Its lethality has only grown. That’s why the Trump administration can’t miss in its efforts to quash the regime’s nuclear ambitions.
Vice President JD Vance cited “encouraging progress” in the initial stages of talks in a 60-day window set forth by the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) agreed upon by the two countries.
The highlight, Vance said, was Iran’s agreement to welcome inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) back into the country.
Vance called it a “major milestone.”
Much work remains to deliver on Donald Trump’s pledge that Iran will not obtain a nuclear weapon.
The president faces a more savvy and structured foe than his White House predecessor, Jimmy Carter, faced when the hostage crisis stretched from November of 1979 until Ronald Reagan’s inauguration day on Jan. 20, 1981.
“They have become much more lethal. I think we can say they’re more dangerous than they were before. They clearly are not going to change,” Retired U.S. Army Gen. Jerry Boykin said on “Washington Watch” Monday.
The ongoing talks can only be successful if they end with the U.S. having obtained a “verifiable program” to ensure that Iran doesn’t continue to maintain or develop nuclear weapons,” he told show host Tony Perkins.
Boykin was a Delta Force captain and responsible for logistics planning for Operation Eagle Claw, the hostage rescue mission aborted due to mechanical failure and a fatal collision during withdrawal after landing inside Iran.
Boykin, who led prayer before the ill-fated operation, knows the country and its leadership well.
“It is so important that we that we come out of this with something that will neutralize them to make sure that they are never going to be a threat to this country, at least not in our lifetimes,” he said.
Killing its own people
If Iran balks, the current mission can only succeed with military personnel because an unarmed Iranian citizenry, one that watched its countrymen die in protests earlier this year, is not equipped to overthrow the government, Boykin said.
The regime killed tens of thousands of political protesters earlier this year, according to reports.
Sunday The Wall Street Journal reported that Iran has stepped up the hangings of dissidents even while engaged in peace talks.
The message from Iranian leaders to its population is simple. “The regime is firmly in charge, and dissent won’t be tolerated,” it reported.
“They don’t have Second Amendment rights to carry weapons over there,” Boykin said.
Boykin said Trump received bad advice before strikes against Iran began.
“This whole idea that the people there were going to take over the government once we started bombing them was just folly. I mean, that's it. When we went into Iraq and Afghanistan, we went in ahead of time with the CIA and with special forces, and we trained up an army,” he said.
Trump has publicly stated an attempt was made by the administration to get guns into Iran, and into the hands of its unarmed citizens, but he has accused the Kurds of keeping the firearms instead of acting as the intermediary.
Advisors were telling Trump what he wanted to hear about an uprising in Iran, Boykin said.
“If you don't have weapons, you're not going to have that army, and I think that whoever convinced the president that it was going to be what he expected … I think that was a huge mistake in terms of what he got from his advisors.”
Trump from the beginning has stressed that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
He has not publicly stressed regime change but has welcomed conditions created by U.S. and Israeli attacks that might produce that outcome.
The citizenry without a major investment of training and resources isn’t capable of facilitating regime change, and meaningful change won’t come without force, Boykin says.
“Those people are not going to change. The leaders over there are not going to change.”
The regime’s taqiyyah strategy
Nor can they be trusted, he said.
“Talking about negotiating, they believe in taqiyyah, and taqiyyah means to lie to your adversary,” Boykin said.
The word taqiyyah has Arabic origins.
In theological context, the Islamic definition means “the practice of concealing one’s belief and foregoing ordinary religious duties when under threat of death or injury.”
“That’s exactly what they’ve been doing,” Boykin said.
