Dr. Morris Mottale

For over 40 years, the United States and Iran have been at odds ever since an Islamic Shia revolution led by an octogenarian, charismatic Shia leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini overthrew the Persian monarchy along with the constitutional order. Along with communist China and Putin’s Russia, Iran has become the nemesis of Washington. Today Tehran and the Biden administration are engaged in negotiations to solve the outstanding issue of Iran’s nuclear policies which originally had seen the Obama administration propose as part of an agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). President Trump, denounced the agreement that Obama and his Secretary of State John Kerry negotiated in 2015. Trump’s reservations about the agreements reflected the skepticism of many countries, especially Israel and Arab conservative Sunni states whose leaders suspected that Iran was not going to abide by an agreement that in theory limited the military ambitions of the Mullahs. The Israeli opposition to the treaty was centered to the fact that the Ayatollahs were openly dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state. For years, then and now, Iran has been involved in conflicts ranging from North Africa to the Persian Gulf as they have supported Shia minorities in seizing power in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. The recent attempted assassination of the Anglo-Indian author Salman Rushdie reminds critics of Iran and the JCPOA that the Mullah’s intentions and ideologies are still anti-American and anti-Israeli as originally Khomeini articulated. His ideology is still part of Tehran’s world view. Iran’s support for Putin’s policies and its continuous subversive activities in the Sunni world raises strong suspicions about Iran’s commitment to an international institutional order committed to the rule of law that the United States proposes. In Tehran, the attempted assassination saw the official Shia press rejoicing when reporting and commenting on the event. Rushdie had been condemned to death by Khomeini for his book The Satanic Verses as it was deemed to be heretical and offensive to Islam and Islamic believers. Khomeini’s fatwa or Islamic theological declaration calling for Rushdie’s death still stands and will stand as long as he lives. Ideology does matter.