"Scum" would seem quite fitting to describe the current Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leadership Islamic Republic of Iran, especially after Israel informed US President Donald J. Trump that Iran's leaders were planning to kill him.
It is to be hoped that the US President might now kindly reconsider who his real friends are and who America's real friends are. A few of President Trump's
"good friends" he has mentioned are the leaders of Qatar, Turkey, Russia and China. They might be friends of his; unfortunately, that does not mean they have at heart the best interests of America or the West. Their definitions of "best interests " may well consist of what they would like -- not necessarily what the Free World might like.
It would be naive not at least to consider the possibility that countries such as Qatar Turley and Pakistan are all charmingly -- and often lavishly -- waiting Trump out, while positioning themselves for their versions of "best interests" the minute he leaves office.
Qatar, a country of not quite 4 million people -- Los Angeles is bigger . has reportedly has "invested" $400 billion-$1.2 trillion since 2000 toward "influencing" the United States. It is presumably not promoting Jeffersonian democracy. This number does not include Qatar's gift to the US of a $400 million "flying palace" jumbo jet or a pledge of $243 billion, " laying the groundwork for a bigger $1.2 trillion economic pledge...." What is Qatar asking for in return? What is it expecting as its return on the investment? Has anyone asked?
Qatar has also been the largest supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, which openly seeks "the downfall of the West by its own hands." The Muslim Brotherhood's motto is:
"Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."
Qatar has also reportedly been the largest supporter of terrorism "more terrorism than Iran": "Qatar is at the top of funding terrorism worldwide, even more than Iran," Dr. Udi Levi, former head of a Mossad unit dealing with economic warfare against terrorist organizations and countries that sponsor terrorism told Ynet Thursday." --
Turkey -- now hoping that President Trump will deliver US F-35 stealth fighter jets despite reports that it is planning for a war with Israel – apart from its many threats to Greece and Cyprus – has been appearing as a back-up "friend."
Indoctrination has additionally been coming from China (here, here and here), instilling unfavorable views of Israel and the United States, and opposing additional U.S. military aid as well as trying to derail from America developing Artificial Intelligence.
The Republican Party is divided between the isolationist faction embodied by Vice President Vance, and the majority who remember all too well that what starts in Sudetenland does not stay in Sudetenland, and who still see Israel, a fellow democracy, as a powerhouse of military and human intelligence essential for a forward-base in the Middle East.
China's record of unscrupulousness against the US is as long as it is elaborate. It includes sending spy balloons over America's most sensitive military bases; buying "farmland" next to them; flooding the country with fentanyl and opioids that have taken the lives of more than 100,000 Americans each year, the equivalent of downing one large passenger plane every day; developing deadly pathogens in secret laboratories; smuggling poisonous agricultural pathogens into the country, stealing roughly $600,000 worth of intellectual property each year; lying about the human transmissibility of Covid-19, thereby costing the lives of 1,238,189 Americans; smuggling in hundreds of military-aged men who may be waiting for a cue from their home country; creating so far, by an industrial-scale birthright-tourism industry, an estimated 1.3 million new American citizens who are immediately taken back to China and educated there until they are 18, when they can return, vote, donate to campaigns, run for office and potentially take over America -- to name just a few of the Chinese Communist Party's infractions.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, has, for the length of his career, brought nothing but grief to every place he touched. He turned the Russian city of Grozny into rubble, approved the use of chemical bombs in Syria; and invaded Georgia, Crimea and the Ukraine -- where he has seen more than 2 million Russian casualties since his ill-advised invasion.
After reading the non-binding Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the United States and Iran — signed electronically on June 14 by US President Donald Trump and Iranian Speaker of the Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf – and again by US President Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on June 17 — one might well wonder how the MAGA [Make America Great Again] president could have approved such a text. It can only be described, as the Israeli journalist Danny Zaken wrote, as "a surrender agreement with a murderous and cruel terror regime."
According to the New York Times, Trump was talked into a "deal" -- with terrorists, a situation worse than no deal because you succumb to the soothing illusion that you might actually have one. It is the trap former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain walked into with Adolf Hitler in 1938 -- except by now we should know better. What the US should want is unconditional surrender -- "We win, they lose" -- as with Japan after World War II.
The text failed to address any of the objectives outlined by President Trump on February 28, when US and Israeli military operations against the Iranian regime began. Not a single word addresses the danger posed by Iranian ballistic missiles, even though it has become clear—since Iranian launches directed at Diego Garcia—that Iran possesses many with a range far exceeding previous estimates. The missiles are capable of reaching Europe and possibly soon the United States. **** Trump, shortly after signing the MOU, approved ballistic missiles for Iran: "I'm saying that if other countries have them, it's a little bit unfair for them not to have some....If Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and they all have some, I would say in relative proportion, I think it's okay." No, it is not "okay." Qatar and Saudi Arabia do not go around shooting up their neighbors or vowing "Death to Israel" and "Death to America" every day.
