All the Elements of the Iranian Defeat… Assembled!
Were things normal between America and Israel on one side, and Iran's "Islamic Republic" on the other, there would have been no need for all this time and all these frictions to reach an agreement between the three parties — which are, in reality, only two. In the end, America and Israel cannot be separated when it comes to the essential questions: the chain of demands made of Iran, whether regarding its nuclear file, its ballistic missiles and launch platforms, or the proxy arms controlled by the Revolutionary Guard beyond Iranian soil.
Were things normal, Iran would have acted as Germany and Japan did at the end of the Second World War, when they surrendered to the Americans and their European allies. That is how Germany saved itself — and Japan likewise. Japan required a second atomic bomb, dropped on Nagasaki after the first on Hiroshima, to grasp the meaning of America's resolve to inflict a crushing defeat upon it. Military defeat freed both countries from despotic regimes that had made each of them a threat to their surroundings, and indeed to the entire world. It enabled Germany to catch its breath and reclaim its standing in Europe and the world, while Japan's economy became one of the most significant on earth — once Japan was convinced that military confrontation with the United States served no purpose.
The "Islamic Republic" still refuses to acknowledge its defeat. Such an acknowledgment would allow it to recover its role in the region and the world, and would allow the Iranian peoples to belong once again to a culture of life — a culture they were compelled to abandon the moment Ayatollah Khomeini triumphed over the Shah's regime, with its merits and its failings, in 1979.
The "Islamic Republic" still believes it holds its cards in the region and that it can negotiate as an equal with the American "Great Satan," and thereby reach understandings with Israel — of the sort that paved the way for the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in the year 2000, or the "rules of engagement" that remained in force until the day Hezbollah decided to launch its "war of support for Gaza."
Beyond this, Iran still views Iraq as an Iranian card. It likewise sees a card in Hezbollah in Lebanon, or in Ansar Allah (the Houthis) in Yemen. The Iranian delegation that negotiated with the Americans in Geneva — through Omani mediation, and sometimes directly — does not realize that it speaks a language long eroded by time, in light of the events and upheavals the region has witnessed since the "Al-Aqsa Flood" attack on 7 October 2023.
To this day, the Iranian leadership — with "Supreme Leader" Ali Khamenei at its head — continues to live in the past, in the era before the "Al-Aqsa Flood." It believes that give-and-take is still possible on the question of Iran's nuclear program, while what is demanded is the complete elimination of everything connected to Tehran's nuclear program. There is no room for any procrastination if one is to reach an understanding that averts a new war against the "Islamic Republic." What applies to the nuclear program applies equally to ballistic missiles and their launch platforms, and likewise to the Iranian proxy arms in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen.
More than that, Iran attempted to entice Donald Trump by offering to open the Iranian market to American oil and gas companies. Tehran appears incapable of grasping the concept of a country that is safe for investment. What American company would send its employees to a country capable of turning American nationals into hostages overnight?
What is needed is an Iranian upheaval at every level in order to reach an understanding with America. Until further notice, the regime in Tehran is incapable of such a transformation — incapable because there is no one in Tehran, save for a silent minority, who is able to comprehend the meaning and dimensions of what has occurred in the region since the "Al-Aqsa Flood." No one understands what it means that an American decision to twist the Iranian arm has existed since Trump tore up the agreement on the Iranian nuclear file reached with the Barack Obama administration in the summer of 2015. During his first term in the White House, the American president shredded that agreement in 2018, then ordered the assassination of Qassem Soleimani — who may be described as the most important Iranian figure after the "Supreme Leader."
Trump did not go to Caracas to arrest Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro in order to discipline a head of state who had defied his orders or cultivated close ties with Cuba. The arrest of Maduro and his wife and their transfer to New York can only be understood as part of an operation to clip the wings of the "Islamic Republic" across various parts of the world.
A military American-Iranian confrontation — in which Israel will in all likelihood participate — is difficult to avoid, given the existence of two minds and two approaches that cannot be reconciled. The Iranian mind and approach rest on the notion that nothing has changed in the region, and that it is enough to dangle the prospect of investments in Iran before Trump to create a rift between the United States and Israel. The Iranian method of negotiation betrays a naive mindset that refuses to acknowledge defeat. And nothing expresses this defeat more eloquently than Iran's departure from Syria. Where was Syria, and where has it ended up after Bashar al-Assad's flight to Moscow?
All the elements of the Iranian defeat are now assembled. The true act of courage lies in acknowledging that defeat. After that, one might speak of negotiations between two sides each holding its own cards — if, that is, there are any Iranian cards left to hold. When speaking of leverage, it is essential to point to the internal situation in Iran. For before the system of the wilayat al-faqih failed abroad, it first failed within Iran itself. Therein lies its fundamental weakness, above all else.