Two events separated by three months in 2021 delivered the same message to Islamist movements confronting more powerful enemies:

Keep fighting. Keep waiting. Eventually the infidels leave.

The first came in Israel.

In May 2021, Hamas launched rockets toward Jerusalem and Israeli cities, casting itself as the defender of Al-Aqsa and Palestinian Arab families facing possible eviction in Sheikh Jarrah.

Eleven days later came a ceasefire and the Israelis never moved forward with the evictions.

Immediately after the fight, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research’s June 2021 poll described a “paradigm shift” toward Hamas and armed struggle. 77% of Palestinian Arabs believed Hamas had won, versus 1% who thought Israel had won. And 65% believed Hamas had achieved its declared objectives regarding Sheikh Jarrah and Al-Aqsa.

The perceived lesson was simple: Violence worked.

Then came Afghanistan a few months later.

On August 15, 2021, the Taliban returned to Kabul, twenty years after the United States had removed it from power. The lesson for jihadist movements was not that they needed to defeat a stronger enemy. They needed to outlast it.

As described at the time in Gaza, The Terrorist Enclave, Hamas met with the Taliban and congratulated it for expelling Western forces from Afghanistan.

By June 2023, Palestinian confidence had moved beyond believing Hamas could win a confrontation. PCPSR asked Palestinian Arabs whether Israel, then celebrating its 75th anniversary, would survive to celebrate its 100th. 66% said no. Only 27% believed Israel would still exist. Another 51% believed Palestinian Arabs would eventually recover historic Palestine and return refugees to their former villages and cities.

Just four months later came October 7.

Nearly three years of war have weakened that opinion – in the near-term. As FirstOneThrough detailed in Palestinian Arabs Turn Inward, But Not Away From Hamas, support for armed struggle has fallen sharply and only 20% of Palestinian Arabs now believe Hamas won the Gaza war but 89% believe Hamas will continue to exist in some capacity.

Weakened but waiting. “Resistance” with resolve.

Which brings the argument from the Taliban and Hamas to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Iran is making the same wager on time. That it can outlast the United States and send it packing much as the Taliban did in Afghanistan.

But for the United States, Iran is not Afghanistan.

Iran has called America the “Great Satan” since 1979 and built a regional military network directed against American forces and allies. Iran has developed increasingly long-range ballistic missiles and pursued nuclear weapons capabilities that could threaten far beyond its borders.

Afghanistan did neither.

Iran also sits on the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s petroleum consumption passes. Disruption there reaches energy markets and economies around the world.

Afghanistan had no comparable leverage over the global economy.

America had no long-term goals of staying in Afghanistan. It was not going to keep thousands of troops and pour billions of dollars in a region thousands of miles from its shores to make sure girls went to school and women had equal rights.

But Iran is a real concern for the entire western world, both militarily and economically.

The current U.S. war has already achieved important aims by severely degrading Iran’s nuclear, missile and proxy capabilities. But degraded is not finished.

Iran does not need to reverse its losses today. It only needs to survive long enough for politics to change.

And two elections are approaching. Israelis vote on October 27 and Americans vote in November 3.

For Iran, Hamas and the broader jihadist world, those are more than elections. They are milestones testing the strategy of patience.

While the strategic logic for Israel and U.S. to continue the fight may be sound, their citizens may vote differently. And that is what the jihadists are waiting to observe.

Israel cannot leave Israel. America cannot simply walk away from an Iran threatening its forces and allies, pursuing nuclear and long-range missile capabilities, and holding a critical artery of the global economy at risk.

But jihadist strategy places a different bet: Can they wait until Israelis and Americans vote to stop fighting?

The summer of 2021 taught Islamists that they don’t have to win the wars against more powerful foes. Iran has ten more weeks to stall negotiations and wait for democracies to decide whether to pursue long-term strategic benefits or move on to more immediate matters.

Democracies have elections. Their enemies know it.

Will Israelis and Americans turn their elections into the jihadists’ exit strategy.