There was also no mention in the MOU of Iran's terrorist proxies, except for one oblique and ambiguous mention of "Lebanon" in Point 1. The text states that the cessation of hostilities is "total and permanent" on "all fronts, including in Lebanon," and that Lebanon's "territorial integrity and sovereignty" will henceforth be guaranteed. The Iranian regime appears to have been reading that as implicit permission for Iran's terrorist proxy, Hezbollah -- which took over Lebanon by being granted veto power in its government in 2008 -- to stay in place to continue trying to obliterate Israel.
Also overlooked by the MOU was the devastation caused by the massive assaults on Israel, a country smaller the New Jersey (roughly 22,000 sq km). Wars against Israel, into which Hezbollah has dragged Lebanon, have turned beautiful Lebanon, once the "Switzerland of the Middle East," into a failed state.
The MOU also required that "immediately upon the signing of this MoU, the United States of America will begin the removal of its naval blockade." Trump was therefore agreeing to let the United States relinquish the leverage it had against the Iranian regime. The text further states that the Iranian regime will grant free passage to all vessels in the Persian Gulf for a period of "sixty days only." "Only": that means that after sixty days, Iran could demand a toll, or "fee," for passing through the strait. Iran therefore now regards the strait as being under its control – shared with the Sultanate of Oman.
"The United States of America," the MOU continues, "undertakes, with regional partners, to develop a definitive mutually agreed plan with at least $300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran". Trump was offering Iran billions to "rebuild" -- it is not clear what -- before its rulers had even clearly accepted that it was Iran that was to be rebuilt, not its military. Iran's frozen assets, therefore, were not to be used to repay the US, Israel or the Arab Gulf States for the damage inflicted on them, but to rebuild Iran's nuclear program, which include "thousands of uranium-enrchment centrifuges" hidden under Pickaxe Mountain. Iran was about to be rewarded for waging a 47-year war by getting repaid to continue it.
Even if the funding was not necessarily to have come from American coffers, but instead from the Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia, the proposal implied that Iran's regime was about to be restored as powerful as ever, and that its neighboring countries could soon expect to pay a protection tribute for using the Strait of Hormuz. Why should it have been a surprise to the US that Saudi Arabia refused the US permission to use its airspace or military bases?
The risk of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons—the central issue Trump says he is seeking to prevent by the war— was touched on in the MOU, in a highly watered-down manner. The text states that "the Islamic Republic of Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons," Iran's regime has consistently claimed—while lying—that it has no desire for nuclear weapons. By signing the MOU, Trump appeared to accept this lie as the truth. In addition, he had previously demanded the removal or destruction of enriched uranium; then suddenly, he accepted "on-site blending" -- at least until the enriched uranium was blended back up again.
The text also specified that this process would take place "under the supervision of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency)." After witnessing the IAEA's sorry lack of effectiveness between 2015 and 2018, that provision should be permanently written off as wishful thinking.
The text concluded by speaking of upcoming talks regarding "the issue of enrichment, and other mutually agreed matters relating to the Islamic Republic of Iran's nuclear needs, signaling that Trump might be willing to accept continued uranium enrichment and possession of centrifuges – which, it turned out, Iran had already secreted under Pickaxe Mountain -- and noted briefly in the MOU as "keeping the status quo."
"Immediately upon the signing of this MOU," the document stipulated, "and until the termination of sanctions, the U.S. Department of Treasury will issue waivers for the export of Iranian crude oil, petroleum products and derivatives" – a waver that Trump later rescinded.
The MOU, as argued by those seeking to excuse the wretched nature of its content, is not a formal, binding treaty. It nevertheless established the foundation and framework for negotiations that had already begun. Ironically, the text of the MOU aligned so closely with Iranian demands that Iran's leaders could easily have adhered to what had been accepted by the United States while preserving whatever they wished.
Any regime change in Iran , which Trump had promised the Iranian people by posting that "Help is in its way," he quickly declared a thing of the past: "We are not seeking regime change in Iran." The current leadership, dominated by Iran's ruthless Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), will be able to rebuild and consolidate its power. The Gulf states and Saudi Arabia, which have apparently grasped this new threat, have been acting accordingly. Having probably -- not surprisingly -- lost confidence in American security guarantees, they appear to be adapting to the survival of Irani's regime and banking on maintaining dialogue with it rather than confronting it.
The text contains not one word about the regime's crackdown on the Iranian people. According to Trump, 54,000 Iranian protestors were killed by Iran's security forces in January alone. The MOU did not mention the continuing mass arrests, tortures, rapes or executions. The regime's atrocities and the repression of its own citizens would therefore not only have continued but likely intensified. The thousands of Iranians massacred by the regime in January have already been forgotten; they are simply never mentioned. The Iranian people are being betrayed.
