Every so often, when tragedy strikes close to home, I’m reminded that one of the greatest threats to Western civilization is the growing predominance of Radical Islam—and the stubborn refusal of many in the West to acknowledge what that ideology, and its most committed followers, actually stand for.
The modern left has a notoriously bad habit: embracing whatever conservatives warn them about—sometimes even when doing so contradicts every other belief they claim to hold.
History provides a perfect example. It was radical leftists who helped usher the Ayatollah into power during the Iranian Revolution. Their reasoning wasn’t religious sympathy—it was anti-American fervor. The Shah had good relations with the United States, and for many Marxist and socialist activists, that alone was reason enough to help topple him.
So these young revolutionaries—people who claimed to champion women’s rights, gay rights, and civil rights for the “marginalized”—lined up behind Islamic extremists simply because they believed they were sticking it to the United States.
The reward for their revolutionary enthusiasm was swift and brutal. Once the Ayatollah consolidated power, he stripped away those very rights they claimed to defend—and many of the radicals who helped him get there were executed. Religion, not progressive ideology, dictated the new order.
And yet the lesson appears lost.
On Capitol Hill, Senator Tommy Tuberville has been pointing out the same contradiction that still exists today.
Tuberville has to spell it out because many of his colleagues—and a sizeable portion of the American public—have convinced themselves of something absurd: that Islam represents a better moral alternative to the principles of Western civilization.
In that worldview, “Islamophobia”—which increasingly means nothing more than criticism of the religion—is treated as a greater danger than the violence carried out by extremists who claim the faith as their motivation.
Meanwhile, the real-world consequences continue to mount.
This week tragedy nearly unfolded near my own backyard in West Bloomfield, Michigan. A Lebanese-born man rammed his vehicle into a Jewish synagogue with the apparent intention of causing mass casualties. Inside were more than 140 people—about 100 of them children attending school.
His car was packed with explosives that failed to detonate before security personnel neutralized the threat.
The suspect, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, has not been officially labeled a Muslim. But connecting the dots doesn’t require a detective. He was born in Lebanon, where roughly 70 percent of the population is Muslim. His family were practicing Muslims. He lived in Dearborn Heights—home to the largest Muslim population in the United States. His middle name is Mohammed. And investigators now say his brother was a Hezbollah commander killed in Israeli strikes.
On that same day, another attack unfolded hundreds of miles away. A man named Mohammed Bailor Jalloh opened fire at Old Dominion University, where he was a student, killing an ROTC instructor and injuring two others after reportedly being inspired by ISIS.
The rampage might have been far worse if not for an ROTC cadet in the room who stopped him using nothing more than a knife.
But here’s the part that should make every American pause: Jalloh had served in the Virginia National Guard. He had already been convicted years earlier for attempting another domestic terrorist plot on U.S. soil. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison—and released early by the Biden administration.
This is precisely what I mean when I say the threat isn’t being taken seriously enough.
Demographic trends only add to the concern. Conservative researchers note that the Muslim population in the United States has more than doubled over the past 20 years—and projections suggest it will continue to grow rapidly.
Mosques have increased by 31 percent in just the past decade alone.
The percentage of immigrants identifying as Muslim has doubled as well.
And now the mayor of New York is openly urging Americans to look to Islam—his faith of choice—for guidance on immigration policy.
How comforting that might sound to some.
How misleading it actually is.
Because Islam, historically speaking, is not focused on coexistence. It is focused on conversion—and on making the world submit.
That message isn’t new. Arab Islamic conquerors were delivering it as early as the first century.
Consider Egypt. The apostle Mark evangelized there shortly after the death of Jesus Christ, and Christianity spread rapidly. For centuries Egypt was one of the great centers of the Christian world.
Then, roughly six centuries later, Islamic conquerors arrived—and destroyed Christian churches across the land.
Christians were given three choices: convert, pay crushing taxes, or face death.
The results were predictable.
Here’s how an Egyptian Coptic Christian describes that legacy.
That is the voice of someone who remembers history—someone whose ancestors paid the price.
Unfortunately, much of the modern world seems determined to forget.
Europe has thrown its borders open in the last two decades, allowing massive waves of migration that have transformed entire societies.
In the United Kingdom, Jews are now ten times more likely to be victims of hate crimes than Muslims. Over the past 25 years, 94 percent of all terror-related murders in the UK were carried out by Islamist extremists. Those same extremists account for roughly 75 percent of counterterrorism caseloads.
When conservative Member of Parliament Katie Lam points out these facts, she’s shouted down by the opposition.
That was Labour MP Dawn Butler—and statements like that are accepted uncritically by a generation conditioned to assume the narrative is always true.
My concern is that we’re watching the same dynamic unfold here in the United States.
Take San Diego. The city proudly brands itself as progressive—about as liberal as it gets. Yet it hosts an Islamic imam who has been banned from both the United Kingdom and Canada for defending the idea that Islamic law permits sex with female captives taken in war.
The governments in those countries tried to silence him.
But silencing the messenger avoids the real issue: he is describing doctrines that exist within the religion itself.
And this is what he’s teaching openly in San Diego.
This is what many devout believers in that system are taught to accept as truth.
And perhaps the most dangerous mistake Western societies keep making is refusing to believe them when they say it.
The left needs to believe them.
Because if you want to understand how Mohammed envisioned Islam spreading to every household on earth, you have to take its adherents at their word.
Every tragedy, every near-miss, every uncovered plot is another reminder of the same uncomfortable reality: the ideology driving Islamic extremism remains one of the greatest threats to Western civilization.
Yet instead of confronting it, too many of our political leaders prefer denial.
And history suggests that denial is rarely a winning strategy.