Iranians aren’t exactly in a position to be making demands, but there is one that we should happily oblige: Stop pretending that we share any common interests or goals.
Everyone needs to read this, as reported by the New York Times on Wednesday, the day after Iran targeted military bases harboring U.S. soldiers in Iraq:
“What matters is that the presence of America, which is a source of corruption in this region, should come to an end,” he said to a hall filled with imams and others.
“Death to America!,” the crowd chanted. “Death to Israel!”
Ayatollah Khamenei said that “sitting at the negotiating table” with American envoys would open the door to greater American intervention in the region and that such negotiations therefore must “come to an end.”
No part of that sounds like a country that wants to reach an agreement with us, let alone like we have anything in common.
Yet President Trump said in his remarks at the White House on Wednesday that he wanted our Western allies to work together in an effort to reach some “deal” with Iran.
A stern editorial by the Washington Post later that day said that while military hostilities between the U.S. and Iran appeared to have stalled, the administration should “begin serious negotiations with the Islamic republic.”
Serious negotiations for what? We don’t share any interests or goals. This would be like asking a lion and a zebra to simply “work it out.” The zebra wants to be left alone with its other zebra friends. The lion wants to eat the zebra. There’s no bridging that gap.
Here’s what the U.S. has wanted for Iran and every other broken country in the Middle East for the last 40 years: democracy, human rights, a robust economy, the rejection of terrorism, and a disinterest in the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Here’s what Iran and every other broken country in the Middle East have continued to want: theocracy, servitude of the masses, the rejection of Western civilization, and perpetual war with Israel.
As with the lion and the zebra, there’s no bridging that gap either.
Iran doesn’t want to negotiate with the U.S., so let’s stop trying to force it.
