US negotiation vs. Iranian negotiation
A self-destructive step undertaken by US negotiators has been the assumption that negotiation with the Ayatollah regime (and any other terroristic regime) can be based on Western negotiation tactics.
Contrary to US negotiation tactics, which aim to advance reconciliation, the Ayatollah regime’s 1,400-year-old negotiation tactics are driven by a vision, which mandates the crushing/subjugation of the “infidel.”
While US negotiation tactics strive for a binding accord, the Ayatollah regime’s negotiation tactics strive for a tentative accord, to be abrogated whenever politically or militarily opportune.
US negotiators tend to focus on future (speculative?) scenarios, as well as statements made by Iranian negotiators, rather than on the Ayatollah regime’s (well-documented) rogue track record, fanatical ideology, the 1979 Constitution and books written by Ayatollah Khomeini – the Supreme Founding Leader – which have driven the Ayatollah regime since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Since 1978/79, US negotiation with the Ayatollah regime have failed to moderate the regime, while yielding a powerful tailwind, dramatically bolstering the anti-US capabilities of the Ayatollah regime.
Ayatollah regime’s negotiation tactics
*Taqiyyah is an Islamic-sanctioned tactic of dissimulation (Quran, Surah 3, verse 28 and Surah 16, verse 106), in the face of a superior power, concealing one’s true belief and intention, in order to mislead the militarily superior “infidel” via deceptive tongue, while the heart remains steadfast. Under dire strategic circumstances, taqiyyah is not merely permissible; it is obligatory.
*Khod’eh is an Iranian tactic of misinformation and disinformation, rather than outright deception. Khod’eh intends to manipulate the “infidel,” causing the “infidel” to misjudge the true position of the “believer.”
*Kitman is deceit by omission (half truth), evasion, silence and making ambiguous statements, paying lip-service to the “infidel.”
*Taarof employs subjective (cultural, emotional, psychological, philosophical, religious) meaning of words, rather than objective literal (dictionary) definition of words. Knowingly, introducing false assumptions (not an utter lie…).
Islamic negotiation tactics in action
*In 1978-79, Ayatollah Khomeini coaxed the US into facilitating the toppling of the pro-US Shah, while expediting the Islamic Revolution. Khomeini displayed his mastery of the 1,400-year-old Islamic negotiation tactics: taqiyyah (religiously legitimized dissimulation), khodeh (trickery, rather than outright lies), kitman (hiding one’s true intentions) and taarof (ambiguity and ostensible politeness, aiming to confuse).
Thus, Khomeini, whose legacy has dominated Iran’s domestic and external policy, immersed President Carter with moderate statements, leading Carter to assume that Khomeini was committed to human rights and liberty, including women’s rights and free press; did not intend to export the Islamic Revolution beyond Iran; was anti-Communist and therefore, potentially pro-US; and that Khomeini would be preoccupied with tractors not with tanks. The US Ambassador to Tehran assessed that Khomeini would be an Iranian edition of Gandhi. Therefore, Carter pressured Iran’s military – which was not duped by Khomeini’s moderate statements and opposed his return to Iran from his exile in France – to support Khomeini’s toppling of the Shah and assuming control of Iran. However, upon seizing power, Khomeini executed a large number of top military officers, seized the US Embassy, held 50 Americans hostage for 444 days, and transformed Iran from “The American Policeman of the Gulf” to the world’s leading epicenter of anti-US terrorism, wars, drug trafficking, money laundering and the proliferation of advanced military systems.
*In December 1988, following US-PLO negotiation, the US recognized the terrorist organization as the official representative of the Palestinian people, defining it as an important step in the peace process, and authorizing the opening of a PLO office in Washington, DC. The US based its game-changing policy on the supposed PLO acceptance of UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, ostensibly recognizing Israel’s right to exist, and purportedly renouncing terrorism. However, consistent with Islamic negotiation tactics – and leveraging the US State Department’s alternate Palestinian reality – the PLO ignored its presumed commitments, intensified anti-Israel terrorism, recognizing Israel verbally (when addressing Western interlocutors, not Muslim audiences), but actively pursuing the destruction of the Jewish State.
*In 1993, Yasser Arafat, the arch-Palestinian terrorist, inundated Israel with peaceful talk, which led Israel to believe that he was transformed from an anti-Israel terrorist to a leading peacemaker, ushering in Peace Now and a New Middle East. Therefore, Israel committed a dramatic gesture, which no Arab country had ever contemplated, allowing Arafat to relocate from Tunisia – along with some 100,000 Palestinian terrorists from Sudan, Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon – to Gaza, Judea and Samaria. Moreover, Israel supplied Arafat with military hardware, lobbied President Clinton to extend foreign aid to Arafat’s Palestinian Authority, and paved the road to according him the Nobel Peace Prize. As expected, upon entering his new domain, Arafat launched an unprecedent wave of Palestinian terrorism against Israel (which is still raging!), and instructed his deputy, Mahmoud Abbas, to establish the Palestinian hate-education school system, which has become the most effective production line of terrorists, including suicide bombers.
*In 2013-2015, the US negotiators of the JCPOA were impressed by the polished, moderate and pragmatic pronouncements made by Iranian officials, which convinced them that the Ayatollah regime was on a peaceful path. Notwithstanding the signed JCPOA, the Ayatollah regime persisted in the development of nuclear capabilities, while bolstering its anti-US conventional and ballistic capabilities, expanding cooperation with anti-US terror organizations, intensifying collaboration with Latin American drug cartels and anti-US governments, and establishing terror sleeper cells on US soil.
*Since 1978, the US has been engaged in on-again, off-again negotiations and economic sanctions, assuming that financial and diplomatic bonanza, as well as maximum pressure crippling economic sanctions would induce the Ayatollah regime to embrace peaceful coexistence with its Sunni Arab neighbors, adopt good faith negotiation and abandon its 1,400-year-old fanatic, imperialistic, apocalyptic vision. However, this US policy has been the chief engine of the Ayatollah regime’s surge to a top global strategic posture, evolving into a clear and present threat to the US homeland and national security.
This article was published at The Ettinger Report
The views expressed in guest columns are not necessarily the views or positions of the CCNS or its members.
