Live Sep 2, 2026 | Yaron Brook Show (Season 12, Episode 145) The Meaning of 9/11—25 Years Later: Objectivism, Islamic Totalitarianism, and America’s Crisis of Ideas with Elan Journo, Onkar Ghate & Yaron Brook Watch now: https://youtube.com/live/FuMxHBFkwH8 "Twenty-five years after 9/11 — did America win the war, or did it just forget what the war was even about?" America didn't just fail to defeat the enemy that attacked it on 9/11. It refused to even name that enemy — and 25 years later, that refusal is why the war never actually ended. In this episode, Yaron Brook sits down with Elan Journo and Onkar Ghate of the Ayn Rand Institute to ask the question nobody in Washington wants to answer: what actually was 9/11, ideologically, and why did America's response guarantee it would happen again? They trace the line from a "War on Terror" that never named Islamic Totalitarianism as the enemy, through the strategic collapse in Afghanistan and Iraq, to a country that now doubts its own founding ideas more than it doubts the men who attacked it. This isn't a history lesson. It's a diagnosis of why the confidence America had on September 10, 2001 is gone — and what it would take to get it back. 🔴 Live audience Q&A included — Yaron, Elan, and Onkar take real viewer questions on Islamism, foreign policy, and American self-doubt. 🎧 Subscribe for more Yaron Brook Show episodes on Objectivism, capitalism, and the ideas shaping the world. Timestamps: 0:23 — Opening: the principles of freedom and why 9/11's anniversary still matters 1:25 — Introducing Elan Journo and Onkar Ghate 2:18 — The history nobody teaches: what actually led to 9/11 3:40 — The Iranian Revolution and the birth of modern Islamism 5:32 — Years of attacks on American interests — and why the U.S. kept appeasing 7:27 — Bin Laden declared war on America years before 9/11 — why did nobody listen? 10:38 — Was U.S. foreign policy paralyzed by its own guilt? 13:34 — The morning America's illusions ended 14:12 — Post-Cold War optimism and why it left America exposed 17:27 — How 9/11 rewired daily life, from airports to everything else 19:37 — The real failure wasn't intelligence — it was ideas 21:33 — Did Edward Said's "Orientalism" disarm the West's ability to name its enemy? 23:02 — How altruism as a foreign policy doctrine gets Americans killed 27:01 — What America believed about itself in the '80s and '90s — and lost 27:49 — 9/11's aftermath: the response that set the tone for 25 years 28:27 — Inside Failing to Confront Islamic Totalitarianism 31:01 — How the government talked about 9/11 — and what it refused to say 34:15 — Why wouldn't the Bush administration say the word "Islam"? 39:49 — Religiosity, secularism, and the anti-American current inside the West 43:41 — The Ayn Rand Institute's response — and the media backlash 50:10 — "Winning the Unwinnable War": taking the argument to campuses 54:01 — Soldiers sent to sacrifice for a war nobody would define 57:39 — The philosophical framework the West still refuses to adopt 58:27 — Bush's "democracy crusade" — and Sharia written into new constitutions 1:01:44 — The Arab Spring, Hamas winning elections — the same mistake, repeated Audience Questions 1:08:00 — Did the West ever actually name its enemy, or just its tactics? 1:16:00 — Is Islamic Totalitarianism still winning 25 years later? 1:24:00 — What would it take for America to actually believe in itself again? 1:33:00 — Was Iraq a mistake in execution, or a mistake in principle? 1:41:00 — Closing thoughts: what victory should have looked like, and still could #911TwentyFiveYears #IslamicTotalitarianism #WarOnTerror #NationalSecurity #jihad #islamism #september11th #altruism #collectivism #AynRand #IndividualRights #Objectivism #ObjectivismExplained Like this episode? 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Like, share, and subscribe to stay updated on new videos and help promote the [Yaron Brook Show](https://bit.ly/3ztPxTx) Continue the discussion by following Yaron on [Twitter](https://bit.ly/3iMGl6z) and [Facebook](https://bit.ly/3vvWDDC ) Want to learn more about Ayn Rand and Objectivism? Visit the [Ayn Rand Institute](https://bit.ly/35qoEC3) Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/yaron-brook-show--3276901/support. Yaron is the executive chairman of the Ayn Rand Institute and a world class speaker. He is the coauthor of the national best-seller Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand’s Ideas Can End Big Government, Equal is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality and In Pursuit of Wealth: The Moral Case for Finance. He speaks around the world on a variety of topics including the morality of capitalism, Ayn Rand and her philosophy, finance and economics, and the value of inequality.
