ITHACA, NY—Sunday’s meeting of the Cornell Terror Society proved lively and optimistic as members discussed this weekend’s promising events in Iran.
“This was our most active meeting in months,” said CTS president Ethan Melander ‘26. “Everyone was really pumped to hear the news. We’ve seen how these sorts of interventions play out—the possibilities for future terror are just endless!”
Club DEI chair Dylan Wilder ‘28 praised the American military action for its contribution to diversity in potential new extremist groups, stating that “the era of Wahhabist dominance in the field may finally be over.” According to Wilder, the decades-long decline of Al-Qaeda, once the “gold standard” of terrorism, has already coincided with a rise in Iran-aligned organizations, and the ongoing war could lead to “new, exciting ideological motivations” for bloodshed.
Other members of CTS are more skeptical about the impact of the strikes. “Iran itself was behind a lot of the OGs—Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis,” said Megan Crosby ‘29. “I worry this destabilization may lead to a lack of funding and support for the real backbones of terror today.” But Crosby also noted the possibility of violence between terrorist organizations—what she called her “best-case scenario”—as established groups battle it out with newcomers for dominance in the domain of fundamentalist violence.
Regardless of the outcome of the war in Iran, CTS rests assured that domestic right-wingers will continue to be the chief purveyors of terrorism in the United States, and the club thanks the Trump administration for its contributions to terror both at home and abroad.