For the time being, it seems, Iran's Houthi proxy in Yemen will remain in place and continue to be funded and armed by Iran if it regains the means to do so. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun succeeded in forming an agreement with Israel and the US to rid Lebanon of Iran's main proxy Hezbollah. Israel, despite unseemly fulminations from both Trump and Vice President JD Vance, who wrongly upbraided Israel for belligerency instead of the real offender, Iran – flatly announced that it would continue to defend itself – as well as defending Western civilization.
Thanks to the impressive efforts of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, an agreement -- this one binding -- was reached between the Lebanese, US and Israeli governments affirming their "shared goal of achieving lasting peace." The agreement, which contradicts the terms of the non-binding MOU, is being successfully enforced.
Israel, after playing a crucial role in the bombing campaigns against Iran, entered the war alongside the United States last year presumably with the aim of preventing Iran's regime from causing further harm in the neighborhood. Like the Gulf Arabs – not to mention most of the Iranian people -- Israel would probably like to see the end of Iran's regime. Instead, a military regime, ad horrendous or worse than that of the mullahs, remains in place, shelling the Middle East, supporting terrorism and torturing and executing its citizens. Although weakened, Iran still possesses missiles and drones and has been trying to claim ownership of an international waterway, the Strait of Hormuz, by charging "protection" fees and firing on ships that decline.
On April 8, reportedly at the urging of Vice President Vance, President Trump decided on a two-week ceasefire that lasted more than two months., Informed late about the ceasefire, Israel was seemingly abandoned while the war was half over. Excluded from the negotiations that followed the ceasefire, Israel was not mentioned in the MOU, even as an "entity." Trump and his administration have made it clear that they expect Israel to accept any US decision.
The Israeli people realize they are left almost alone to face the danger posed by the Iranian regime and Hezbollah. While they remember that Trump has long acted as a good friend to Israel, they see that he he has now abandoned their country in favor or Israel's avowed enemies. Trump even denied that Israel had shared intelligence about Iran's newest assassination attempt.
Vice President J.D. Vance -- who has never expressed friendly sentiments toward Israel or the war on Iran, was tasked with the negotiations. He has been trying to defend his indefensible MOU and slamming Israeli officials who, kept out of the negotiations, had the nerve to express reservations about the abysmal results. For the US vice president to have stated that it is in the interest of Israeli leaders not to antagonize "the only powerful ally [they] have anywhere left in the entire world" is as inaccurate as it was venomous. Germany, Poland, India, Argentina, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Bahrain -- the last three members of the Abraham Accords -- have all been steadfast allies.
President Trump has claimed several times that "regime change" has already taken place in Iran. This is not true and he knows it. The Revolutionary Guards have always been part of the regime; they now hold the levers of power. The mullahs' regime has simply become their regime. The faces many have changed but the same policies and institutions remain.
Trump originally described Iran's current leaders as "less radical" and "very rational people" -- until just hours after electronic signature, the very official who had signed it, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, went on television and called for "the liberation of Jerusalem." Recently he announced that that Iran "will not allow any interference in the Strait of Hormuz," then began violating every agreement.
What Trump may not be seeing is that Americans love victory.
Russia and China remain allies of the Iranian regime: if President Trump now proves to be irresolute, they will quickly help Iran regain its strength.
The Iranian regime has been insisting that it will kill Trump, control the Strait of Hormuz and in general suit itself.
Europe's leaders, who, at the conflict's outset, declared "this is not our war," will most likely continue to pursue a policy of appeasement toward Iran while distancing themselves from Israel.
Indoctrination has additionally been coming from China (here, here and here), instilling unfavorable views of Israel and the United States, and opposing additional U.S. military aid as well as trying to derail America from developing Artificial Intelligence. The Republican Party is divided between the isolationist faction embodied by Vice President Vance, and the majority who remember all too well that what starts in Sudetenland does not stay in Sudetenland, and still see Israel both as a fellow democracy and as a powerhouse of military and human intelligence essential for a forward-base in the Middle East.
"We cannot have a status quo in which Iran can close the Strait at any time or use its proxies to attack Israel," Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned on June 19. "We have to finish the job so that this regime is defanged — period".
On July 8, President Trump, at a NATO summit in Ankara, had apparently seen enough. The IRGC had fired on three commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz in violation of a week-long pause they had requested for the funeral of their Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei. Trump announced that the ceasefire was "over", called Iran's leaders "scum" and said, "Let's just finish the job."
The Iranian regime's equipment has been attacked for more than ten days,\ to impede its ability to control the Strait of Hormuz.
It is impossible to believe that any kind of "deal" with Iran's current regime -- who will not abide by one anyhow -- is even being contemplated.
It is to be hoped that now President Trump will actually "finish the job" -- with regime change and without F-35 fighter jets to Turkey. Otherwise, the chance of any long-term peace in the Middle East is zero.
