When It Comes to Iran, Say “No” to Appeasement

“Without an enemy to demonize, the Islamic Republic would have to answer for its many and grave failures.”

Ever since the Islamic Republic of Iran elevated a tyrant over its people, its leadership has turned to blackmail and violence to project power. This has often taken the form of hostage diplomacy. Readers will recall how Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s revolutionaries besieged the United States embassy in Tehran in 1979, holding American civil servants and diplomats at gunpoint so that the budding Islamic Republic could assert dominance over a global superpower. Little has changed today, and the West’s inability to address Iran’s villainous tendencies has allowed for its ideologues to stand strong in the belief that our respect for the rule of law (and desire to operate within its scope) is a weakness to be exploited.

A promoter of terror and fomenter of chaos, Iran has towered as a grand executioner. Real pushback has been limited, and the West has largely failed to curb the regime’s hegemonic ambitions. Driven by an unquenchable thirst for conquest, the Islamic Republic is not a regime we can appease. Our gravest mistake, or rather that of our diplomatic representatives, has been to imagine that terror can be tamed and authoritarianism democratized.

Iran today, just as it did in decades past, stands for institutionalized theofascism. No treaty or accord will dampen Iran’s ideological determination. And why would it when criminality has served its interests far better than normalization with Western capitals? Many will argue, of course, that Iran’s pitiful economic health stands testimony to the fact that sanctions have been effective, that pushing Tehran to the very fringe of the international community has suffocated its regime. I beg to differ.