The Amalekite Terrorist Iranian Regime: Why deterrence failed in Islamabad

The Regime’s program calls for ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel’, which are not vapid slogans, but religious imperatives.

Leonard Grunstein | Published: Apr 13, 2026

Islamabad Talks. Screengrab via Youtube

For over 47 Years, the terrorist Iranian Regime has, directly or through proxies, attacked the US and Israel.

There was no prior attack by the US or Israel that precipitated the Regime’s aggression; nor was there even a vital Iranian interest that was being pursued from a secular rational perspective. Neither the US nor Israel were neighbors of Iran. The Iranian Regime went out of its way to attack the US, which it viewed as the ‘Big Satan,’ and Israel, ‘the ‘Little Satan”.

Yet the West operated under the comforting delusion that the Iranian Regime was a rational actor. It was incorrectly believed that the Regime was containable, manageable and susceptible to economic bribery and could thereby be induced to act in its own rational self-interest and the best interests of the people of Iran.

That illusion was laid to rest in Islamabad on April 12, 2026, after a 21-hour marathon negotiation led by US Vice President Vance. Vital and core issues like forgoing nuclear weapons and unfettered passage through the international waterway of the Strait of Hormuz were rejected by the Iranian Regime.

Secular logic cannot be projected onto the clerical elite of the tyrannical terrorist Iranian Regime. In the Cold War, the Soviet Union and China valued state survival above all and were deterred by concepts like mutually assured destruction.

The Iranian Regime operates on a different frequency, channeling political theology like the Twelver-Shia eschatology that promotes global upheaval as a part of the promise of a Hidden Imam returning to power. Its ideology prioritizes revolutionary purity over common morality, economic prosperity, the will and safety of the Iranian people and even the physical preservation of Iran.

There are no so-called root causes for the conflict that can be identified and solved. The Regime’s program calls for ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel’, which are not vapid slogans, but religious imperatives. In this sense they are the modern purveyor of the ancient philosophy of Amalek.

As Ralbag, a medieval Biblical scholar points out, Amalek did not make war on the Jewish people to capture people or booty. It was a war of extermination (i.e., in modern terminology, a real genocide). Abarbanel, another medieval Biblical scholar, explains that there was no reason for Amalek to attack. They were not under attack or threatened by the Jewish people. It was also not a war of conquest. Indeed, the Jewish people hadn’t yet entered the Land of Israel. It was also not a fight face to face with a formal declaration of war. It was a sneak attack from behind against the weak stragglers.

Another medieval scholar, Rav Isaac Arama, echoes these points and pithily notes that Amalek’s dedicated and fanatical attack on the Jewish people was not for an ulterior motive; but rather for its own sake, to exterminate them. 12th century Maimonides, one of the foremost thinkers and Torah scholars, explains in his Guide for the Perplexed, it didn’t matter to Amalek that they were doing harm to themselves; nor did they even think about the harm they were doing.

The sordid debased philosophy of Amalek is eerily similar to that of the Iranian Regime. Even after losing its Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, senior command, and key nuclear and missile infrastructure, the Regime was still insisting on the right to nuclear weapons, barred under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty it signed and to impose up to a $2million transit fee per vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, another clear violation of international law.

For 47 years, the Iranian Regime has built the state-sponsored terrorist infrastructure that enabled 9/11, October 7th, the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing and so many other murders, kidnappings and other atrocities. Neither the US nor Israel sought this confrontation. Instead, they showed restraint, with no full-scale invasion of Iran and repeated diplomatic efforts and off-ramps. However, as was the case with Amalek and those like the Regime who channel its evil philosophy; restraint is misinterpreted as weakness.

Iran today comprises approximately 93 million people, the vast majority of whom reportedly reject the Mullahs’ ideological goals and terrorist program, as well as the ongoing war with the US and Israel. Ethnic and religious minorities comprise about 40% of the population, including Kurds, Azerbaijanis, Baluchis, Arabs, Christians and Zoroastrians, who have suffered mightily under clerical rule. They do not seek an apocalyptic war with the US and Israel, who threaten them not at all. The good people of Iran see the Mullahs as nothing more than dictatorial suicidal occupiers.

The only path to a stable Middle East and a free Iran is regime change and rooting out the evil that is the terrorist Iranian Regime. By supporting the diverse, multi-ethnic internal opposition to the Mullahs, there is hope that the scaffolding holding up the Regime will collapse.

The entirely predictable failure of the peace talks in Islamabad has unmasked the Regime’s doctrinaire intransigence. The US and Israel must redouble their military and other efforts to precipitate a Regime collapse.

Let us hope that the good people of Iran disdain the Regime’s Amalekite philosophy and yearn to be free and productive partners in regional peace and prosperity. They would be welcome members in what promises to be the next iteration of the successful Abraham Accords.

Leonard Grunstein is a retired attorney and banker, who founded and served as Chairman of Metropolitan National Bank and then Israel Discount Bank of NY. He founded Project Ezrah and serves on the Board of Bernard Revel at Yeshiva Univ. and the AIPAC National Council. He has published articles in the Banking Law Journal, Real Estate Finance Journal and more, and is the co-author of “Because It’s Just and Right: The Untold Back-Story of the U.S. Recognition of Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel and Moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.”