Tuesday's execution video of "Mossad agent" Mohamed Said Ismail Musalam, a young Israeli Arab from east Jerusalem, pulled us back to the horrific reality of today's Middle East, otherwise known as the Islamic State group. In the video, a French-speaking Islamic State operative (a reminder of his potential to perpetrate additional terrorist attacks, like those in Paris in January, when he returns home) gave us the following message: "O Jews, indeed Allah has gifted us with killing your followers in your own stronghold in France," and added that Islamic State "will liberate Jerusalem from you filth, by Allah's permission." Indeed, as we know, Islamic State has its priorities: First it wants to conquer the Arab realm and defeat the Shiites, but further down the road, of course, there is war against the Jews -- as usual. We, as history always shows, are desired customers. The tragicomic reality of our story is that Iran has supposedly been designated to defeat Islamic State. With all due respect to the Washington-led coalition of 62 countries, it appears the White House is relying more heavily on Iran to do the dirty work against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. The West will attack from the air, while on the ground Iran will reap the fruit of victory. An Iranian general, a commander of the Islamic republic's Revolutionary Guard, is responsible for beating Islamic State. It seems we have entered the twilight zone. A week ago, U.S. Army chief Gen. Martin Dempsey actually welcomed this Iranian intervention -- but conditioned his support on Iran treating Sunnis and Shiites equally. For some odd reason, Dempsey's declarations have not assuaged the nerves of Iraq's Sunnis. They prefer Islamic State rule to living under the Tehran regime. Try telling that to Obama. In the meantime, in Iran they are laughing all the way to the bank. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's adviser on ethnic and religious minorities, Ali Younesi, boasted that Iran was returning to its roots as an "empire." On March 8, Younesi was quoted by the Iranian Students News Agency as saying: "The geography of Iran and Iraq cannot be divided. ... Baghdad is our capital, the center of our culture and identity -- today as in the past." Is anyone actually counting on them willfully leaving Iraq- Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's National Security Council, is positively beaming over Iran's presence in the Mediterranean Sea and the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. Last September, Iranian parliamentarian Ali Reza Zakani predicted that Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, would fall to Tehran, thereby joining three other Arab capitals under Iranian control: Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut. "Three Arab capitals have today ended up in the hands of Iran and belong to the Islamic Iranian revolution," he was quoted as saying at the time. "The Yemeni revolution will not be confined to Yemen alone. It will extend, following its success, into Saudi territories," Zakani said. The only thing they are missing is a bomb -- nuclear, if possible. Yemen, incidentally, clearly illustrates the new Middle East as devised for us by Obama: a strong Iran and a weakening Saudi Arabia, an influential Iran, a waning Washington. If we had to name the one ascending political party in the Middle East, we might propose calling it "Shiites on the Rise." In other words, he who dictates wins; and he who makes concessions loses. The Iranians have understood this. Let's hope that Israel also comes to this understanding.
