Trump can’t out-negotiate fanatics who ordered his assassination

President Donald Trump, when you entered the political arena, and General Michael Flynn wrote the book The Field of Fight (which I translated into Persian with his knowledge and permission and made available to Iranian readers so that they could become familiar with Islamic terrorism), the Iranian people believed that you would truly distinguish between the brutal, despotic, and bloodthirsty regime of Islamic villains in Tehran, on the one hand, and the Iranian nation, on the other.The Iranian people believed that you had a serious and genuine determination to overthrow the regime of tyranny, ignorance, and terrorism. The author of this article, who has himself suffered from your policies (four years and four months of my life were wasted in your dungeons without any crime or wrongdoing. And even on Jan. 28, 2018, at Baku Airport, your administration attempted to hand me — the author of a book — over to the Tehran regime! And this was the author of a book on Islamic terrorism, who has only one life and risked it twice to assist the American intelligence and security community in counterterrorism, hoping that it might lead to the collapse of the Tehran regime! This was the conduct of American values toward a writer who loves America and was educated in America.) Nevertheless, I have always defended a serious policy and the demonstration of genuine determination to bring about change in the Tehran regime.I still believe that you may — perhaps — be remembered in history alongside leaders who worked and struggled for the collapse of Nazism, communism, apartheid, Stalinism, and so on. However, during your first term, your two positive actions — which also became reality through the efforts, knowledge, and experience of the then-CIA Director, Gina Haspel — were the elimination of the great terrorist of the Middle East, Qassem Soleimani, and the designation of the sinister institution of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. You always pursued a policy of double standards: On the one hand, you spoke of negotiations and reaching an agreement, while on the other, you posted tweets supporting movements inside Iran. But I wrote to you that their religion and thinking are based on taqiyya (lies, deception, and trickery), that they are vindictive and resentful, that they are deceitful in negotiations, that their promises change within two seconds, and that theirs is a mafia regime in the hands of villains and thugs. You did not listen.During your first term, you freed yourself from the yoke of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed by President Barack Obama. He was the same man who, in the midst of the Iranian people’s national movement against the repressive, tyrannical, occupying, destructive, and plundering regime, wrote a letter to the dictator in Tehran, while people in the streets shouted: “Obama! Either with us, or with them!” The Iranian nation turned its back on him, and he has not the slightest credibility or respect among the Iranian people, who remember him even more negatively than Jimmy Carter. Later, the third Carter, President Joe Biden, followed the same path and gave the dictatorial regime another breathing opportunity for its survival.Unfortunately, however, your entire mental picture became occupied with something that was a worthless speck in the larger picture of relations and conflicts between America and Iran. That was the dream and mirage of having a better agreement than Obama’s, perhaps so that you could present yourself as a man of peace, become a candidate for the peace prize, and not be called a warmonger. But let history judge for itself. During your second term, when you ridiculed Iran’s foolish, murderous, arrogant, and delusional dictator, the Iranian people rejoiced. A psychopathic Shiite mullah wanted to destroy America and even issued an order for your assassination and sent an assassination team into American territory. And even now, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, with their heads full of arrogance and claiming to know everything, do not know where the Shiite mullah’s sleeper cells are in America. And this is an undeniable reality.Once again, the Iranian nation rose to sing the song of freedom: “Liberty or Death,” and to free itself “from under the yoke of tyranny.” You expressed support and said that help was on the way. In cooperation with Israel, you brought the dictator of Tehran (the subject of the very book I wrote in your dungeon, Tehran’s dictator) to a humiliating death. Thereafter, the believers in Islamic terrorism — of the Shiite terrorist variety — vindictively decided, of course in coordination with certain sections of the political corridors inside Washington, to grant you no concessions, and they will grant you none. They seek your character assassination and your physical assassination, and no one shakes hands with a terrorist or signs an agreement with one, because doing so grants him legitimacy.Your Vice President — JD Vance — has not even read a single book or article. Indeed, he has not even heard or seen radio and media reports about the Islamic Republic’s terrorism. Perhaps he is pursuing the presidency and the Nobel Peace Prize. But for the historical record, I can tell you and him that the Shiite mullah will grant you no concessions. When they issue an order to assassinate someone and call it a fatwa, it has not the slightest value from a rational, philosophical, or semantic standpoint, yet it is sufficient to brainwash an Islamic terrorist and serves as a document to justify a crime, so that he commits that crime without the slightest shame. In America, during the Cold War, you used to say: “A good communist is a dead communist.” Let me tell you bluntly and explicitly: “A good mullah is a dead mullah.”The Iranian nation’s hope was that perhaps the West would awaken from its slumber of negligence, but it did not, it will not, and it continues to pretend to be asleep. When the movement began, people symbolically named a street after you. At gatherings of Iranians around the world, posters thanking you appeared in the streets. Across all social media, they said: “Finish the job!”But you did not listen, nor do you want to listen, and whether we like it or not, alongside the countries that support Islamic terrorism — Pakistan, Qatar, and Turkey — you are still pursuing the survival of the regime in Tehran. You did not even allow Israel to defend its survival and existence freely and without restrictions. And now, do you expect to reach an agreement with murderous villains and thugs such as Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, Ahmad-Reza Radan, Mohsen Rezaei, Ahmad Vahidi, and others? I say you must be joking, but as the Americans say: Good luck!You now have only two years left as a guest in the White House, but leave behind an enduring name for yourself in history. America’s national interests, peace and stability in the Middle East, and the salvation of 90 million people trapped and held captive in Iran are waiting for you. History, too, will eventually hear the voice of an oppressed and suffering nation that has endured the scourge of the Shiite mullah. Whether you stand on the right side of history or the wrong side, the Iranian people, stumbling and rising again, will continue along this rocky road toward democracy. Once again, I sincerely hope that you will abandon this mirage and false hope and demonstrate your genuine determination. This regime will remain opposed to America and will continue to be its enemy even after you.This rogue Islamic regime can be destroyed only through “the erosion of its capacity for repression, the collapse of its political legitimacy, and the breakdown of cohesion within its command structure,” and sporadic warfare alone will not bring it into a crisis of survival. You entered this war to negotiate, not to achieve victory and win the war. The regime’s military capabilities may have been weakened, but its machinery of repression, its propaganda machinery, and its machinery of terrorism are still operating.WHY IRAN’S ‘OPPOSITION’ CULTS FEAR REZA PAHLAVI MORE THAN THE MULLAHSYou did not even take action to expel the diplomats and close the regime’s offices in New York and Washington. You did not even shut down the regime’s echo-chamber nests on American soil — such as the Persian service of Voice of America, Channel One in Los Angeles, and others. Nor did you shut down the regime’s notorious lobbying organizations inside America — such as NIAC, Quincy, and others — which fell within the legal authority of your administration in order to restrict possible networks of influence. Thus, external pressure has not been aligned with domestic action.In these so-called negotiations, you ignored the demands and needs of the Iranian nation and did not listen to them. You did not even pay attention to the political alternative, the decisive figure in the transition process, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. Instead, you placed, and continue to place, your hopes in villains and terrorists such as Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Rezaei, and you mistakenly believe that Mojtaba Khamenei — the cardboard mouse — is alive. You also mistakenly thought that Iran was similar to Venezuela. And you continue to place your hopes in negotiation channels under the false name of “crisis management,” deceiving yourself. No credible prospect for a transfer of power can emerge from this yo-yo-like policy.Erfan Fard is a counterterrorism analyst and Middle East studies researcher based in Washington, with a particular focus on Iran, Islamic terrorism, and ethnic conflicts in the region.