OPINION:
On Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Islamabad, where he was expected to finalize the terms of a deal he had offered President Trump.
Less than a day later, he headed back to Tehran. Mr. Trump’s special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, had canceled the trip they were planning to the Pakistani capital.
“Too much time wasted on traveling, too much work!” Mr. Trump posted on social media. If Iran’s rulers “want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!”
Are you disappointed because you were hoping for a “diplomatic solution”? Don’t be.
The Western approach to diplomacy is to attempt to reconcile legitimate but conflicting interests. Iran’s rulers, by contrast, regard compromise as capitulation. I maintain that they have no interests we should recognize as legitimate.
For 47 years, they have vowed “Death to Israel!” and “Death to America!” — unambiguous declarations of war.
American presidents in the past have responded fecklessly. Maybe the theocrats don’t really mean it! Maybe they will liberalize over time! Maybe we can identify moderates among them!
President Obama sympathized with their “grievances,” respected their “equities,” accommodated their ambitions and sent them palettes of cash. They were not appeased.
Please don’t bring up his 2015 “Iran deal.” That paved an only slightly winding path to the front door of the nuclear weapons club.
Iran’s ruling elite became enormously wealthy and powerful by exploiting the country’s oil reserves while oppressing and immiserating the Iranian people. In January, not for the first time, millions of Iranians took to the streets to protest their misrule. Regime thugs slaughtered them by the tens of thousands.
That appears not to trouble most of the American and European commentariat. They are instead focusing on repeatedly insisting that Mr. Trump erred by not repeating the failed approaches of his predecessors.
Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations seemed to take satisfaction in his assessment that the regime had “proven far more resourceful and resilient than Trump bargained for.”
In an X post that has gone viral — more than 1.6 million views last I looked — my colleague Mark Dubowitz rebuts that assertion. He lists 13 significant strategic defeats the regime has already suffered.
Three examples: Tehran’s nuclear weapons program has been set back by years, its ballistic missile program has been seriously degraded, and its terrorist network shattered. I suggest you look up the rest.
Enormous challenges remain, as Mark acknowledges. Not least: Although Tehran’s navy is mostly underwater, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps still has hundreds of small, fast-attack boats. Mr. Trump said last week that those laying mines should be targeted.
If he were to ban them all from the Strait of Hormuz, then he would merely be enforcing freedom of navigation, a fundamental international law.
Those who use boats to harass or attempt to seize commercial vessels should be designated as pirates, and Americans long ago learned how to deal with pirates. May I remind you?
In 1786, while serving as U.S. minister to France, Thomas Jefferson joined John Adams in London to question an envoy from Tripoli, one of the North African Barbary states, about that government’s habit of seizing American and European ships and cargo and enslaving sailors. The envoy said he was doing his religious duty, enforcing Islamic law as he understood it.
From then on, Jefferson opposed paying ransom or tribute to the Barbary Pirates. What’s more, he deemed negotiations futile. As president in 1801, he took a kinetic approach: the First Barbary War (1801-1805), which established the U.S. as an international naval power.
If Mr. Trump were to adopt a Jeffersonian approach to Tehran, then there could still be talks. Yet White House envoys should be instructed not to think in terms of horse-trading. Instead, they should politely but firmly demand that the regime terminate its nuclear weapons programs, sharply curtail its missile and proxy warfare capabilities and take its jackboot off the neck of the Iranian people.
Iran’s rulers will almost certainly refuse. Whatever their internal disagreements, and I don’t doubt there are some, they all call themselves “Islamic revolutionaries.” Their revolution, we should understand, is against America as the “Great Satan” and Israel as the “Little Satan.”
If Iran’s rulers do prove intransigent, then what is now being called Operation Economic Fury should continue to strangle their economy, and Operation Epic Fury should resume against both military and domestic repression targets.
If Iran’s rulers are praying for martyrdom, then that may be a matter on which we can find agreement.
The collapse of the regime would provide the Iranian people with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to replace corrupt and brutal rulers committed to jihad with patriotic leaders committed to making Iran great again.
The Lebanese, Yemenis and Iraqis would also have a chance to liberate themselves from Tehran’s imperialism and colonialism.
Opponents of this conflict like to say it’s a “war of choice.” Consider the alternative: A few years from now, the regime would have entered what strategists call a “zone of immunity” — too rich and militarily powerful to challenge, nuclear-armed and embedded in an anti-American axis with Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang.
You don’t have to be Carl von Clausewitz to see that the hard but preferable choice was to act before that window closed.
Mr. Trump could end this war with a Jeffersonian legacy. Call me crazy, but I think history would regard that as a greater achievement than bringing the price of a gallon of gasoline under $3.
• Clifford D. May is the founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a columnist for The Washington Times and host of the “Foreign Podicy” podcast.
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