The US State Department has contended that the diplomatic option toward Iran’s Ayatollahs – along with hundreds of billions of dollars of financial benefits and lavish diplomatic gestures – could induce the Ayatollahs to accept peaceful coexistence with their Sunni Arab neighbors, become good faith negotiators, and abandon their fanatic religious ideology, which has traumatized the region and the globe.
Moreover, the State Department suspended and softened mega-billion-dollar worth of economic sanctions, eagerly seeking another nuclear accord, refraining from the redesignation of the Houthis as a terrorist entity. Furthermore, Foggy Bottom has feebly reacted to the Houthis’ closure of the critical Europe-Asia trade route, and has responded in a frail manner to the systematic bombing of US, Saudi Arabia and UAE installations by Iran and its proxies.
However, the US diplomatic option and its mega-benefits to the Ayatollahs, have accelerated the transformation of Iran from the “American Policeman in the Gulf” to a venomous octopus, stretching its hands throughout the globe, and increasingly in the American continent, including US soil.
In fact, the Ayatollahs have been the chief engine of a multitude of terror proxies, including Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthi.
Since February 1979, when they toppled the Shah of Iran, the Ayatollahs have intensified their anti-US global terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, the proliferation of advanced military systems, and the development of nuclear military capabilities. According to the Ayatollahs’ value system, a 1,400-year-old ideology transcends dramatic financial and diplomatic benefits, chartering and navigating their rogue conduct in the Persian Gulf, the Middle East at-large, Central Asia, Africa, Latin America – which the Ayatollahs consider the soft underbelly of “The Great American Satan” – and the US mainland.
For example:
*Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei frequently issues a potential death sentence to all pro-US Sunni Arab regimes, especially Saudi Arabia, which is the site of the two holiest sites of Islam, Mecca and Medina, and is the rival of Iran over the hegemony of Islam and the control of the Persian Gulf oil (48% of proven global oil reserves), as well as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
*Thus, Khamenei refers in his public pronouncements to the core of the Ayatollahs’ vision: the 14-century-old confrontation between the Front of Ali (the first Shiite Caliph) and the Front of Yazid (the Sunni Caliph), which mandates the toppling of all Sunni pro-US regimes, and then turning to the subjugation of the “infidel” West, led by “The Great American Satan.”
*The confrontation between the Front of Ali and the Front of Yazid was triggered by the 680 AD Battle of Kerbala, when the small military force of Hussein, son of Ali and grandson of Mohammad was massacred by the mighty military force of Yazid. For the Shiite Ayatollahs it is a role model of Sunni treachery, mandating Shiite vengeance. It has been commemorated annually by Shiites in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and other Shiite centers, including major Western cities, featuring bare-chested males flagellating their chests and backs with iron bars.
*The Ayatollahs consider the 1979 Islamic Revolution – and the 1978 toppling of the pro-US Shah of Iran – as a crushing victory over despotism and the US, a prelude to global Shiite domination.
*This precept of Shiite Islam – which has dominated the day-to-day Ayatollahs’ policies – is bolstered by the 1979 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has been the roadmap of the Ayatollahs’ global strategy, laying the foundation of the systematic, rogue, fanatic, domestic, regional and global conduct of Iran’s apocalyptic Ayatollahs since assuming power in February 1979. It has been the guideline for the exportation of the Islamic Revolution through subversion, terrorism, fueling of civil wars, and the proliferation of ballistic technologies, drug trafficking and proselytization, aiming to establish a universal Shiite society, based on the teachings of Ayatollah Khomeini, and bring to submission the Sunni “apostates” and the Western “infidels.”
*As documented by the Ayatollahs’ Constitution, education system and the systematic rogue track record of Iran’s apocalyptic regime, it is driven by a fanatic, religious and megalomaniacal vision, which has always transcended the “money talks” approach.
*The Ayatollahs’ school curriculum has been – just like the Palestinian Authority school curriculum – an effective production-line for terrorists and suicide bombers. It is consistent with their constitution, domestic repression of ethnic and religious minorities, the subjugation of women, and the proliferation of anti-US terrorism in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. It provides a roadmap for an apocalyptic commitment to a global, anti-US Islamic revolution.
*For instance: “Iran is fighting a global war and calls on oppressed Muslims and non-Muslims to unite under Islam and the Islamic Republic of Iran to overthrow the evil regimes [of the “infidel” West led by the US and the “heretic” Sunni regimes]. The Islamic Revolution knows no borders; it applies to the whole world (Literature and Humanities, Grade 12, 2021‒2022, page 110).
*Since the November 1979 takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran – which entailed holding of over 50 US hostages for 444 days – “The National Day of Fighting Arrogance [the USA]” is commemorated annually on November 13th, when the public, especially pupils and students, declaring their hatred toward “the bullying and oppressive USA” and chanting “Death to America.” “This disavowal and declaration of disgust yields unity and homogeneity, bolstering resistance of the enemy” (Islamic Education, Grade 6, 2021‒2022, page 33; Defense Readiness, Grade 9, 2021‒2022, page 31).
*The US is described as a Satanic enemy of Islam and the Ayatollahs’ Islamic Revolution (Defense Readiness, Grade 9, 2021‒2022, page 30). [The US] must be defeated and humiliated, as demonstrated in Iran’s history (Qur’an Learning, Grade 2, 2021‒22, page 67; Persian Language, Grade 5, 2021‒22, page 60).
*The anti-US reality of the Ayatollahs, on the one hand, and the assumption that the Ayatollahs are amenable to negotiation and peaceful coexistence, on the other hand, constitutes an oxymoron. The reality of the Ayatollahs has been inconsistent with the diplomatic option and the alternate reality of the State Department. In fact, the prevention of geo-strategic volcanic eruptions mandates a reassessment of the diplomatic option, and the consideration of the regime-change option.
This column 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.
