The Morning Rant

The current "negotiations" between The United States of America and the fundamentalists in charge of Iran are a thinly veiled joke. These are not two combatants roughly equal who have decided to work out their differences across a table rather than across a battlefield. This is the world's superpower offering a lifeline to a country whose armed forces and hierarchy have been thoroughly degraded by a month of hi-tech destruction that wasn't even an all-out effort. Iran's military-industrial base has been largely destroyed. They can no longer build missiles in any quantity, and their launchers are a prime target for American air power. They have to import Iraqi thugs to control the populace, and they are rapidly running out of money, and storage space for their oil.

However...The talks are progressing on a typical trajectory that has been successful for the past 47 years...ever since the Iranian revolution of 1979. And that trajectory is delay, obfuscation, manipulation of world media, and of course the outright lies that Iran has any interest in peace, or entry into the world of civilized nations. The seemingly petulant outburst from Iran a few days ago, ending the most recent discussions and laying out many new demands is part and parcel of this never-ending cycle.

But they are emboldened by their 1,400 year old history of Islamic Taqqiya, combined with their Persian sense of superiority and conviction that they are simply smarter and tougher and more clever than America. Of course it worked for many years!

President Trump is inordinately proud of his ability to make deals, and while he has had tremendous success both domestically and with foreign affairs, the IRGC and the Mullahs have no internal flexibility. They have one purpose, and that is survival to return to their typical ways, and their one goal, which is the destruction of Israel, the destruction of the West, the destruction of America, and the ushering in of a world-wide Caliphate. It is binary, and they have no interest in anything else.

Here is someone who understands that, and who is not fooled by the manipulations:

You cannot make a deal with a regime that uses lies as a strategic weapon

In 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini came to power on a wave of promises. Many Iranians, including university students and idealists of every stripe, believed him. They could not yet see the true nature of what they were welcoming. It did not take long. The bloodshed began almost immediately. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians who dared to protest were killed. I grew up in the shadow of that reality, and eventually I became one of its targets, imprisoned and sentenced to death for the crime of following Jesus.

What I learned inside those prison walls is the same thing the world keeps refusing to learn outside them: this regime does not negotiate in good faith. It negotiates for survival. Lying – taqiyya – is its religiously sanctioned strategic weapon.

Western leaders consistently make the same mistake. They look at Iran and see a government with factions, “reformists” and hardliners. They conclude that the “reformists” represent a genuine alternative. They do not. The “reformist” and hardliner structure is a performance, a deliberate good cop, bad cop strategy designed to give Westerners the illusion that progress is possible if only the right faction gains influence. In fact, both serve the same system and would sacrifice each other in an instant to preserve it.

Certainly we cannot count on the people of Iran to drive the IRGC out. 47 years of a comprehensive surveillance state combined with the brutality of the regime has made that a difficult proposition at best. But if a renewed military effort increased the pressure on the IRGC while further degrading their ability to disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, then perhaps a general uprising is possible -- not probable though.

The surest bet is the destruction of the IRGC, and that will take time. The question is: Does President Trump have the political capital to see it through to the end, and does the American body politic have the fortitude to handle high energy prices until the IRGC is no more?

[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter]. If you folks who are on X/Twitter would follow us it would be much appreciated!

posted by CBD at 11:00 AM

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