Glenn: We're at the end of the highway and there is one exit left before World War 3

Below is a transcript of Monday's monologue

I want to have a conversation with you today about something really important.

If you are a longtime viewer of this program, you have seen me in the past make predictions, and I am going to make one today, but I need to take you back to the very beginning because this one I urge you to hear and then follow through on. I want to take you back first to September 11, 2001. We all remember it. We remember exactly where we were, who we were talking to. We remember the whole day, honestly, the shock.

Our comfortable little worlds had been shattered. We didn’t know what to do. We had no idea. Sadness, fear, knowing that this whole thing could just come apart, we didn’t know, knowing that we were at war but not even who we were at war with. Then the next day happened, and the next day will always be the most important date to me. It was 9/12, September 12. We were never prouder to be Americans, and it wasn’t just because the flag. It had nothing to do with that.

We had stood in line that day to give blood. We hugged each other. We stopped, and we asked strangers, “How are you doing?” We looked at one another. We loved one another. For one moment in time, we saw each other as human beings, and all of the labels just vanished. There was no pretension. There were no classes. There were no political parties. We were just human beings looking out for one another.

We weren’t, you know, naïve enough to forget our differences. We knew that we were still different, but we put them in their rightful place, low on the priority list. We’re at our best when we live like that, and that’s what America used to be. America, when we are at our best, we look at the things that unite us, not divide us. Our humanity reigns over polarity. It used to be that we were calling ourselves a melting pot, and that’s what it meant, we’re all in it together.

Today, September 11, our kids don’t even know what September 11 is, and September 12, 9/12 is a distant memory for most. And people are put right back into their little boxes. We’ve all done it. Everything about them is assumed. There is vitriol and hatred.

We have to find the way to lay our differences aside and to see each other as humans and as Americans first before the next big tragedy, because the globe is spinning into chaos, and what I see happening next is going to make the banking collapse look tame by comparison. And I want you to understand the cascade effect of all this because in the end, men’s hearts will fail. In the end, the human heart collapses, and I believe it’s already happening in some places of the world.

We are more than just political animals. We’re just animals. When you have a seven-year-old holding up a human head, and the world says, meh. I want to show you the timeline and take you back here for just a bit. In 1999, I talked about a guy I couldn’t even pronounce his name. I was on WABC in New York, and I think we had just bombed the aspirin factory or something, and I remember because conservatives were saying that I was trying to help Bill Clinton.

And he had just bombed the aspirin factory, and I said, “It has nothing to do with politics. Have you read the words of Osama bin Laden?” Most had not. They didn’t know who he was. I couldn’t even pronounce the guy’s name, and that’s not a surprise for anybody, but I didn’t even know how to pronounce the guy’s name. I’d never heard of him before. I read about his name, saw that’s who we were targeting, and then decided to do my own homework and look into him.

And I got so frustrated at one point, a caller, I said, “Look, within the next ten years, this guy is going to rain blood and bodies and buildings in the streets of New York.” Will you then wake up?” Well, it wasn’t ten years. That was in 1999. It was September 2001 where he rained blood, bodies, and buildings in the streets. It was too late. We could’ve done something, but it was too late.

In 2003, I started talking about the head of the snake being Iran, that we could not mess around with Iran. And I started talking about the 12th Imam, started really looking into the 12th Imam and didn’t really understand it in ’03, but when we were going to war, and we started to ramp up about going into Iraq, I started paying attention to Iran and what was going on. And I said at the time there’s going to come a time, if you don’t act soon, there’s going to come a time you’re not going to be able to deal with Iran.

In 2004, I figured out that the Republicans were lying to us because there was stuff happening on the border that didn’t make sense. They weren’t protecting our values. They were going on some other set of values. They were going on their interests, what was politically expedient for them. That’s when I started pulling away from the GOP.

The housing crisis in ’06, I started talking about that, in ’07, the stock bubble. In ’06, I was saying, “Please don’t take out these loans. Please, they don’t make any sense. Listen to your values, not your interest of getting a house, not just somebody who’s trying to sell you something. Listen to your values. It’s not going to work.” And as that started to grow, I saw the stock market up about 14,000, and I said, “This is insane, because none of it is real. There is a collapse coming.”

At this point in ’07, we were in the middle of an election, and what were Republicans saying to me? Republicans were saying, “Shut up. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Besides, there’s a bigger problem. It’s Barack Obama or it’s Hillary Clinton getting into office, and this isn’t going to happen. And even if it does, you’re hurting the chances of the Republicans because the Republicans were the ones who did it all.” Really?

Stop looking at your political interests and start concerning yourself with the values. So it collapsed. At about this point, I started talking to, it was right around here that I started saying, “This is a highway. These are off ramps. There’s things on the horizon, and if you don’t take this off ramp, if you don’t get off here, if you don’t get off here or here or here or here, at some point we run out of road. There’s nothing left.”

That’s why when I started sensing all of this in 2009, we started the 9/12 Project. What was the 9/12 Project? The 9/12 Project, a lot of people will think that it has something to do with the Tea Party. It had nothing to do with the Tea Party. If you remember, I was against the Tea Party. I said that it was about taxes, and that’s not what it was about. It needed to be about values and principles.

