1. A constructive worldview must be driven by reality, irrespective of how complicated, bloody, insoluble and frustrating it may appear. It should not be driven by alternate reality, regardless of how seemingly obvious, peaceful, soluble and convenient it may seem to be.
2. Isolationists – like most people – are eager to prevent, minimize and end wars and terrorism, rather than launch wars. However, is it possible to prevent, minimize and end wars and terrorism without uprooting a chief epicenter of global wars, terrorism and drug trafficking – the Ayatollah regime?! Can a police chief minimize crime, while negotiating with – rather than fighting against – the chief crime-gangs?!
3. The well-intentioned wish of Isolationists to militarily disengage from Islamic terrorism, establish peaceful coexistence, and be preoccupied with the domestic agenda, must be based on global and Middle East reality; not on alternate reality. Thus, since the Muslim Barbery Pirates of the early 19th century, irrespective of US policy, Sunni and Shiite Islamic terrorism has been determined NOT to disengage from – but to intimidate, terrorize and subjugate – the “infidel” West, and especially “The Great American Satan,” while establishing Islam as the only legitimate, divinely-ordained religion on earth.
4. Isolationists are engrossed with eloquent Iranian talk, taking lightly the 1,400-year-old imperialistic and apocalyptic (Twelver) ideology. This ideology has dominated the Ayatollah regime’s political system, providing total control over domestic, foreign and national security policy to the top clerics, who are committed to the Quran’s commandment to transform the “abode of the infidel” to “the abode of Islam.” The Ayatollah ideology is enshrined in the Ayatollah’s Constitution, school curriculum (which is the most authentic reflection of the regime’s worldview), mosque sermons and official media, mandating the Ayatollah regime to topple all “apostate” Sunni regimes and bring the “infidel” West to submission.
5. The isolationists contend that the Ayatollah regime does not pose a threat to the US; only to some Middle East entities. However, since the early 1980s, the Ayatollah regime – along with Hezbollah terrorists and consistent with its ideology – has systematically undermined the US’ global posture. For example, it has collaborated militarily, economically and diplomatically with all anti-US governments, drug cartels and terror organizations in Latin America, which the Ayatollah regime regard as “the US’ soft underbelly,” a preferred arena for their terrorist training camps and testing ground for ballistic missiles. Furthermore, according to the US Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the Director of National Intelligence, the Ayatollah regime has teamed up with Russia and China in expanding its network of sleeper terror cells on US soil. Additionally, the Ayatollah regime has been engaged in subversion and terrorism against every pro-US Arab regime in the Persian Gulf, the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, North and West Africa, aiming to gain control of 48% of global oil reserves and critical routes of international trade.
6. While Isolationists are preoccupied with the present and speculative future scenarios, the Ayatollah regime is preoccupied with Islamic history. For instance, the Ayatollah vision/ideology is largely a derivative of the 680 AD Battle of Kerbala, which is the core of the violent Sunni-Shiite rift. This battle is commemorated annually by public processions featuring iron bar flagellation. The Ayatollah ideology is also deeply impacted by the 10th century disappearance of the Twelve Imam, Muhammed al-Mahdi, whose reappearance could be imminent, but requires a violent apocalyptic context, severe suffering by Shiites and stained in “infidel’s” blood to establish global justice.
7. Isolationists tend to assume that Money Talks, and therefore, a financial and diplomatic bonanza could ostensibly induce the Ayatollah regime to accept peaceful coexistence and good faith negotiation. However, for the Ayatollah regime (just like Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah and the PLO/PA), Ideology Walks, transcending economic and diplomatic considerations. This has been demonstrated by the 47 years of the Ayatollah regime, when most of the hundreds of billions of dollars, which were provided by the West, have bolstered the Ayatollah’s anti-US global terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and the proliferation of advanced military systems.
8. Realistically, in view of the Ayatollah regime’s total commitment to its anti-US rogue ideology, the choice facing the US is to fight Islamic terrorism in US trenches (e.g., 9/11, 1993 World Trade Center, the Anthrax biological terrorism, San Bernardino, CA, Orlando, FL, Ft. Hood TX), or in the Islamic terrorists’ own trenches.
9. Rather than learn from history by avoiding critical mistakes, Isolationists are determined to repeat mistakes, such as the systematically self-destructive negotiation with the Ayatollahs since 1978, when President Carter stabbed the Shah in the back and facilitated the ascension of Ayatollah Khomeini to power. While the West considers negotiation as a step toward reconciliation and peaceful coexistence, the Ayatollah regime considers negotiation as a means to mislead the “infidel” West, and a step toward the realization of its anti-US ideology through stalling time, licking wounds, avoiding severe military punishment, and restoring military capabilities.
10. While Isolationists refer to negotiation in a Western manner, the Ayatollah regime has employed since 1978, 1,400-year-old Islamic negotiation tactics: taqiyyah (religiously legitimized dissimulation), khodeh (trickery, rather than outright lies), kitman (hiding one’s true intentions) and taarof (ambiguity and ostensible politeness, aiming to confuse). These negotiation tactics led to the 2015 JCPOA, which would have allowed Iran to persist in its nuclear endeavors after 2025.
11. Isolationists consider maximum pressure, crippling economic sanctions as an effective means to force the Ayatollah regime into moderating its conduct. However, since 1979, when the initial economic sanctions were imposed on Iran by President Carter, they have not yielded Ayatollah moderation. Moreover, President Trump imposed severe economic sanctions, which almost destroyed Iran’s economy, but were proven to be reversible by a succeeding President. Furthermore, the Ayatollah regime has become very astute in bypassing economic sanctions through China, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, Chile, Colombia and some of the European countries.
12. Isolationists do not recognize the strong connection between the Ayatollah’s discrimination and persecution of large ethnic and religious minorities, as well as women at-large, on the one hand, and the Ayatollah’s terrorism and wars abroad, on the other hand. The Isolationists underestimate of the eagerness of most Iranians for regime change. Which has led them to assume that US involvement in regime change would galvanize the population behind the Ayatollahs. This misreading of Iran’s population led Presidents Obama and Biden to let the massive opposition to the regime hanging high and dry during the 2009 and 2022 attempted insurrections.
13. Isolationists claim that US involvement in regime change would trigger overall Islamic solidarity with the Ayatollah regime, ignoring the fact that the Sunni Muslim majority (80% of the Muslim global population) consider the Shiite Ayatollah regime a clear and present danger, which holds machetes at the throats of the regimes of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, etc. Irrespective of their talk, these Sunni regimes yearn for regime change in Tehran, which would snatch them from the jaws of the Ayatollah regime.
14. Isolationists claim that nuclear No. Korea and Pakistan do not threaten the US, and neither would a nuclear Iran. However, unlike Iran, the regimes of these countries are not apocalyptic, nor are they driven by a vision to impose their religion and ideology on the “infidel West.” The isolationists add that regime change failed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and is doomed to fail in Iran, ignoring the vast differences between Iran and the other two countries, historically, ethnically, religiously, educationally and socially. Unlike the population of Iraq and Afghanistan, the vast majority of Iranians oppose their regime and are ready for democratization.
15. In conclusion, those who are not ready to initiate regime change in Iran, are doomed to face the first ever apocalyptic nuclear power, which would require horrific war, dwarfing the necessary cost of regime change, which would free the globe of the chief epicenter of wars and terrorism.
