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| Iran's founding Ayatollah Khomeini |
Perhaps peaceful relations with a religious regime would
have been possible. Would that not have been better than the open hostility
that has now lasted 47 years? Hostility expressed in endless demonstrations of
Iranians chanting “Death to America.”
Should the United States have taken that route?
Maybe. Except for one small detail: the State of Israel
would have had to be sacrificed.
Iran’s religious ideology does not allow for a Jewish state
in the region. Allowing Israel to exist violates a core belief of the regime.
Had the United States abandoned Israel ‘for the sake of peace,’ Israel might
never have developed the military capability it has today. Even with its
ingenuity and military prowess, without American military support Israel might
have had little ability to defend itself against an Iran determined to
eradicate it.
In that scenario, Iran might well have achieved its primary
goal: ‘Death to Israel.’ ‘Death to America’ has always been secondary, largely
a response to American support for Israel.
As long as Israel exists with U.S. backing, Iran will remain
a mortal enemy of both countries. And because Iran’s goals are rooted in
religious ideology, they will be compromised. Pursuing them - even dying for
them - is seen as a religious imperative rewarded in the next world.
Yet this is the regime much of the world has been willing to
live with. While paying lip service to Israel’s right to exist, many nations
appear largely indifferent to whether it actually survives.
If, God forbid, Iran had succeeded in destroying Israel, the
world would have expressed regret, said Kaddish, and moved on. After all,
Israel is already compared by some in Europe to the genocidal Nazi Germany. In
that worldview, its disappearance would hardly be mourned.
No more conflict. It would be an all-Muslim region. Palestinians
would then live in a new Palestine, and everything would supposedly be right
with the world.
That mindset helps explain the opposition to the U.S. and
Israeli war against Iran. Critics constantly point to Obama’s JCPOA nuclear deal, which allowed Iran to keep
building its ballistic missile arsenal while funding terrorist militias
surrounding Israel. With money released to them by the United States. In
return, Iran merely paused nuclear enrichment for ten years, a pause that would
already be nearing expiration.
The deal only made sense if one believed Iran could somehow
be moderated during that time. But that was never realistic unless the United
States was willing to abandon Israel altogether.
