“For every ailment there is a remedy sought —
Except for foolishness, which has exhausted those who try to cure it.”

American and Israeli policies over the past two decades perfectly embody this verse.

The foolishness here appears in many forms, but the most foolish is the seductive allure of war and destruction, and abandoning the theory of balanced deterrence in favor of the theory of risk-taking.

Risk-taking may produce good tactical outcomes in the short term, but it cannot be a stable long-term political strategy — especially in a constantly changing environment.

To illustrate this, I will give practical examples of those who were involved risk operations and achieved tactical victories, only to suffer long-term defeats and lose everything they had gained:

1. Julius Caesar’s War in Gaul (modern-day France):

This is one of the most prominent military campaigns in Roman history. It altered the course of the Roman Republic and paved the way for Caesar’s rise as an absolute power.

The war lasted eight years and ended with the defeat and surrender of Gaul — a significant tactical victory. However, it led to massive political division within the Roman Empire and sparked a series of internal and external wars, which eventually resulted in the assassination of Caesar himself and the deaths of many prominent Roman leaders such as Pompey, Cato, Brutus, Mark Antony, and dozens of others, along with the destruction of many cities and widespread rebellion in Greece, Egypt, and North Africa.

Strangely, at the very moment the Roman Empire reached its greatest territorial extent, it committed this foolish act that led to its downfall and fragmentation.

Stranger still is how the voice of foolishness, intoxicated by weapons and violence, overpowered the voice of wisdom. The war ended up killing the empire’s top thinkers, scholars, and military leaders — resulting in its long-term decline.

Therefore, is there a resemblance here between the current Israeli-American-Zionist situation and what happened in Caesar’s Rome?

2. Napoleon’s Grand Mistake:

After Napoleon’s sweeping victories across Europe — especially the 1805 Battle of Austerlitz, in which he crushed the Austrian and Russian armies, and the 1806 battles of Jena and Auerstedt against the Germans — he made his gravest blunder, driven by the same motives as Caesar: arrogance of power and the lust to impose his will.

In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia with a massive army of nearly 400,000 soldiers (some sources mention up to 600,000 after including his German and Italian allies — hence the name La Grande Armée). But he undertook this foolish invasion without preparing for the brutal Russian winter.

The result: hundreds of thousands of his troops died from hunger and cold, leading to a humiliating retreat that ended his military legend. Within three years, France had lost everything it had gained in twenty decades, and the Napoleonic Empire collapsed.

3. Hitler’s Fatal Mistake:

Hitler committed a blunder that changed the course of World War II against Germany. He squandered Germany’s rapid and vast early victories — including the famous Blitzkrieg — and shifted the country from offense and gains to defense and losses, triggering internal disintegration.

His mistake was attacking the Soviet Union in 1941 before finishing the war with Britain.
The result was the exhaustion of the German army and the fall of Berlin in 1945.

4. The Ottoman Example — The Three Pashas:

The clearest Islamic example of such foolishness and seductive allure of power is seen in the actions of the Three Pashas of the Ottoman Empire: Enver Pasha, Talat Pasha, and Jamal Pasha.

One of their military blunders was dragging the Ottoman Empire into World War I on the side of Germany — a decision made by Enver Pasha in 1914 without real preparedness. He believed Germany’s victory was guaranteed and that the empire would regain its prestige.

The result: a major catastrophe. The military infrastructure was destroyed, most Arab and Balkan territories were lost, and even Istanbul was occupied by Britain.

One of their reckless moves was the Battle of Sarikamish in 1914, where Enver Pasha led the Ottoman army in harsh winter conditions against Russia in the Caucasus without proper logistical preparation. This led to the deaths of over 60,000 Ottoman soldiers from cold alone — the worst winter defeat in Ottoman history.

After the defeats, the three Pashas fled the country in 1918. Talat was assassinated in Berlin, Enver in Tajikistan, and Jamal in Georgia in 1922.

5. Saddam Hussein’s Invasion of Kuwait (1990):

His act of foolishness was invading a wealthy, allied, and supportive Gulf state.

The result: an international coalition formed against him, Iraq was devastated, its army and elite forces were destroyed, and its regime collapsed easily a few years later.

What we are witnessing now from the Zionist right in the West, and the religious and nationalist right in the Israeli colony, is historical blindness and seductive allure of power in its clearest form. And perhaps we won’t have to wait long to see the same fate befall them as befell Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, Enver Pasha, Saddam, and other fools who wore the cloak of power, brutality, and delusion.

Dr. Khalid Naṣr

Boston 16 June 2025

First: The word “success” is a neutral and contextual term:

If we say that “success” is a neutral and contextual word, we likely are not straying from the truth.

Its neutrality means that success does not necessarily lead to happiness, nor does it always bring about goodness or righteousness. In fact, success can sometimes accompany the opposite.

