The media mostly missed it (or chose to ignore it as a piece of meaningless rhetoric), but U.S. President Donald Trump proclaimed a new doctrine in his speech to the assembled leaders of the Muslim world in Saudi Arabia on Sunday. It goes by the name of "principled realism," although it didn't offer much by way of either principles or realism. In practice, it mostly boiled down to a declaration of (proxy) war against Iran.

After rambling for 20 minutes about the wonders of Islam and the evils of "extremism" and "terrorism," Trump finally got to the point: "No discussion of stamping out this (terrorist) threat would be complete without mentioning the government that gives terrorists ... safe harbor, financial backing and the social standing needed for recruitment. ... I am speaking, of course, of Iran."

No mention of the fact that every single terrorist attack in the West from 9/11 down to the stabbing attack in Milan last week and the suicide bombing in Manchester on Sunday was carried out by Sunni fanatics, almost all of them of Arab origin, whereas Iran's population is overwhelmingly Shiite and not Arab at all.