The future of the West and President Donald Trumps reputation within it through the centuries will depend on the outcome of the ongoing battle with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
America is decisively winning that battle, but it has not yet won it. In fact, the U.S. could lose the battle. If President Trump perseveres, that will not happen. If he abandons the battle, it could very well be the worst foreign policy debacle for the U.S. since the end of the Vietnam War, rivaling even that of the catastrophe of President Bidens command to American forces to quickly depart Afghanistan in 2021.
Because of those two competing futures, it is highly likely that President Trump will persevere. And he should.
IRAN IS NOT A NORMAL NATION YOU CAN MAKE DEALS WITH; ITS A NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT
Iran is run by religious fanatics. That is the overarching reality about the defining threat Iran poses to the region and indeed the world. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (“IRGC”) that the repressive regime cannot be “deterred” in the way other evil tyrannies can be deterred.
Xi Jinping can be deterred. Vladimir Putin can be deterred. Both have no evident desire to die, or for history to end.
Iran cannot be deterred from its mission to destroy Israel and the United States, because destruction and even defeat in this battle is not what ultimately matters the most to the theocrats atop the Islamic Republic. “Martyrdom” is itself the best result for any individual caught up in Khomeinism. “Regime survival” is a secondary goal to its leaderships personal worldview, an extreme version of a minority branch of Islam often called “Twelver” theology.
IRAN TO EXECUTE FIRST FEMALE PROTESTER TIED TO ANTI-REGIME UNREST
The defining belief of Twelver Shiism is that the Twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, did not die, entered occultation (a state of concealment) in the 9th century, remains alive by Gods will and will return at the end of time as the Mahdi to establish justice and peace. A group within “Twelver” believers assert that turmoil may help usher in the Mahdis return.
When Irans first tyrant, Ayatollah Khomeini, drank the infamous “poisoned chalice” and accepted a 1988 ceasefire with Iraq in the brutal 1980-1988 war, that “Supreme Leader” did not remotely fear a popular uprising by his own people. Khomeini believed that he had time on his side for the instrument of worldwide salvation that he believed the Islamic Republic to be.
Todays dictator, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp Commander-in-Chief Ahmed Vahidi, knows the regime is already on borrowed time. Shattered and facing a ruined economy experiencing hyperinflation that will only grow worse, the economy cannot support the 90+ million who depend on it. That means inevitable rebellion by the people followed by revolution against the IRGC.
Vahidis predecessor in the role of top tyrant, the now dead Ayatollah Khamenei, took the “Tiananmen Square” option when hundreds of thousan