For example, someone who succeeds in creating a cure for a terminal illness may find happiness and certainly has done something good and righteous. However, someone who succeeds in developing biological or chemical weapons that kill innocent people—even if he appears pleased—has not achieved goodness or righteousness; rather, he has brought about evil and corruption. Hence, the neutrality of the term lies in the fact that not every successful person is happy or content, and not every success yields benefit or goodness.

Its contextuality means that success varies according to reference points.

In modern capitalist culture, for example, success is often measured by wealth, fame, or influence.

Meanwhile, in moral frameworks, success is tied to integrity, righteousness, and useful impact.

In psychology, success is seen as self-actualization and achieving psychological and social balance.

Thus, the material, religious, or social context can define the nature of success.

Second: The measure of success is an evaluative, subjective standard:

This means that the criteria for success are not universally objective. A single event can be interpreted in entirely opposite ways—each side considering it a success for itself.

For example, take the story of the People of the Trench:

The king may have viewed himself as successful for eliminating his enemies, including the boy he failed to kill multiple times, along with the group of believers. But the boy might have seen himself as the successful one—he managed to expose the king’s weakness in front of a massive crowd, paving the way for the people to break free from the tyranny of ignorance imposed by the king and his court. Though he lost in the short term, he succeeded in the long run.

There was a Castilian king named Sancho who pursued a policy of continuous pressure against the Islamic state in Andalusia. Though he was repeatedly defeated in battle by the army of Cordoba, and his castles, fortresses, and cities were destroyed, when asked about the benefit of a war full of losses, he said: “I am preparing the ground for those who come after me. The Arabs will not be able to maintain a strong army while also preserving their luxurious way of life. If we exhaust them in one area, they will overextend in another. And when they overextend in one, they will inevitably fall short elsewhere.”

And indeed, that is what happened. The Muslims could not sustain both military strength and the success of their civilization and luxury. They prioritized the latter over the former, and in the end, lost both.

The point is: what some considered a failure for King Sancho turned out to be a long-term success.

Third: Success is the byproduct of context:

To explain: if we take those we most often regard as successful figures and strip them of their context (environmental, temporal, and geographic), the outcomes would change drastically.

For example, if we took Einstein and placed him in Zambia, Laos, or Peru, would we still have seen the iconic Einstein? And how many Einsteins have lived and died without anyone ever hearing of them?

When we read the biographies of great individuals, we find that they did not descend from the heavens in their extraordinary form, as some ignorant people like to imagine. Rather, they existed within a context that enabled them to appear as they did—rightfully so—but even then, this same context may have overlooked others who helped them reach such heights, despite possibly being more knowledgeable than them.

When I first began my pursuit of knowledge, I studied Qur’anic modes of recitation (qirā᾽āt) and exegesis (tafsīr) for four years under our master, the noble Ahmad Nu῾man Bakri, may Allāh be pleased with him, sanctify his soul, and illuminate his grave. He was a simple blind man who taught with contentment, yet he was a fountain of knowledge in Qur’anic sciences and tafsīr, well-versed and deeply hāfīẓ. And yet, only a very small number of people ever heard of him.

Later, when I moved to Cairo, I met the big-name scholars—the ones constantly sought after, whom people tried to draw near to through volunteering acts. But when I approached some of them, hoping to gain from their knowledge, I found them to be far less than what I had already learned during my time in obscurity. I was astonished at how qadar (Allah’s destiny) lifts and lowers people!

What changed was the context—the first scholar was in Tama, a town in Upper Egypt hardly seen on the map, while the second was in bustling Cairo, the meeting point of rivers, marvels, and opportunities.

I once had a discussion with a wise friend about how much we had accomplished during our stay in the United States, compared to others whose names quickly gained fame. I told him: such judgment is not objective—you cannot compare Zayd the immigrant to ῾Amr the native-born. I gave him a few basic details:

• ῾Amr the native-born holds citizenship by birth, giving him rights from the very start, while Zayd the immigrant may spend ten years, at best, to obtain that citizenship and its accompanying rights.
• ῾Amr the native-born speaks the language natively, whereas Zayd learns it through study and practice—a vast difference in time and fluency.
• ῾Amr is a child of the state’s system, and the system promotes him. Zayd, however, is an outsider, standing at the gates of that system, often without entry.
• ῾Amr the native found Zayd serving his needs, and so he started near the top of the ladder and only had to climb one rung. Zayd, by contrast, found no one to serve him, starting from the bottom, making it unlikely he would catch up with ῾Amr.
• What the public expects from ῾Amr and considers a success is not the same as what they expect or recognize as success from Zayd.

If Zayd were to bring the knowledge of the whole world, people might see it as something normal and ordinary. But if ῾Amr memorized two lines from “Ṣawt Ṣafīr al-Bulbul” (The Sound of the Nightingale) [which is a traditional Arabic poem], they would consider him the literary master of his time.

