For the Leadership in Iran, Gaza and Beirut, What Is the Only Important Outcome?

For the Leadership in Iran, Gaza and Beirut, What Is the Only Important Outcome?

Khaled Abu Toameh

• [The US president's negotiations and ceasefires] are viewed by Tehran, Gaza and Beirut as infidels trying to tell Muslims what to do. For them, such a situation is unimaginable, unacceptable, and cannot be allowed to stand.

• To Iran's current leaders, whoever they are, if Trump carries out his threat to bomb the country's bridges and power plants on Wednesday, so be it. In the view of Iran's theocratic regime, none of that is of any importance so long as it survives, in any form, to be able to continue waging jihad (holy war) against its people, its neighbors and the West.

• A piece of paper signed with infidels at the point of a gun is, in their eyes, nothing more than a Western fantasy.

• They see anything short of the total destruction of their entire power base as a total victory.

• That is why all three regimes – the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon – need to be totally dismantled if there is to be any real, permanent change of conduct in the Middle East.

• The message should by now be clear: Iran's regime, Hamas and Hezbollah have no intention of laying down their arms, no interest in compromise, and no respect for Trump and his policies. In fact, they are telling Trump: Your initiatives and efforts are irrelevant.

• The intractability of their leaders also aligns with their long-term ideological objective of sustaining a permanent conflict with Israel and the West.

• Even if the Iranian regime is no longer able to continue funding, arming, and guiding its proxies, all will remain committed to armed struggle until "victory."

• "Victory," in their terms, means first the destruction of Israel ("the Little Satan"), then taking over their oil-rich neighbors, and eventually the destruction of Europe and the United States ("the Great Satan").

• So long as the Iranian regime – or Hamas or Hezbollah -- is able to survive, there will be no disarmament, no moderation, and no peace.

• The repeated refusals by Iran's regime, Hamas and Hezbollah expose the failure of any policy built on engagement, incentives, or accommodation.

• These terror entities do not interpret diplomatic overtures, off-ramps and ceasefires as goodwill. They view them instead as weakness.

• They are right. It is, indeed, the West's fault that it allows itself to be exploited. The West not only gives these leaders time to rearm and rebuild, but worse, it grants them legitimacy and power bases throughout Europe and the United States. No one in the West even asks them to concede anything of substance.

• Until there is a better understanding by the West of what jihadactually is -- and the uncompromising determination behind it -- every negotiation, threat and ceasefire will only lead to more terrorism and the next war.

  
  

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