OPINION:
President Trump’s professional experience has been as a successful real estate deal maker. But, like the guy whose only tool is a hammer and to him everything looks like a nail, to Mr. Trump all issues must be resolved with the art of the deal.
Sadly, the art of dealing in real estate is meaningless in the art of war. In war, it is only military force, the will to persevere and the unambiguous surrender of an enemy that can end in an unequivocal victory. Negotiation is weakness, a concession to the will of an enemy and the beginning of the road to surrender.
Mr. Trump has evidently learned nothing from the lessons of Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Iran is an Islamic republic, faithful only to its religion and its holy grail: the unification of the Muslim world under a caliphate and the destruction of Israel and the United States.
The modern world and its geopolitical arrangements are anathema to the mullahs. Their pledges to others have historically and predictably not been worth the paper they’ve been written on.
No matter what they promise in a negotiation, their goal will always be their first order principles.
If President Trump agrees to accept on faith the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ sincerity to comply with a deal without fulfilling his promise of freedom to the Iranian people, the deal will go down in history — not as a victory, but as a second Munich Agreement.
It will only be a temporary suspension of Islamic terror, making the deal a victory for the IRGC.
NORTON RUBENSTEIN
Richmond, Virginia
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