The Mullahs Will Never Abandon Their Goal

estern statesmen and analysts consistently make the mistake of viewing Iran from a rationalist-materialist perspective — i.e., one that assumes that all people are motivated primarily by the desire to gain a larger piece of the material pie. Accordingly, they place little emphasis on the power of theological motivations. Yet the rationalist-materialist perspective cannot, for instance, account for suicide bombers, either individual or national.

The assumption that the Iranian mullahs are subject to the same cost-benefit analysis as everyone else underlay the Obama administration’s Iran nuclear deal. It would be the height of reason, Obama thought, to recognize Iran as the regional hegemon and show great sensitivity to their “equities,” including a full-blown nuclear program. In that way, our ultrasophisticated president sought to turn Iran from foe to friend and into a status quo power.

Similarly, today, the failure to appreciate the theological fanaticism of the Iranian regime renders it difficult to understand the events unfolding in Iran at present, both in terms of how we arrived at the present moment and why the regime is ideologically incapable of extricating itself from its current state.

At the time of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Western experts busied themselves assuring Americans that they had nothing to fear from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. University of Texas professor James Brill assured President Jimmy Carter, whom he served as an advisor, that Khomeini was a man of “impeccable integrity and honesty.”