We return again to the matter of context, and I say: context can even vary for the same person—it may elevate him in one setting and lower him in another.

Take Vincent van Gogh, for example: he lived a miserable, wretched life. During his lifetime, he sold only one painting and was considered mentally ill.
After his death, his paintings sold for millions of dollars, and he became a symbol of tragic genius in modern art.

Take Ibn Taymiyyah: during his life, he was imprisoned multiple times by political authorities, fatwas were issued against him, and he was harshly attacked by the scholars of his time. Yet after his death, his books spread far and wide, his ideas were adopted by renewal movements, and he became the center of scholarly debate—admired by some and disliked by others.

Therefore, success depends—often greatly—on the context that allows it.

Fourth: Success between outer appearance and inner reality:

In many cases, we only see the outward image of success. We see someone successful in a particular field—whether materially or artistically—and we become impressed by that appearance, without looking into the deeper reality of things. But the truth is, apparent success must be reflected in the inner reality; otherwise, the joy of success is lost, and success itself becomes a heavy burden.

True success is when both the form and the substance, the outer and the inner, are aligned.

When we look at many people regarded by the public as models of success in various fields, we find that many of them lived miserable inner lives that do not reflect their outer success. Here, I will mention non-Muslim examples, so no one assumes that their failure was due to religious restrictions:

• Ernest Hemingway, the American Nobel Prize-winning author:
  Despite his achievements, he lived a life of misery, became an alcoholic, entered psychiatric treatment, suffered from depression, and ultimately committed suicide by shooting himself.
• Marilyn Monroe, the American icon of beauty and cinema:
  She lived a troubled life filled with miscarriages, depression, and failed relationships. It is believed she committed suicide by overdosing on sedatives.
• Robin Williams, widely seen as a beloved comedic actor and Oscar winner who brought laughter to millions and had a fortune worth millions. In reality, he suffered from depression and a form of dementia, and he took his own life in 2014.

Even among Muslim politicians and rulers, if one looks closely at their lives, one would see that what appears to be success is something quite different—something not to be envied.

Therefore, real success is to live in the pleasure of Allah, with inner peace, doing good to others as much as you can, and not betraying the purpose for which you were created or destined.

Dr. Khalid Naṣr

There is also no doubt that the Israeli colony appears stronger today, as it has managed to neutralize many of its enemies.

However, the colony will not emerge from these wars and aggressions the same as it was before, for the following reasons:

1. For the first time since the 1948 war, the conflict has entered inside the occupied land of Palestine. Israel’s strategy since the 1956 war has been to keep battles on its enemies’ lands. Even in the most intense war it faced in 1973, not a single bullet was fired within the borders of occupied Palestine.
Now, however, the situation has changed. Attacks on the occupation from within occupied Palestinian territory have become acceptable and expected. While these attacks come at a cost to Israel’s enemies, Israel has lost a major point of superiority.

To understand the impact of this, consider the example of Nazi Germany: it achieved massive tactical victories across Europe, occupying most of the continent, and remained superior to its enemies—its cities virtually untouched.
But that changed in March 1942 with the massive bombing of Cologne. After that, the German people began to experience the real meaning of war.
The point here is that the shift of the battlefield into occupied territory is a long-term strategic loss.

2. Israel’s aggressions against several Arab and Muslim countries—though largely accepted by the Christian West—undermine a global order that the West and America built after World War II. This will lead to increasing rebellion among countries of the Global South, just as the Western system itself is weakening.

Israel –the occupying power– is the frontline outpost of this Western system. Though it holds tactical importance, it is often the first to be sacrificed.
The Persian Empire sacrificed the Kingdom of Al-Hirah, and the Romans sacrificed the Ghassanids—such is the fate of proxy states.
Ultimately, two factors will determine Israel’s fate: the strength of its supporting power and the cost of that support. History tells us that Western power is in decline for both internal and external reasons.

Hence, former colonial powers like France, Spain, Belgium, and Italy are beginning to recoil from Israel’s arrogance.

3. Major wars are usually followed by social change. After World War II, Western society shifted toward greater liberalism (not necessarily by the will of its ruling elites).

These ongoing, major wars between Israel and its enemies will likewise be followed by significant social transformations once the dust settles—most likely against the colonial project. This happened with Britain, France, and Germany—all of which were far stronger than the Zionist colony.
It even happened in Egypt after the wars of 1967 and 1973, in Iraq after two devastating wars, and is happening now in Syria.

The Zionist colony will undoubtedly face major internal problems once the battle smoke clears. Most likely, history will repeat itself—as it did after the fall of Solomon’s kingdom and the Hasmonean kingdom—where collapse began internally before being completed externally.

