When dealing with a malignancy, radical surgery is oftentimes required. In the realm of international relations that is the case with the Islamic Republic of Iran, a cancer that the entire world has suffered from since the Iranian revolution of 1979.
Upon his return to Iran, and subsequent elevation of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as the Supreme Leader in what was once a stable and secular Iran, the country has devolved into a fundamentalist extremist nation, governed by religious fanatics, and as the world’s foremost supporter of terrorism.
The Iranian regime is primarily made up of Twelver Shi'ism, the fanatical ‘Twelvers’, whose adherents believe in twelve divinely ordained leaders, known as the Twelve Imams. They adhere to the belief that the last Imam, Imam al-Mahdi, lives in occultation and will reappear as the long-awaited Mahdi. Upon his return they believe that their twisted theology will spread around the world. They also believe that his return may be hastened by some type of cataclysmic event. A nuclear detonation perhaps?
While the recent military actions taken by the nation of Israel and the United States indeed may have set back the Iranian goal of developing a nuclear weapon, it did not at all end their ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons capability that they can use against Israel, “the Little Satan,” and the United States, “the Great Satan.” The Iranian regime will never give up their goal of destroying Israel and inflicting massive damage to the United States. To do so would be tantamount to giving up on their fanatical religious conviction that they believe they are ordained by God to pursue.
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Certainly the very successful surgical military strikes against the Iranian nuclear facilities were a step in the right direction by President Trump, but it wasn’t enough. The malignancy still lives inside Iran, and it will continue to fester and grow. The one sure way to rid Iran and the world of this cancer is to rid Iran of the radical theocracy that governs that country, and still poses an existential threat to its Middle Eastern neighbors, as well as to the United States.
President Trump has proven himself to be a masterful negotiator when it comes to economic and trade dealings with other nations. He continues to rack up important agreements in negotiations with our Canadian and Mexican neighbors, as well as with other European nations and NATO.
But in those negotiations he is dealing with rational governments and people. The radical mullahs and officials governing the Islamic Republic of Iran are anything but rational by any standards. Their sole purpose is to spread their version of Shia-ism to all corners of the world.
They truly believe they are guided by God. Religious fanatics such as the Iranian regime will never agree to walk away from what they believe to be their ordained mission. They will simply view the Israeli and U.S. attacks on their nuclear program as nothing more than a temporary setback.
That makes any future negotiated agreement between Iran and other countries worthless. The Iranians will sign any agreement or treaty, and verbally assure other nations that they will abide by those agreements, while they then secretly continue to pursue their own agenda. An agenda which includes acquiring a nuclear weapon they can use against the nation of Israel.
Most recently the nation of Pakistan even offered to provide Iran with the nuclear technology they will need to achieve this goal. With the continued advances in technology, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), the ability to develop nuclear weapons may become even more readily available than it currently is now.
President Trump has made it clear that he doesn’t want the United States engaged in these “forever wars” that we’ve allowed ourselves to be roped into in the past. Most of which were the result of poor policy decisions and poor leadership.
But there indeed are alternatives that the U.S. must consider. Regime change in Iran has to come from within, and at the hands of the Iranian people. But we must do all that we can to encourage and support the Iranian dissidents inside Iran in their efforts to remove the cancer that has caused so much harm to Iran, and to much of the world.
I’m pretty certain that we have learned lessons from our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that President Trump has surrounded himself with some very good people who will offer sound advice on how we proceed in dealing with Iran. I highly doubt that we will make the same mistakes that led to those previous decades-long military deployments.
But the world simply is not a safer place with the current Iranian regime still in Tehran. It continues to be a malignancy, and we need to cut it out once and for all before it can metastasize further.
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