December 8, 1941
“President Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress today to request an official declaration of war against Japan and the Axis powers. At the end of his speech, he announced:

“Let there be no mistake. We enter this war fully determined to reach absolute victory over those who have attacked us. However, no one should mistake our goal to achieve peace as an attempt to effect regime change upon the nations of Germany, Italy and Japan. We have no intention of attempting to remove Mr. Hitler, Mr. Mussolini, or Emperor Hirohito of Japan from their positions as heads of state.”

Absurd, isn’t it? I am just wondering when “regime change” became such a dirty phrase. We began our conflict with Iran with everyone from the president down to the White House janitor emphatically denying any intention of removing the fanatical mullahs and leaders of the IRGC from leadership in that terrorist nation.

But that makes absolutely no sense, because everyone in America knows that Iran will NEVER stop trying to sow terror, destruction and discord around the world until those leaders are removed and preferably dead. Even the Democrats know this is true, and they would give their left testicle (the ones who have one, male and female) to see America suffer a humiliating defeat just so that Donald Trump would also suffer a humiliating defeat.

Wars do not end until one of these things happen:
1) the loser’s leadership realizes that defeat is inevitable, and are unwilling to pay the cost of continuing the conflict (see 2 and 3 below).
2) the loser is beaten so badly they no longer have the ability to wage war or even resist;
3) the loser ceases to exist.
[Some people may imagine that a fourth option exists: a negotiated peace that ceases hostilities without producing a winner or a loser. These wars are not “ended.” They are only put on hold until such time as one of the belligerents is ready to resume hostilities. True, sometimes other events may intervene, such as one of the belligerents ceasing to exist because of outside events, but the principle still stands.]

Everyone in the world knows that this conflict with Iran is no different, and that with the current leadership, option 1 is simply out of the question. The philosophy and religious eschatology of both the Iranian religious elite and the IRGC commits them to carry on the conflict throughout all three options.

We have (apparently) destroyed their ability to develop a nuclear weapon (for now) and that is a good thing, but they are not going to stop trying to build one, and they are not going to stop inflicting terror and pain on their neighbors and everyone else in the world, no matter what. If we want this conflict to ever come to an end and peace (or as close to it as we can ever get in that region) to return to the Middle East, that leaves Option 3.

I don’t mean that Iran ceases to exist, but the current leadership must. We should have entered this with the intention of removing the fanatics that conquered Iran in 1979 and restoring a government that does not devoutly desire to bring about an apocalyptic end of the world with the arrival of the 12th Imam. It should be an easily understood concept that you cannot negotiate in good faith with someone who seeks the end of the world. There is simply nothing to negotiate.

Generally, Donald Trump says exactly what he means, a characteristic that we usually love and sometimes deplore. In this case, we can only hope that he understands what he is not saying: that regime change is our only hope of victory in Iran, and the sooner it happens, the better.