President Donald J. Trump has a problem. If he leaves Iran's major nuclear research and centrifuge sites, such as the Fordow uranium enrichment plant or Natanz, under their protective mountains, the countless centrifuges sheltered there will remain a permanent temptation -- an "attractive nuisance" -- for the Iranian regime to resurrect to terrorize its neighbors with again.
What Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appears to want -- and what Iran's regime has said it wants since the Islamic Republic's founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini put it in 1979 – is:
"We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry 'There is no god but God' resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle."
— Quoted on p. 42 of Shireen T. Hunter's The Foreign Policy of Iran: Ideology and Pragmatism (Praeger, 1984).
To accomplish this, Iran's regime has for decades been building up its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs as a way of securing their permanent rule. They appear to have calculated that if Iraq's Saddam Hussein or Libya's Muammar Gaddafi or the leadership of had possessed nuclear weapons, they would still be ruling their countries. The Iranian regime seems to have concluded that the reason for their fall was that they either never had nuclear weapons, with Gaddafi foolishly allowing his nuclear program to be dismantled. To the ayatollahs, their nuclear and ballistic missile programs appeared to be their "insurance policy" allowing them to stay in power - as well as "resounding over the whole world."
Trump offered Iran's leadership 60 days to give up their nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles programs peacefully "before there is nothing left." Iran repeatedly declined. On the 61st day, Israel took Iran's threat to its existence ("Death to Israel") -- and to that of the US ("Death to America" as a policy) -- into its own hands, and began implementing the "nothing left" part of Trump's request.
Apparently now -- after being battered by Israel as well as battering Israel, a country the size of New Jersey (roughly 22,00 sq.km.) with hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones -- Iran has signaled it wanted to "negotiate" again -- a claim later denied. According to the Iranian mission to the United Nations, "No official has asked to 'grovel' at White House gates."
Trump invited Iran's leadership to the White House to talk, an offer also declined.
Trump, on social media, asked Iran for "Unconditional surrender!" and said, "No more. Then we go blow up all the, you know, all the nuclear stuff that's all over the place there."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flatly stated that he had no interest in "fake talks":
"They want to continue to have these fake talks in which they lie, they cheat, they string the U.S. along. And, you know, we have very solid Intel on that. They want to keep on building their nuclear weapons and building their mass ballistic missile arsenal, which they're firing at our people. They want to continue to create the two existential threats against Israel while they're talking. That's not going to happen."
The Iranian regime has been talking for 46 years, and for most of them have been building their nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, including working toward intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). ICBMs are exactly what they say they are: intercontinental. They are not needed either for "civilian nuclear energy" or for launching at Israel. They are intended for launching at the United States. If Iran, according to Israeli reports, has been manufacturing 300 ballistic missiles a month, in a year that is 3,600, and in ten years Iran would have 36,000 -- with some of them carrying nuclear warheads.
Netanyahu reminded the US administration, "Today it's Tel Aviv, tomorrow it's New York. I understand America First, but I don't understand America Dead."
Iran has not spent years been building up its influence in South America – especially Brazil, Venezuela and Cuba -- for a chain of beach resorts. The US Monroe Doctrine (1823), warned that foreign powers, at that time European, "were obligated to respect the Western Hemisphere as the United States' sphere of interest."
Iran began its 1979 Islamic Revolution kidnapping and holding hostage the staff of the US Embassy for 444 days, until the election of President Ronald Reagan induced their release. Iran then proceeded to kill countless Americans over the years -- from 241 US service members during the Iran-directed bombing of the US Marines barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1983; to the 9/11 attacks; to planned assassinations of US officials, including Trump, as well others in the US, to name just a few.
At the moment, Trump says he has "not decided what to do about Iran."
The nuclear sites Iran has built deep underground could either be destroyed with "bunker-buster" bombs from the air, or with Israel's special forces troops on the ground. If the electricity could be cut, the centrifuges would be inoperable. What is unclear is: is it possible to verify with certainty that the power to the centrifuges is cut, and, if the electricity could be restored at some future date, would the centrifuges then be operable again?
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, a pastor, suggested to Trump that this moment was what God had saved him for:
"God spared you in Butler, PA to be the most consequential President in a century—maybe ever."
Trump's decision will not only change the future of Iran and the Middle East, it could deter other adversaries of the West -- Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea -- and possibly even quiet the subversive voices at home. Trump needs to Make Persia Great Again! This is, as Huckabee suggested, why Trump was spared: to create a great, new, truly peaceful Middle East, allied with the US, hopefully forever.
Lawrence Kadish serves on the Board of Governors of Gatestone Institute.
Eli Marcus