Iran-backed forces are blocking the Middle East’s future, author says

Americans are debating whether this war was worth it. Thirteen soldiers have come home in caskets. Hundreds more carry wounds. No one takes that lightly. Least of all someone like me — who chose this country and wears its flag by choice, not by birth.

I was born on the Iranian border and raised in the shadow of its wars. I have seen firsthand what these policies do to the people of this region. I still travel across the Middle East — I was in Erbil, Riyadh and Dubai just recently. I know what people say when the cameras are off. It is not anger at America. It is relief.

But here is what the critics are missing. For millions of people across the Middle East, this war did not start on February 28. It started decades ago. What changed is that a president decided to stop managing the problem and start confronting it. The people of the region noticed. I promise you — they noticed.

What most Americans never hear is what those people actually want. Not war. Not jihad. Not martyrdom. Across the Gulf, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, 140 million people are under the age of 30. They want what any young American wants: a job, a stable country and a future that is not hostage to someone else’s ideology. New leaders in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kurdistan and Syria are building toward exactly that. When I sit with young professionals in Erbil or Riyadh or Dubai, they talk about startups. They talk about AI. They talk about opportunity.

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And this is not theory. Look at what happens when stability takes root. The UAE was empty desert 50 years ago. Today it is a global center of commerce where millions of people — including Americans — live, invest and build. The Kurdistan Region of Iraq, encircled by hostile forces, built one of the most open societies in the Middle East. It became the largest safe haven for persecuted Christians in the region. And despite a severe economic embargo by Iran-backed forces, Kurdistan built a stable, multi-billion-dollar economy that houses nearly all U.S. forces in Iraq. People move there because it works. These places are not exceptions. They are previews of what the entire region can become.

The Middle East is not a burden. It is a region of extraordinary talent, ambition and wealth held back by a violent few who have never been weaker than they are right now. 

What stops it, every time, is the same force. Iran-backed armed groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen — all taking orders from Tehran, all blocking the future the rest of the region is trying to build. For 45 years, one capital has exported instability to every corner of this region — not because Iranians want it, but because a small circle of men in power profit from it.

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The numbers tell the story. Since February 28, Iran has struck every country in the region that chose partnership with the West — and not one of them fired a shot at Iran. The UAE has absorbed more than 2,800 missiles and drones. Thirteen people were killed. Over 200 were wounded. Kurdistan has been hit more than 700 times. Fourteen dead — including a husband and wife killed at midnight, two daughters left behind. Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar — all struck. None of them threatened Iran. Their only offense is that they chose a different future.

These forces have not only been destroying the Middle East. They have been killing Americans for decades.

Every president before this one chose to look away. They minimized the threat. They told Americans it was under control. They left it for the next generation. But ignoring the Middle East always comes with a price. Obama pulled back from Iraq. ISIS filled the vacuum. His nuclear deal sent billions to Tehran and its proxy terror groups in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. Biden called it strategic patience. That patience gave us October 7. The problem never went away. It always got worse. This president made a different choice.

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I grew up in this. I did not study it in a seminar. I know what a missile sounds like when it hits a neighborhood school. I know what families look like when they pack a car at 3 in the morning and drive toward the one city that is still standing. The fear across this region is not that America acted. It is that the world will lose interest before anything changes.

The Middle East is not a burden. It is a region of extraordinary talent, ambition and wealth held back by a violent few who have never been weaker than they are right now. 

The people of this region have been asking the world to listen for decades. Perhaps now, it will.