Bruce Thornton is a Shillman
Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, a Research Fellow at Stanford's Hoover
Institution, and a Professor of Classics and Humanities at the California State
University. He is the author of nine books and numerous essays on classical
culture and its influence on Western Civilization. His most recent book, Democracy's
Dangers and Discontents (Hoover Institution Press), is now
available for purchase.
November 10, 2014 by Bruce
Thornton
The news that President Obama has sent a secret letter to
Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei––apparently promising concessions on Iran’s
nuclear program in exchange for help in defeating ISIS–– is a depressing
reminder of how after nearly 40 years our leaders have not understood the
Iranian Revolution. During the hostage crisis of 1979, Jimmy Carter sent
left-wing former Attorney General Ramsay Clark to Tehran with a letter
anxiously assuring the Ayatollah Khomeini that America desired good relations
“based upon equality, mutual respect and friendship.” Khomeini refused even to
meet with the envoys.
Such obvious contempt for our “outreach” should have been
illuminating, but the same mistakes have recurred over the past 4 decades. But
Obama has been the most energetic suitor of the mullahs, sending 4 letters to
Khamenei, none directly answered. In May of 2009 he sent a personal letter to
Khamenei calling for “cooperation in regional and bilateral relations.”
Khamenei’s answer in June was to initiate a brutal crackdown on Iranians
protesting the rigged presidential election. Obama’s response was to remain
silent about this oppression lest he irritate the thuggish mullahs, who blamed
the protests on American “agents” anyway. Even Carter’s phrase
“mutual respect” has been chanted like some diplomatic spell that will
transform religious fanatics into good global citizens. In his notorious June
2009 Cairo “apology” speech, Obama assured Iran, “We are willing to move
forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect.” This latest
letter repeats the same empty phrase.
But our president is nothing if not persistent. In October of 2009, it was
revealed that Iran had failed to disclose a uranium enrichment facility in Qom.
Obama commented on this obvious proof of Iran’s true intentions, “We remain
committed to serious, meaningful engagement with Iran,” and promised that the
“offer stands” of “greater international integration if [Iran] lives up to its
obligations.” Iran answered by increasing the pace of enrichment, helping the
insurgents in Iraq kill our troops, and facilitating the movement and communications
of al Qaeda with other jihadists.
Indeed, every concession and failure to respond forcefully to
Iranian intransigence and aggression confirm its belief that Iran is strong and
America weak. As Khamenei has said, “The reason why we are
stronger is that [America] retreats step by step in all the arenas [in]
which we and the Americans have confronted each other. But we do not retreat.
Rather, we move forward. This is a sign of our superiority over the Americans.”
Given this long sorry history, how long will it take for our
foreign policy geniuses to figure out that Iran’s theocrats don’t want better
relations, or “mutual respect,” or “international integration,” or anything
else from the infidel Great Satan and its Western minions, other than
capitulation? The mullahs and their Republican Guard henchmen may lust for
wealth and power as much as anyone, but the foundation of their behavior is a
religious faith that promises Muslims power and dominance over those who refuse
the call to convert to Islam and thus by definition are enemies of the faithful
to be resisted and destroyed.
Given these spiritual imperatives, the material punishment of
the regime through economic sanctions, particularly limited ones, is unlikely
to have much effect. During the hostage crisis, mild sanctions and the threats
of more serious ones were brushed away by Khomeini. The Economist at the time pointed out the obvious
reason why: “The denial of material things is unlikely to have much effect on minds
suffused with immaterial things.” Khomeini made this same point after the
humiliating disaster of Carter’s half-hearted attempt to rescue the hostages in
April 1980, when mullahs were televised worldwide poking their canes in the
charred remains of 8 dead Americans. Speaking of the sandstorm that compromised
the mission, Khomeini preached, “Those sand particles were divinely
commissioned . . . Carter still has not comprehended what kind of people he is
facing and what school of thought he is playing with. Our people is the people
of blood and our school is the school of Jihad.”
With their eyes on Allah’s intentions for the faithful, the
leaders of Iran see the acquisition of nuclear weapons as the most important
means of achieving the global power and dominance their faith tells them they
deserve as “the best of nations produced for mankind,” as the Koran says.
Thus duplicitous diplomatic engagement and negotiation are tactics for buying
time until the mullahs reach “nuclear latency,” the ability quickly to build a
bomb. Every concession or offer of bribes from the West are seen not as an
inducement to reciprocate in order to meet a mutually beneficial arrangement,
but rather as signs of weakness and failure of nerve, evidence that the mullahs
can win despite the power and wealth of the West. That’s because the Iranian
leadership views international relations as resting not on cooperation or
negotiation, but on raw power. As Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institute quotes from a hardline Iranian newspaper,
“Our world is not a fair one and everyone gets as much power as he can, not for
his power of reason or the adaptation of his request to the international laws,
but by his bullying.” And the Iranians believe that their power politics serves
the will of Allah.
Obama is not the first president who has completely failed to
understand the true nature and motives of his adversary. FDR misunderstood
“Uncle Joe” Stalin, and George Bush misread the eyes of Vladimir Putin. This
mistake of diplomacy reflects the peculiar Western arrogant belief that the
whole world is just like us and wants the same things we want––political
freedom, leisure, material affluence, and peaceful relations with neighbors.
Some Iranians may want those things too, but a critical mass wants obedience to
Allah and his commands more. Obama’s endemic narcissism has made this flaw
worse in his relations with the rest of the world, for he can’t believe that
the leaders of other nations, many of them brutal realists indifferent to the
opinions of the “international community,” aren’t as impressed as he is with
his alleged brilliance and persuasive eloquence.
As a result we are on the brink of a dangerous realignment of
the balance of power in the Middle East. Despite Iran’s continuing defiance of
International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, and its long record of lies and
evasion, Obama allegedly has offered to raise the number of centrifuges
enriching uranium from 4000 to 6000, bringing the mullahs closer to “nuclear
latency”––in a regime that has officially been designated the world’s largest
state sponsor of terrorism; that has threatened genocide against Israel, our most
important strategic asset in the region; and that for the last 40 years has
stained its hands with American blood.
Rather than the ornament of his foreign policy legacy, as Obama
hopes, his pursuit of a deal that will make Iran a nuclear power will be remembered
as his Munich.