Follow me here, values and principles in 2009. Then I started talking about the European uprising with a little book called The Coming Insurrection, and I said there’s going to be Nazis, and the old hatreds of the 1930s are going to start rising up. But that was a conspiracy theory, and I was an anti-Semite bigot for even bringing that up.

Then we did Restoring Honor in Washington, D.C., principles and values, Restoring Honor. Then I started talking about the caliphate and how the left and the Islamic extremists would unite to collapse the Western world. First, they’d go after Israel, and then they’d go after the rest of us. That was insane. I followed that that summer with Restoring Courage. We continued on that vein in one form or another, and then we did Restoring Love.

That brings us to here. We didn’t take any of these exits. We mocked. We ridiculed. Why? Why? Whether you’re a Republican, and you mocked here for your political interests or you’re a Democrat, and you mocked here for your political interests, that’s the only reason why we didn’t get off. There is one other reason, it’s too horrible to look at these things. It’s too horrible to imagine any of these things. All of these things have happened now.

All of these things were insane to say at the time. They were too hard to imagine. I understand. I don’t want imagine them. I say to people all the time, they say, “I don’t want to hear any more from you on your predictions, because they tend to come true.” Try living with me. Try being me. Do you think I want to think these things?

I believe we’re at the end of the highway. This is it. This is it. What’s the answer? Let me just speak to the religious in our audience – gospel principles. That’s it, live like Jesus, live like Gandhi. I don’t care who your model is. Live like Buddha. You’ve got to shed pride. We have got to shred wanting stuff. Buddha said that life is suffering. I don’t agree with that.

Yes, actually when you understand that suffering is caused from desire to have something, whether that be I want my kids to get better, that causes you stress and suffering, to I want that car, stress and suffering. I don’t care what religion you’re in, we have to start living eternal principles, and we have to start softening the heart. I don’t care what religion you’re in. I don’t care what party you’re part of. I don’t care if we disagree with each other. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

What is coming is all of this stuff, all of this stuff. The caliphate is here. We are headed towards World War III. I hope we don’t get there. I don’t want to get there. I don’t know how to tell you not to get there, because we’ve missed all of the exits. We are headed for massive European anti-Semitism. Europe does this over and over again. We’re headed there.

We’re headed for a collapse beyond our understanding because we got off the gold standard. What’s our money worth? Did you notice that this weekend Russia and China finished the de-dollarization of their relationship? They don’t deal in dollars anymore with each other. They don’t have to. Which side do you think China has just picked? They picked Russia.

Which side is Russia on when it comes to the caliphate? Oh, that’s right, Iran and Syria. What side are we on? Saudi Arabia. Gee, that puts America in the position of World War II where you look at World War II, well, you’ve got communists, and you have fascists. Well, neither of us want to live under communism or fascism, oh, but we really don’t like the Nazis compared to the communists, so we’ll just cozy up to the communists.

It’s almost like who do you want to cozy up to? You’ve got Iran running a caliphate, or you have Saudi Arabia. Well, we really don’t like Iran, but we kind of like Saudi Arabia. It’s World War II all over again.

I thought about this all weekend. I thought what can I possibly say to you, what can I possibly say to you on how to get out of this? I don’t know. I’ve already said it all. We are now down the highway. There’s no more exit ramps. What you have to be is the impact zone. You have to be the parachute. You have to be the one that helps society absorb what’s coming.

If we don’t stand and stand together across all political parties, all lines, all classes, and we just help each other, and we exercise the human heart – it’s a muscle, if you don’t use it, it ain’t going to work – if we don’t do that, I don’t know if we survive. I don’t know who does. I don’t know who does, but the world is about to change.

I have a guest on here in a few minutes, I can’t wait to talk to him. I’ve never talked to him before. I don’t know much about him other than he was writing for the Village Voice, which I don’t usually go to the Village Voice for, you know, anything that I would agree with. But I want to show you something.

In the Village Voice, he wrote to a reader who wrote in and said this: “Hi Andrew, I’m writing because I just can’t deal with my father anymore. He’s a 65-year-old super right-wing conservative who’s basically turned into a total a**hole, intent on ruining our relationship and planet with his politics. I’m more or less a liberal democrat with very progressive values and I know people like my dad are going to destroy us all. I don’t have any good times with him anymore. All we do is argue.

When I try to spend time with him talking about politics or discussing current events, there’s still an underlying tension that makes it really uncomfortable. Don’t get me wrong, I love him no matter what, but how do I explain to him that his politics are turning him into a monster, destroying the environment, and pushing away the people who care about him? Thanks for your help, Son of a Right-Winger.”

How do you respond to that? This guy responded in the best way I…This is the best thing I’ve read in a long, long time. Here are the highlights: “Dear Son of a Right-Winger, Go back and read the opening sentences of your letter. Read them again. Then read the rest of your letter. Then read that again. Try to find a single instance where you refer to your dad as a human being, a person, or a man. There isn’t one. You’ve reduced your father – the person who created you – to a set of beliefs and political views and how it relates to you. And you don’t consider your dad a person of his own standing – he’s just “your dad.”

