Top of Mind Thursday – March 19, 2026: War by Any Other Name

In the last week, the military operation in the Persian Gulf has intensified greatly, with US and Israeli forces striking missile factories and launch sites, as well as assassinating key figures in the repressive Islamic regime.

In return, the Iranian regime has continued attacking its neighbors—striking airports and civilian infrastructure in most of the Gulf states and effectively shutting down the transport of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. Oil prices have gone through the roof and consumers here are seeing this at the gas pump.

US President Trump has at times called this military effort a war or an excursion (he may actually have meant to say incursion), but regardless of the nomenclature, it’s not the only war in town. In fact, in America, it might not even be the most dangerous.

Last week, a Lebanese man with US citizenship rammed his car into a synagogue/school complex in the Detroit area where 150 children were already in school, setting the car and himself on fire. He was stopped by an armed security guard and died of his injuries. Supposedly, he was upset his brother had been killed by Israeli forces in Lebanon. The brother, it turns out, was a senior Hezbollah terrorist.

The same day, a man attacked an ROTC training class at Old Dominion College in Virginia, killing the instructor and critically injuring two students. He was a naturalized American citizen who had been radicalized by ISIS.

The previous Sunday, two Israeli men enjoying dinner at an upscale outdoor cafe in San Jose were attacked and beaten by three Arab men (an attorney and two brothers) who heard them speaking Hebrew. The men, who have been arrested, shouted antisemitic slurs as they beat up their victims.

It’s estimated that American Jews now suffer 25 antisemitic attacks per day. That doesn’t include the attacks happening in other countries around the world–from The Netherlands to the UK to France to Spain to Australia, and beyond.

Many Americans believe that besides the price of gasoline, the war in Iran doesn’t impact them directly. If only that were so. Over the last quarter century, Iran has been responsible for more terrorist attacks against not just Jews but Americans in general than any other group on the planet.

No one knows how many radicalized terrorists, many of them with American passports, are waiting to strike American targets. When Iran says, Death to Israel, Death to America, they actually mean it. That’s why our military is in the Gulf, defanging the regime. But there’s no similar military effort focused on the terrorist attacks going on at home.

The war we most risk losing is the one we don’t want to acknowledge.

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