Negotiating with the Iranian scorpions

Will the 'Art of the Deal' change their nature?

Erudite observers, including faithful readers of this Substack, will recall the fable of the scorpion and the frog. See my article from February 2024, True to Its Nature, CNN Continues to Lie About the Border.

For those in need of a refresher, the story goes like this: A scorpion and a frog met on the bank of a river. The scorpion wanted to get to the other side, but could not swim. So the scorpion asked the frog to carry him on his back across the river.

Knowing how scorpions normally behave, the frog said, “I can’t do that. If I let you on my back, you will sting me, and I will die.”

So, the scorpion tried to make a deal. He negotiated with the frog. He promised that if he could just ride on the frog’s back while they crossed the river, he would not do what scorpions do by stinging him. He assured the frog, “No, think about it, Frog. If I sting you while we are in the river you will die and sink under the water. And since I cannot swim, I would drown. So, you see, it is in my best interest not to sting you, and you can safely ferry me across the river.”

The frog decided that the scorpion’s own self-interest made it safe for him to do the deal and allow the scorpion to ride on his back across the river.

The scorpion promptly crawled up on the frog’s back, and together they began the trip across the river. In midstream, as the frog was fighting a strong current, the scorpion raised his tail and plunged his stinger deep into the frog’s body. The frog cried out in pain and terror, “Why did you do that? Now we will both die!”

The scorpion replied, “I can’t help it. It’s in my nature.”

And so it is with the governing Iranians. The holy war of jihad is in their nature. “Death to America!” is not just a meaningless slogan to keep the masses happy. It is their strategy and purpose. They are determined to conduct jihad against the United States, Israel, and Western Civilizaion to achieve their religious dream of a worldwide caliphate. Their nature is to act to accomplish this by whatever means they can.

All indications are that President Trump thinks he can change their nature. He seeks to purge the hatred and devotion to jihad from their nature. He tries to play the negotiator’s “good cop, bad cop” routine by first threatening to destroy them and then offering them the carrot of prosperity and wealth via economic development.

But it is ironic that while Trump is simultaneously playing the dual roles of both the good cop and the bad cop, he apparently is oblivious that the same tactics are being employed against him by the “good cop” negotiators (who he says are “rational, smart and strong”) and the “bad cop” IRGC (“Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards or you’ll be living in Hell.”)

So now Trump has announced yet another suspension of his oft-repeated threats to “blow up the whole country,” “bomb Iran back to the stone age,” and to inflict “levels of Military Terror, Strength, and Power not seen since World War II.” Will it work?

The President does this because he sees hope in the future negotiations. He wants a “DEAL” (his capitalization for emphasis). The Iranians see that Trump wants a “DEAL“ and that he wants it now. His impatience and willingness to negotiate a “deal” sends a powerful message to the Iranians that he is willing to settle for something less than total victory, despite his bellicose threats. As I cautioned in Enough Already! Please Stop With the Talk About a “Deal,” Mr. President, “The Art of the Deal” is not a military strategy. The Democrats, of course, have provided aid and comfort to the Iranians with their constant attacks and resolutions for ending the conflict while proclaiming that Iran is winning, and the U.S. is losing.

I have lost count of the number of times that Trump has announced a cease-fire because the “good cop” Iranians supposedly were “desperate” to negotiate. Inevitably, however, these optimistic announcements are followed almost immediately by further Iranian attacks and escalation, which, of course, are the work of the “bad cop” IRGC. And now it is happening again. Trump is, I respectfully submit, being played.

The current decision makers in Iran are not going to make “deal,” at least not one that is meaningful and that will last. Even if they suffer a military defeat, it will not change their nature or their goal of expanding the caliphate. The Islamists have been at this for well over a thousand years. Their attempted expansion from Spain into northern Europe was turned back when Charles “The Hammer” Martel defeated them in the year 732 at the battle of Tours in modern day France between Tours and Poitiers. And Islamists had been at war with the western world for at least a hundred years before that. But that defeat obviously did not defeat their desire to expand the caliphate, which still drives them today. Abandoning their religious and imperialistic goals is not in their nature. They are not going to change their nature by abandoning their fundamental religious beliefs and objectives.

Trump is akin to the frog in the fable. Perhaps he can do a “deal” with the current Iranian government. But, like the frog, he will discover that his adversaries have not changed their nature, and either he or the Country after him will get stung.

I will leave you for now with General of the Armies Douglas MacArthur’s simple but powerful “Message from the Far East,” which he sent to the West Point Corps of Cadets in 1949:

“From the Far East I send you one single thought, one sole idea - written in red on every beachhead from Australia to Tokyo - There is no substitute for victory.”

The Iranian cancer will be excised by victory, not by a “deal.” But, like Charles Martel’s crushing victory at Tours almost thirteen hundred years ago, a military defeat, even of the magnitude threatened by Trump will not change their nature. History tells us that any victory will be temporary, at best. So, a more complete discussion of the parameters of such a victory and its likely duration will have to wait for another day.