Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger | “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative” | August 2, 2026
*The 47, -year-war launched against the US by the Ayatollah regime, since 1979, predates – and is independent of – any specific US President or policy, as demonstrated during the Administrations of Carter and Reagan, Obama and Bush, Biden and Trump.
*The 47-year-track record of the Ayatollah regime – as underscored in its Constitution, school curriculum and mosque sermons – provides a body of evidence that the regime’s core Shiite orientation highlights anti-Americanism as a foundational pillar of identity, rather than a temporary foreign policy.
*The Ayatollah track record has been a derivative of a fanatical, apocalyptic (Twelver Shiite) ideology. It mandates the exportation of the Islamic Shiite Revolution (1979 Constitution, article 154), establishing a globally exclusive, “divinely-ordained” Shiite Islamic governance, in preparation for the return of the Hidden Twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, which is to be preceded by chaos, suffering, rivers of blood and martyrdom. The Ayatollah’s ideology frames political conflicts in metaphysical, non-negotiable terms, yielding civilizational and religious battles in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and inside the US.
*The Ayatollah ideology mandates the toppling of the “apostate, treacherous” Sunni regimes, and bring the “infidel” West – and primarily “The Great Arrogant and Oppressive American Satan” – to submission. The US is viewed as an existential, moral, irreconcilable, illegitimate adversary. Since 1979 – despite the fact that it was a US President, who paved the road to Ayatollah Khomeini’s toppling of the Shah – Anti Americanism has functioned as a key ideological glue of the Ayatollah regime, a metric for domestic political loyalty. In fact, the annual commemoration of the November 4, 1979 US Embassy takeover is reinforced by the chant “Death to America” (“Marg bar Amrika“).
*While the Ayatollah regime frequently displays tactical flexibility, when under extreme pressure, its strategic trajectory demonstrates that ideological objectives transcend financial and diplomatic bonanzas, as well as international norms. For example, the Jihad-driven doctrine of the “Resistive Economy” (eqtes?d-e moq?vemat?) accepts economic austerity and isolation as a price for maintaining ideological independence. In defiance of the mega-billion-dollars of financial pressure/sanctions and temptations, the Ayatollah regime prioritizes the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its expeditionary arm, the Quds Force, the funding of proxy terror organizations (e.g., Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis), and the 46-year-strategic entrenchment in Latin America.
*The negotiation process provides the Ayatollah regime with the time to lick wounds, relieve pressure, gain tactical concessions, restore and upgrade conventional, ballistic and nuclear capabilities, in cooperation with China, Russia and North Korea. These countries are eager to prove their reliability and effectiveness as strategic allies, notwithstanding the devastation of their air defenses, combat aircraft and missile batteries during the 2025 and 2026 Iran wars.
*In the Middle East, a strong party’s proposal to negotiate reflects insecurity, hesitancy and weakness, which emboldens rogue entities, as demonstrated by the waves of unprecedent terrorism, that was triggered by Israel’s negotiation cycles with the PLO (Oslo 1993) and Hamas (since 2007). The Ayatollah regime would never propose to negotiate with a devastated enemy, but proceed to deal a knockout blow to such an enemy.
*The 47-year-policy of negotiation with the Ayatollah regime has not induced Iranian moderation, but bolstered the anti-US capabilities of the Ayatollah regime. The policy of negotiation has played a key role in catapulting Iran from a second/third rate strategic power to a major global strategic player. In addition, the negotiation policy has played a major role in transforming Iran from “The American Policeman of the Gulf” (1971-1978) to a chief global epicenter of anti-US terrorism, wars, drug trafficking and money laundering.
*The tendency to kick the can down the road has reflected Western policy makers’ inclination to sacrifice medium/long-term national security on the altar of short-term convenience, as has been demonstrated by multiple precedents. For example, the 1981 Algiers Accord yielded the release of 50 American hostages, but was followed by the 1983 Beirut US Embassy and Marines barracks Iran-Hezbollah car bombs, which murdered 258 Americans. This pattern was repeated by the US-led 2015 JCPOA, when the Ayatollah regime invested most of the hundreds of billions of dollars, gained through the accord, in bolstering its ballistic capabilities, and cultivating its global terror and drug trafficking network, including in Latin America and on US soil. Moreover, Western policy makers tend to overlook the clear and present lethal threat posed by the Ayatollah regime.
*Western policy makers have taken lightly the structural contradiction between the incompatible definitions of negotiation by Western policy makers and the Ayatollah regime. Thus, while the West views negotiation as a win-win, deal-making, problem-solving, conflict-ending, mutually-accepted solution, and a process of permanent strategic reconciliation, the Ayatollah regime approaches negotiation as a confrontational, conflict-perpetuating, temporary ceasefire-like process – an extension of warfare by other means.
*Western policy makers view a signed agreement as an achievement, but the Ayatollah regime views a signed agreement as a time stalling tactic, in order to advance the strategic achievement – bringing the “infidel” to submission.
*While Western policy makers approach negotiation as eager sprinters, the Ayatollah regime approaches negotiation as patient marathon runners.
*Approaching the Ayatollah regime as a transactional party overlooks the reality that anti-Americanism is not merely a negotiable policy, or a bargaining chip, but the core identity of the Islamic Republic.
*The 47-year-negotiation with the Ayatollah regime has enhanced the legitimacy of that rogue entity, paving the road to intensified violence, which could eventually usher-in the first ever apocalyptic nuclear power.
*Is the US determined to learn from critical mistakes by repeating, or avoiding, them?!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.