Trump has no absolutes—except a belief in “deals.”
One day he demands the Iranian regime’s “Unconditional Surrender” and sends B2 bombers, the next day he’s over the moon about a cease-fire.
He claimed in his Truth Social post:
During each CEASEFIRE, the other side will remain PEACEFUL and RESPECTFUL. On the assumption that everything works as it should, which it will, I would like to congratulate both Countries, Israel and Iran . . .
When, in the whole of human history, has a cease-fire worked? Never.
Cease-fires can’t work: when two nominally civilized countries go to war, at least one of their regimes is evil—not just acting immorally, but deeply immoral as an entity.
(No, that doesn’t mean every inhabitant of the evil country is evil, it means the rulers are evil and too many of their inhabitants support them in their evil.)
Iran’s rulers cannot claim ignorance. They are thoroughly familiar with Western civilization. They loathe it.
The bearded, black-gowned mullahs and ayatollahs embrace the ancient and lethal mixture: mysticism and statism—faith and force.
We all know that their endless repeated chant is “Death to Israel! Death to America!” But no one will tell you why they hate those two nations so.
They are hated for their virtues. Israel and America are civilized, peaceful, technology-loving, life-loving nations. As such, they pose a lethal ideological threat to the purveyors of poverty and self-abnegation.
Consider the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Although the kamikaze airliners were flown by Saudis, it was Iran’s Islamist regime that was the head of the snake, the source and inspiration for Islamic jihadism.
The jihadists thought they had a devastating weapon: their indifference to life on earth. One Islamist explained it: “You worship life; we worship death.”
That’s why the World Trade Center was a prime target. Those twin skyscrapers on the edge of the Wall Street district symbolized money, trade, profit, worldly success.
“You worship life; we worship death.”
Yes, that about sums it up. General Patton’s famous remark to his soldiers encapsulates it:: “The goal is not to die for your country; it is to make the other poor bastard die for his country.”
Death-worship is not the means to anything except death.
How can there be a cease-fire between you and a death-worshiper who burns with the desire to kill you?
Theocracies cannot be peaceful. They operate from faith and force, dogmatism and terror.
You can’t make “a deal” with those who believe that you are an agent of the devil, “the great Satan.”
Trump is, once again, a fool: there is no bargaining with evil. It’s neither moral nor practical.
The solution to the Israel-Iran conflict is: victory. Israel must totally, devastatingly destroy the mullahs’ evil regime.
That includes “winning the hearts and minds” of the Irnian people. To succeed, for there to be a society based on at least some respect for human life, a majority of the citizens have to reject the regime and its view of existence—its philosophy.
Incredibly, a growing body of evidence indicates that a solid majority of Iranians have, in the last two or three years, come to reject their regime. I was shocked but delighted to learn that atheism is now an accepted position for Iranians. An Iranian refugee spoke on my podcast, “Meeting of the Minds,” to explain and concretize what Iranians are thinking. Ordinary Iranians no longer accept the theocracy’s legitimacy.
Two or three years ago, an Iranian woman was murdered for showing slightly too much hair underneath her hijab. Now, something like half the women in Tehran don’t wear the hijab at all.
When the Israelis killed Hossein Salami, the head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), most ordinary Iranians were glad, my Iranian friend reported. Looking at him, one can see why.
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If Trump does not get in the way, look for the overthrow of the mullahs soon.
How soon? I’m always too optimistic, so this time I won’t say.
In the meantime, a cease-fire works to the disadvantage of Israel. They should not cease their fire, but intensify it. The horror that is the Islamic Republic of Iran must be unmasked, humiliated, and ended once and for all.
The headline speaks of betrayal. But what else can you call it when America, on whom Israel depends, orders you to cease your highly successful campaign against your enemy?
Trump warning both Netanyahu and Khameini not to break the cease-fire is selling Israel out, by preventing the Israelis from giving the knock-out blow.