You’ve also reduced yourself to a set of opposing views, and reduced your relationship with him to a fight between the two. The humanity has been reduced to nothingness and all that’s left in its place is an argument that can never really be won...

The world isn’t being destroyed by democrats or republicans, red or blue, liberal or conservative, religious or atheist. The world is being destroyed by one side believing the other is destroying the world. The world is being hurt and damaged by one group of people believing they’re truly better people than the others who think differently. The world officially ends when we let our beliefs conquer love. We must not let this happen...

So we must protect and respect each other, no matter how hard it feels. No matter how wrong someone else may seem to us, they are still human...Love your dad because he’s your father, because he made you, because he thinks for himself, and most of all because he is a person. Have the strength to doubt and question what you believe as easily as you’re so quick to doubt his beliefs. Live with a truly open mind – the kind of open mind that even questions the idea of an open mind.

Don’t feel the need to pick a side. If you do pick a side, pick the side of love. It remains our only real hope for survival and has more power to save us than any other belief we could ever cling to. Your friend, Andrew W.K.” That is the best advice I’ve heard in a long time. Andrew, who writes for the Village Voice, oh boy, that goes against everything politically, doesn’t it? Uh huh.

When there is comfort, there is no growth. When there is growth, there is very little comfort. Let’s get out of our comfort zone and grow and exercise the human heart just a bit.

A Sharia enclave is quietly taking root in America. It's time to wake up.

NOVA SAFO / Staff | Getty Images

Sharia-based projects like the Meadow in Texas show how political Islam grows quietly, counting on Americans to stay silent while an incompatible legal system takes root.

Apolitical system completely incompatible with the Constitution is gaining ground in the United States, and we are pretending it is not happening.

Sharia — the legal and political framework of Islam — is being woven into developments, institutions, and neighborhoods, including a massive project in Texas. And the consequences will be enormous if we continue to look the other way.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

Before we can have an honest debate, we’d better understand what Sharia represents. Sharia is not simply a set of religious rules about prayer or diet. It is a comprehensive legal and political structure that governs marriage, finance, criminal penalties, and civic life. It is a parallel system that claims supremacy wherever it takes hold.

This is where the distinction matters. Many Muslims in America want nothing to do with Sharia governance. They came here precisely because they lived under it. But political Islam — the movement that seeks to implement Sharia as law — is not the same as personal religious belief.

It is a political ideology with global ambitions, much like communism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently warned that Islamist movements do not seek peaceful coexistence with the West. They seek dominance. History backs him up.

How Sharia arrives

Political Islam does not begin with dramatic declarations. It starts quietly, through enclaves that operate by their own rules. That is why the development once called EPIC City — now rebranded as the Meadow — is so concerning. Early plans framed it as a Muslim-only community built around a mega-mosque and governed by Sharia-compliant financing. After state investigations were conducted, the branding changed, but the underlying intent remained the same.

Developers have openly described practices designed to keep non-Muslims out, using fees and ownership structures to create de facto religious exclusivity. This is not assimilation. It is the construction of a parallel society within a constitutional republic.

The warning from those who have lived under it

Years ago, local imams in Texas told me, without hesitation, that certain Sharia punishments “just work.” They spoke about cutting off hands for theft, stoning adulterers, and maintaining separate standards of testimony for men and women. They insisted it was logical and effective while insisting they would never attempt to implement it in Texas.

But when pressed, they could not explain why a system they consider divinely mandated would suddenly stop applying once someone crossed a border.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

Europe is already showing us where this road leads. No-go zones, parallel courts, political intimidation, and clerics preaching supremacy have taken root across major cities.

America’s strength has always come from its melting pot, but assimilation requires boundaries. It requires insisting that the Constitution, not religious law, is the supreme authority on this soil.

Yet we are becoming complacent, even fearful, about saying so. We mistake silence for tolerance. We mistake avoidance for fairness. Meanwhile, political Islam views this hesitation as weakness.

Religious freedom is one of America’s greatest gifts. Muslims may worship freely here, as they should. But political Islam must not be permitted to plant a flag on American soil. The Constitution cannot coexist with a system that denies equal rights, restricts speech, subordinates women, and places clerical authority above civil law.

Wake up before it is too late

Projects like the Meadow are not isolated. They are test runs, footholds, proofs of concept. Political Islam operates with patience. It advances through demographic growth, legal ambiguity, and cultural hesitation — and it counts on Americans being too polite, too distracted, or too afraid to confront it.

We cannot afford that luxury. If we fail to defend the principles that make this country free, we will one day find ourselves asking how a parallel system gained power right in front of us. The answer will be simple: We looked away.

The time to draw boundaries and to speak honestly is now. The time to defend the Constitution as the supreme law of the land is now. Act while there is still time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why do Americans feel so empty?

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A break in trust: A NEW Watergate is brewing in plain sight

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When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Grim warning: Bad-faith Israel critics duck REAL questions

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Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.