Failing to Confront Islamic Totalitarianism: What Went Wrong After 9/11

On August 15, 2021, after twenty years, trillions of dollars, and thousands of lives, America's war in Afghanistan ended in humiliating collapse. The Taliban returned to power, triumphant. Iran's nuclear program was bombed in 2025, and despite the U.S.-Israel war on Iran in 2026, that regime-backer of Hamas, Hezbollah and other jihadists-survives, unbowed.Why does the most powerful nation in history keep failing to defeat a materially weaker foe?Failing to Confront Islamic Totalitarianism argues that the fundamental problem is philosophic, not military. American leaders and intellectuals evade the ideological nature of the Islamist enemy, while the ethics of self-sacrifice has gutted the self-confidence needed to define and then fight in our self-interest. The failure to defend our own ideals-especially freedom of speech-has further inspired the jihadists.Since 9/11, the Ayn Rand Institute predicted that prevailing ideas about morality would cripple our foreign policy. Those predictions have proven correct.Now in its third expanded edition-spanning twenty-five years since 9/11, with new commentary on Afghanistan, October 7, and Iran-this incisive collection remains the clearest diagnosis of what went wrong after 9/11, and what a rational foreign policy would require instead.