President Donald Trump says the ceasefire agreement with Iran is over. His comments come after the U.S. launched fresh strikes on Iran following attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
"I don't want to deal with them anymore. They're scum. You know what scum is? They're scum. They're sick people. They're led by sick people," Trump said of Iran's leadership in response to a question from ABC News.
"And they're vicious, violent people. And if they had a nuclear weapon, they'd use it. As far as I'm concerned, it's over," the president continued. "There's something wrong with them, they're cuckoo," Trump added.
The president did, however, suggest that U.S.-Iranian negotiations over a final peace deal could continue.
"I'll speak to our negotiators. They want to negotiate. They're good people. Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, but they have to come back to me. As far as I'm concerned, it's just a waste of time dealing with them," Trump said on Wednesday, according to ABC News.
Let’s be honest here: The Iran “peace deal” Memorandum of Understanding was not a forever peace between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States.
For the United States and the Trump administration it was a deal to get oil prices down before the midterm elections, and preserve the Republican majority in Congress.
For the Iranians the MOU, and its 60-day negotiating window, were nothing more than a hudna – the traditional Mohammedan temporary pause that allows Muslim warriors time and space to rearm, regroup and resume hostilities under more favorable circumstances.
The Iranians understand us much better than we understand them. The Islamic Republic’s economic attack on the United States was very savvy political warfare – cripple the world economy to assist anti-war, pro-Islamist, Democrats in taking power to launch a campaign to tie-up President Trump during the last two years of his term.
Only by decisively defeating that terrorist regime is there any prospect of an actual end to the Iran conflict, as opposed to a hudna – Islam’s cynical use of so-called ceasefires to regroup, rearm and then reengage under more favorable circumstances.
What does the decisive defeat of the Islamic Republic of Iran look like?
To use a term that President Trump himself has appeared to disavow, it looks like regime change.
Despite breathless reporting by the western media, the Islamic Republic’s leaders show no signs of surrendering. Indeed, they are portraying the current conflict with the United States and Israel as part of a continuous “hybrid war” waged by the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution—and using it as an excuse to repress domestic dissent and intimidate its neighbors.
And the “intimidate its neighbors” part of the Islamic Republic’s negotiating strategy seems to be working since they appear to be the loudest voices calling on the United States to reduce its demands to something far short of the total capitulation that our military success would allow us to impose on the Ayatollahs if we chose to do so.
So, what’s the bottom line?
From our perspective of 50-years of studying Iran’s Shia Twelver revolutionary government and working on national security matters one thing is quite clear to us; no Iranian Twelver is ever going to surrender on our terms.
To do so would involve not only violating the Islamic Republic’s political values, as expressed in their constitution and the governing principles of Khomeinism, or “Absolute Wilayat al-Faqih” (Guardianship of the Jurist), it would also violate the core religious principles of Shia Islam, namely that by spreading war and chaos the return of the hidden Twelfth Imam will be hastened and an Armageddon-like conflict will bring about the worldwide rule of Shia Islam.
Killing General Qasem Soleimani, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani, Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh, Army Chief of Staff Abdul Rahim Mousavi, Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib, commander of Iran's Basij paramilitary force Gholamreza Soleimani, and others, does not defeat the Islamic Republic of Iran’s ideology of Wilayat al-Faqih.
This ideology, based on Shia “Twelver” Islam, is the motivating force behind Iran’s drive to acquire a nuclear weapon and to sow terror and chaos across the world. Killing Iran’s leaders does not defeat this ideology because another adherent of Wilayat al-Faqih will step up to take their place.
It is obvious to us, and it may finally have been understood by the President and his team, that a 60-day ceasefire is merely a hiatus in the “hybrid war” waged against us by the Islamic Republic ever since the 1979 revolution.
In the MOU the Ayatollahs gave up only the minimum necessary for the regime to survive, in the long term, they have every intention of continuing their war against the United States and Israel, because it is the entire reason for the existence of the Islamic Republic.
Failing to defeat the Taliban’s ideology of Sharia-supremacism is why Afghanistan’s former government was quickly defeated after Joe Biden precipitously withdrew our forces.
So, we can kill Iranian leaders down to the point that sergeants are running the army and the clerks are running the government and they are not going to change their goal of acquiring nuclear weapons and their stated policy of death to the two Satans, the United States and Israel, because we have not defeated the ideology that motivates them.
The MOU was never a path to a lasting peace. Defeating and replacing the Islamic Republic of Iran’s ideology of Wilayat al-Faqih is a necessary condition of “winning” the war and achieving a lasting peace with a new Iran. Until a truly secular government made up of Wester-oriented Iranians committed to peace is in place the war the Islamic Republic declared 47 years ago on America and the West will continue, because it’s the fundamental reason for the existence of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
George Rasley is editor of Richard Viguerie's ConservativeHQ.com. A veteran of over 300 political campaigns, he served as a staff member, consultant or advance representative for some of America’s most recognized conservative political figures, including President Ronald Reagan, Senator Jesse Helms, Governor Sarah Palin and Representative Jack Kemp. A member of American MENSA, he served on the House and Senate staff and on the staff of Vice President Dan Quayle. Rasley is a graduate of Hanover College and studied international affairs at Oxford University's Worcester College. Rasley has lived, worked and travelled extensively in the Muslim world, including staffing Vice President Quayle on official visits to Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.
