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OPINION:
Dear President Trump,
I am sure you were disappointed to learn Monday that Iran’s rulers have decided they are not interested in negotiating an extension of the ceasefire you granted on April 8.
That ceasefire was in exchange for their promise to allow commercial vessels to transit the Strait of Hormuz freely, a promise they broke almost immediately.
The reason Iran’s rulers gave: Israel is striking Hezbollah in Lebanon in response to hundreds of Hezbollah missile and drone attacks on communities in northern Israel. You attempted to broker another ceasefire, but hours later, Hezbollah launched another massive barrage.
On Monday, Iran’s rulers also threatened to instruct the Houthi rebels in Yemen to resume their attacks on ships transiting the Bab el-Mandeb, another strategic Middle Eastern strait.
Iran’s rulers are betting that you, like President Obama, will respect their “equities” and attempt to appease them. They are also betting that you are desperate for “an exit ramp” — a euphemism for a face-saving defeat.
May I suggest that you make clear to them that those are losing bets?
Perhaps you are wondering why I think I know anything about Iran’s rulers. For what it is worth, I have been an Iran-watcher for a rather long time.
In 1979, I was a young reporter sent to Iran to cover what almost everyone believed was an Iranian revolution. It turned out to be the Islamic Revolution instead. Huge difference!
You were then a 33-year-old rising real estate magnate, but you knew in your gut that religious fanatics must not have nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them to American cities.
The occupants of the White House who preceded you all talked tough. “You shall not have the means, the knowledge, to develop nuclear weapons,” President George W. Bush warned in 2005.
“Iran will never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon,” President Obama declared in 2015.
“We will not, let me say again, we will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon,” President Biden affirmed in 2022.
None of them took action to back up this national security imperative. I do not need to tell you that Mr. Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal provided the regime with a patient pathway to the front door of the nuclear weapons club, along with hundreds of billions of dollars to spend on missiles and terrorist militias in Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, Yemen, Iraq and Syria.
In June of last year, Israel all but eliminated the regime’s air defenses, and you ordered Operation Midnight Hammer, which seriously damaged Tehran’s uranium enrichment facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.
After that 12-day war, you figured that Iran’s rulers would not want to get hit again, especially given that they were facing currency collapse, food and electricity shortages, rising unemployment and poverty, and even a drinking water crisis.
Yet they immediately began rearming and digging the world’s deepest, clandestine uranium enrichment facility under Pickaxe Mountain, south of Natanz.
In January, when Iranians went into the streets to peacefully protest, the regime slaughtered them by the tens of thousands. You were rightly outraged.
On Feb. 28, the Israelis eliminated the top tier of Tehran’s ruling elite. Over the 38 days that followed, U.S. forces reduced Iranian missile and drone factories to rubble.
However, on March 4, Iran’s current rulers played their trump card (no pun intended): They announced that the Strait of Hormuz was closed, and they used drones and fast-attack boats to enforce that edict.
Insurers in London stopped writing policies, and ship captains threw out anchors.
With all this in mind, may I suggest that it would be useful for you to explain yet again to Americans why it would be a dangerous mistake to give the regime more time and money to hold the international economy hostage, rearm, work on nuclear weapons, revivify terrorist networks and slaughter more Iranians?
You might also remind people that the regime’s nuclear program has been significantly set back. According to David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security and Andrea Stricker of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, before the 12-day war, Tehran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear weapon in about a week. It could build a deliverable weapon in less than six months.
Now, that timeline has stretched to at least two to three years, they assess.
People forget that inaction is not cost-free. One example: Osama bin Laden declared war on the United States in 1996. Two years later, al Qaeda bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa. President Clinton responded by lobbing some missiles at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, to no effect. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, followed.
A nuclear 9/11 might not result in “Death to America!” — the vow Iran’s rulers have been repeating for almost half a century. Still, after such an attack, the United States would never be great again.
One additional message I think it would be useful for you to emphasize: Iran’s rulers are waging what they call a “jihad,” a holy war that began more than 1,000 years ago and is to continue until victory.
“We shall export our revolution to the whole world,” declared Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He added: “Until the cry ‘There is no god but Allah’ resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle.”
This is why the only real solution is an Iran not ruled by “Islamic revolutionaries” who see “forever war” as a divine obligation. This regime must collapse — or at least be crippled.
Mr. President, you know that this conflict is about much more than a few months of “pain at the pump.” I am just suggesting it would be useful for you to make sure the American people also see the big picture.
• Clifford D. May is 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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