4. When strong powers clash, the weak may find strength in their weakness.
This is what we are witnessing now between two forces that have long wreaked havoc in the region. Israel drained the resources of Arab countries like Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and of course Palestine. Iran, likewise, drained Arab and Islamic countries like Iraq, Syria, Yemen, eastern Arabia, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. Now that their interests have collided, the powerful are wearing each other down. Neither will emerge from the arena unscathed, while the worn-down Arab and Islamic forces—though seemingly submissive politically and officially—are recovering on the popular level, filled with bitterness and gaining experience.

This is what happened to Britain, France, and Germany after WWII. They all came out depleted, and the inheritance passed on to nations that were once their colonies.

5. Even if Israel emerges victorious in this round, it will do so with the image of a fierce, brutal victor—a bleak image for such a small society.
This would be a triumph of the sword, not of values (even if those values were false, like the West’s post-WWII promotion of democracy). Japan, a small nation, once conquered large swaths of South Asia—including China, Korea, and Vietnam—but its victory only lasted as long as it held the sword. History shows that no hand can hold the sword forever, for the hand must also gather the harvest of that sword—and it is at that point that collapse begins. This has happened many times throughout history, including in Islamic history, where we could not bear the sword indefinitely. In the case of the Zionist colony, the sword may very well pass into the hands of its enemies due to geographical and demographic realities—a certainty with time. And in the absence of moral values, the colony will find nothing but hatred and resentment from both near and far.

In conclusion, Israel will not emerge from this conflict as it once was. It will come out burdened with wounds, and the rest will unfold according to the laws of human social dynamics—whose end is well known and often repeated.

Dr. Khalid Naṣr

Boston 13 June 2025

To those who view the Iranian-Zionist conflict as a staged act or a division of roles, I say:

Iran is undeniably a historic state with a Persian nationalist orientation and a Shiite religious identity.

The state of Israel is a functional (proxy) state with a Zionist nationalist orientation and a Jewish religious identity.

Both entities are surrounded by populations that differ from them in both religious sect and ethnicity.

These are undeniable facts, and perhaps these realities led both regimes to align at certain stages of their emergence or stabilization—such as during the Shah’s era, the Iran-Iraq war, and the so-called “War on Terror” as termed by the United States.

However, it is very important to understand that alignment does not mean agreement, and I will give historical examples to illustrate this:

• In 43 BCE, a coalition was formed between: Octavian (later Augustus), Mark Antony, and Lepidus

This was known as the Second Triumvirate, established to avenge Julius Caesar’s assassination. They indeed carried out their revenge, but immediately afterward, Octavian and Antony eliminated Lepidus, and soon after, Octavian and Antony clashed—ending with Antony’s famous defeat.
The point here is that even though the Roman Empire was vast enough for all, the laws of power dictate competition, exclusion, and conflict. Such is the nature of states.

• Italy was once an ally of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the Triple Alliance at the beginning of the 20th century. Despite economic and geographic ties, Italy turned against Austria in 1915—just a year into World War I—attacking from the south and joining the Allies (Britain, France, Russia) through the Treaty of London, having been promised Austrian territories.
• Consider the infamous Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed in 1939 between the Soviet Union (Russia) and Nazi Germany, which agreed to divide Poland. One month later, that plan was indeed executed: Germany invaded Poland from the west, and two weeks later, Russia attacked from the east. Yet, just eight months later, Germany launched a devastating war against the Soviet Union, occupying vast areas and nearly reaching Moscow.

The point here: what existed between Iran and the West was not an agreement, but an alignment of interests—and there is a big difference between agreement and alignment. Political parties, for instance, might align on accepting elections as a principle, but still do not agree among themselves. This distinction is crucial in understanding the current conflict and its potential outcomes.

What happened is a clash of interests following a previous convergence. And because there was no formal agreement between them, things became entangled.

Iran dreams of reviving a Persian Empire, recalling the days of Darius I. The path to that dream lies through nearby Arab and Muslim lands such as Afghanistan, Iraq, the Gulf, Syria, and Yemen—all former spheres of influence.

The Zionist colony dreams of building a secure and stable central state in historic Palestine, and perhaps in some surrounding areas as well.

The West, meanwhile, needs both Iran and Israel to maintain control over the Sunni majority, which poses a significant threat to its interests.

But the weakness of the surrounding region has tempted both Iran and Israel to directly confront one another. Now, history is repeating itself—whether as Nazism vs. Communism (both being socialist), or as Mark Antony vs. Octavian (both allies and sons of Caesar). In such a scenario, a natural clash is inevitable.

As I mentioned before, no side will emerge from this conflict as strong as they were. Most likely, the outcome will be the emergence of a third power—stronger than both of the current rivals.

Dr. Khalid Naṣr

Boston 14 June 2025