Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

Donald Trump has finally concluded that Iran’s Islamist rulers cannot be reasoned with, exposing the harsh reality that some regimes are driven by ideology, not negotiation.

After months of on-again, off-again negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, Donald Trump has finally come to a conclusion about the Mullahs in Tehran.

He told reporters at the NATO summit in Turkey:

“They’re a little loco, they’re a little crazy.”

You don’t say!

The Iranian regime isn’t normal. Never has been.

They’re neither reasonable, nor relatable, nor rational.

When Deals Meet Religious Zealotry

The Islamic clerics’ tyrannical rule of the region once known as Persia is based on a crazy religious idea that they will usher in the coming of the 12th Imam, who will establish Islam across the world.

Now, of course, to usher in this mythical Muslim figure, there are just a couple of housekeeping items.

Like the destruction of Israel, for instance.

Which is why the Iranian regime, for almost 50 years, has used most of its money — not to better the lives of Iranian citizens — but to fund terror proxies targeting Israel and her supporters.

Oh, and they’ve spent big on trying to develop a nuclear bomb.

Not for defensive purposes… but to assist with that little jihad errand they believe will usher in an Islamic utopia, minus the Jews, which does seem to be the central feature of their Islamic utopia.

So, yeah. They’re definitely a little loco.

It’s taken Trump a while to get to this point.

And while the US President has copped a lot of criticism for the on-again, off-again negotiations, I kind of understand why the Middle East conflict has zigged and zagged.

Trump is a product of the secular West, where religion is a thing… but not THE thing.

And so, as people who don’t take religion too seriously, it’s hard to imagine that others do.

Trump’s assumption has been that everyone ultimately wants prosperity. Better trade. More investment. A higher standard of living.

In other words, everyone has a price.

But what if they don’t?

What if someone’s highest value isn’t wealth or comfort, but eternal reward?

That’s a very different negotiation.

People love mocking Trump’s rambling speeches.

And fair enough.

Listening to one is a bit like watching a shopping trolley with a wonky wheel. It eventually gets where it’s going, but not before wandering through every aisle in the supermarket.

But every now and then, Trump says something that’s worth the price of admission.

Trump’s Change of Mind on Iranian Regime

Here he was, the man who wrote The Art of the Deal, reflecting on the fact that no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t negotiate a deal with the Iranians.

He’s spent a lifetime negotiating with developers, bankers, politicians and businessmen.

Now he’s negotiating with men who believe history was written fourteen centuries ago, and all they’re doing is acting out the final chapter.

He told journalists:

“My whole life that’s all I do is deals. That’s how I became President. That’s a deal too right?

“But I made a lot of money. I had a lot of great success. Tremendous success. Everything I did I was successful.

“And I deal with these guys and I say this is from a different school.

“They’re liars, they’re cheats, they’re sick people. They’ve hurt their people.

“They’ve killed 54,000 pepole as of now that were protesting. you know when people say how come they can’t take over because they’re dead. They killed them.

“And the other side has machine guns. But they’re bad people, they’re bad people. And frankly I don’t want to waste my time with them.

“Now, I’ll let our wonderful negotiators keep talking if they want. But I don’t see it. I don’t like these people, you know that?”

It’s taken Trump a long time to get there. But he’s finally realised what should have been obvious from the outset.

You can’t deal with terrorists… especially not when they’re driven by religion.

Again, this should have been obvious.

Think about it.

Why Iran Defies Western Assumptions

These are people who believe that if you die killing others in the name of Allah, you’ll be rewarded in heaven with 72 virgins.

Honestly, how do you negotiate with blokes who’ve already got that in their back pocket?

A reporter asked Trump how it was that he’d changed his mind on the Iranian leadership. Hadn’t Trump previously said they were good men he could work with?

A reporter pointed out that just last month, Trump had been praising the Iranian leaders as “rational” and “nice to deal with”.

“Today you said they’re scum. What changed?”

Trump shot back:

“I got to know them.”

That may be the shortest intelligence briefing ever delivered.

Trump said the final straw was when he agreed to guarantee the safety of Islamists gathering in Tehran for the funeral of the Supreme Leader, which took place last week.

“They asked for a time out. They wanted to go to the funeral, and I said give it to them, and they start shooting missiles. I mean, that’s the crazy thing.”

Choosing Between Two Terrible Options

Now, for all those people who accuse Trump of being a warmonger – I’m looking in the general direction of the Australian Greens – have a listen to what Trump says next.

“The funeral took place, and they wanted to have a period of time and they also asked that we not kill them and we said we’re not going to kill you.

“They were worried we’d kill them during the funeral.

“Did you ever think I’d be doing this for a living? Marco? Maybe Pete… but this wasn’t supposed to be for me.”

That’s surprisingly human.

Trump’s a real estate developer. He never imagined he’d be having to make decisions about killing terrorists, let alone bombing other countries.

Nor did he imagine his own life would ever be in danger.

“And you know what? I may be gone too. Because I’m their number one target.”

But now, with the realisation that it’s impossible to negotiate a settlement with religious zealots who genuinely believe they’re just one nuclear bomb away from an Islamic paradise, the US President finally seems to have realised he has only two options — both of them ugly.

Option One?

He keeps playing a game of limited strikes and sanctions.

But if Trump goes down that road — and he may — the Islamic Republic will eventually cross the nuclear threshold, dominate the Strait of Hormuz, and force the world to live with their new reality.

The second option is to go all in.

Strike Iran’s power grid, oil infrastructure, and civilian targets until the Islamic regime is actually broken.

Trump knows exactly what that would require:

“I would say in one day we knock down every single bridge in Iran. There’s not a thing they can do about it.

“They’re elect manufacturing facilities, their electric plants, we will, if we have to we’ll take them out.

“I don’t want to do that. But if we have to, we’ll take them out. They have desalination plants. We’ll take them out if we have to. I hate to do that. that’s probably the one I would like to do least.”

As Trump points out, doing what’s required to defeat the Iranian regime means causing a massive humanitarian crisis inside Iran which, of course, creates a devastating contradiction.

The only realistic way to free the Iranian people might be destroying the lives of the very people he wants to free.

So there are no good choices here. Certainly, no easy ones.

It’s the sort of moral dilemma that we love to pretend doesn’t exist.

Reality isn’t so accommodating.

There are no clean endings in the Middle East. Just varying degrees of terrible.

Sometimes leadership isn’t choosing between good and evil.

It’s choosing which catastrophe leaves the world in a slightly better condition than the other.

Let’s all hope Trump chooses well.

___

Republished with thanks to The James Macpherson Report.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons: President Donald J. Trump displays his signature on an Executive Order to place further sanctions on Iran, Monday, 24 June 2019, in the Oval Office of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian).