Is that a trick question? Melanie Phillips is not optimistic:
It looks as if the strategy for Iran’s eventual victory over the west is now reaching its end game….
Ever since it declared war upon the west in 1978, the Iranian regime has played the west for the suckers they are.
First, even though Iran repeatedly attacked it through terrorist atrocities against civilians or on the battlefield in Iraq, this supine western world turned the other cheek. …
Next, Iran was handed the supreme gift of President Obama who, by his vapid approach to a regime intent upon manufacturing a nuclear arsenal with which to achieve its murderous and genocidal ends, gave it the vital time it needed to spin its centrifuges as well as advance towards strategic domination of the Middle East.
Next, it finally got rid of its crude demagogue President Ahmadinejad, who had embarrassed the regime by revealing all too clearly its deep hatred towards the Jews and its psychopathic goal of wiping out Israel, and replaced him by the serpentine President Rohani, whose self-declared skill at playing the west for suckers was immediately demonstrated when western politicians purred with pleasure at his “moderation”.
And then another great gift fell into the lap of the Iranian regime when President Obama, through his Syria debacle, effectively outsourced the role of policing the free world to its enemy – and Iran’s protector and arms supplier – President Putin, who instantly became the pivotal player in the Middle East. …
Sure enough, if this account in Spiegel is accurate, President Rohani is preparing to reel in the west on the end of his line in much the same way that he did when he was Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator between 2003 and 2005.
That was when Rohani duped the US into believing Iran had halted its nuclear weapons programme, enabling it to resume as soon as the immediate diplomatic threat had passed. He has repeatedly boasted that his greatest achievement was advancing that nuclear programme while averting both force and sanctions. And when he was elected President, he declared that his aim was once again to protect the nuclear programme while gradually removing sanctions.
So now it’s groundhog day all over again.
It’s always Groundhog Day in the Middle East, only the show isn’t a romantic comedy. For now, the sad reality is that Iran’s leaders are much smarter than ours.
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