nationals into the United States. Over the past decade, roughly 140,000 Pakistanis have received green cards, with tens of thousands more entering on student and work visas.

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Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

The same pattern appears elsewhere. In Germany, five terrorists arrested for plotting an attack on a Christmas market came from Morocco, Syria, and Egypt. In the U.S., we have issued green cards to approximately 38,000 Moroccans, more than 100,000 Egyptians, and over 28,000 Syrians.

This problem is not confined to ISIS or a handful of extremists in distant war zones. It is systemic. It explains why thousands took to the streets celebrating the Sydney massacre and why Islamist mobs now routinely surround synagogues in American cities, blocking worshippers and daring authorities to intervene.

The truth is, it doesn’t matter which Islamic country they hail from, how friendly that government may be to the West, or the tribal dynamics on the ground there. All of them, when they cluster in large numbers and form independent communities run by the Musim Brotherhood organizations, are incompatible with the West.

The problem is with Islam itself and the mass migration and Western subversion promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood through Qatari and Turkish gaslighting.

A choice we keep postponing

This conflict has never been about Jews alone. Jews are the first target, not the last. Islamist ideology ultimately targets all non-Muslims and any society that refuses submission.

The West must decide whether it intends to defend its civilization or continue subsidizing its erosion — through mass migration without assimilation, foreign entanglements without strategy, and alliances that demand silence in exchange for access.

Rather than building up Syria, risking the lives of our troops, and continuing to appease our enemies in Qatar, why not pull out, let Israel serve as the regional security force, while we focus on closing our border to the religion of pieces?

Protecting the country requires clarity. That means ending immigration from jihadist incubators, dismantling Islamist networks operating domestically, withdrawing troops from unwinnable sectarian conflicts, and empowering allies who actually fight our enemies.

Anything less is not “compassion” or sound foreign policy. It is criminal negligence.