Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative” | April 29, 2025
It has been maintained that Iran’s Ayatollah regime is Israel’s problem, does not pose a serious threat to the US and global stability, and is manageable via negotiation. However, this assumption is repudiated by the march of facts.
1. Irrespective of Israel, Iran’s Ayatollah regime is driven by a 1,400-year-old fanatical vision, that is underscored by Iran’s school curriculum, mosque sermons, official media and sustained policy. This fanatical vision mandates the toppling of all pro-US Sunni Arab regimes and bringing the “infidel” West to submission, primarily “The Great American Satan.” Since the February 1979 toppling of Iran’s Shah, the Ayatollah regime has emerged as the leading global epicenter of anti-US wars, terrorism, drug trafficking and the proliferation of advanced military systems. It considers Israel as “The Little Satan” – the vanguard of the US in the Middle East and its first line of defense. Moreover, the Ayatollah regime has expanded its anti-US rogue operations beyond the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, into Africa and Latin America, which is the soft underbelly of the US. For example, since the early 1980s, Iran has established terrorist training camps and ballistic missiles testing grounds in Latin America, solidifying strategic cooperation with drug cartels in Mexico, Columbia, Bolivia, Ecuador and Brazil, as well as with all anti-US Latin American governments, while proliferating terrorist sleeper cells on US soil (according to the FBI).
(Photo by Ank gsx – Own work, 
(Image by Andyso – Own work, 
