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Peace Process, Meet Reality
In the aftermath of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, which brought World War I to a close, the commander-in-chief of the victorious Allied armies, French general Ferdinand Foch, reportedly observed: “This is not peace. It is an armistice for 20 years.” Foch believed that the treaty was too lenient, that it almost ensured that Germany would regain its ability to existentially threaten its neighbors. Tragically, when Germany invaded Poland on Sep. 1, 1939, Foch’s prophecy reached its horrifying fulfillment.
With each passing day, it has become increasingly evident that the June 17 “ceasefire” between the U.S. and the negotiations it supposedly enabled has completely fallen apart. In the last several days, Iran indulged in attacks on civilian targets in the Gulf states and on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, limited in kinetic effect, but highly provocative. Even with hints of a desire to resume negotiations, these strikes sent a clear signal that the shot callers — I use the criminal gang terminology deliberately — had no intention of allowing good faith negotiations. (RELATED: Why Are We Still Negotiating with Iran?)
In return, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) has delivered successive nights of hammer blows, at first against coastal installations and weapons threatening the Strait of Hormuz, but eventually escalating to critical infrastructure targets, the Bushehr nuclear power plant, and the Aq Tekeh Khan railway bridge on the border with Turkmenistan. As of the evening of July 12, CENTCOM has acknowledged over 400 successful strikes on military facilities and supporting infrastructure in just the last five days. (RELATED: Let’s Get it Right This Time)
While the Bushehr strike drew the most headlines, destroying the bridge was arguably the most significant…
While the Bushehr strike drew the most headlines, destroying the bridge was arguably the most significant, since it cut, at least temporarily, the primary route through which China and Russia have supported Iran’s military activities. The route has also served the shipment of sanctioned Iranian oil to China. This is a strategic blow of immense consequence, all the more effective because it hits hard while minimizing casualties among the civilian population. (RELATED: The Iran War: Fasten Seat Belts)
Iranian state media quickly claimed that only “ancillary” facilities were hit at Bushehr, suggesting that the attack had somehow failed. Instead, this suggests an incredibly high level of precision on the part of the U.S. Anyone familiar with nuclear power facilities — and this is Iran’s most important — understands that the reactor(s) are nestled within a complex web of systems designed to take the generated power and feed it into the electric grid. Precisely destroying these facilities renders the power plant functionally useless without risking a radiation release by hitting the reactor containment dome.
Similarly, the Iranians claim that they’re already well on their way to restoring the bridge. Perhaps, although self-serving lies are the common coin of Iranian media releases. Regardless, a bridge once destroyed can be hit again, and again, if need be. And one suspects that, in the days ahead, CENTCOM will do just that.
At the NATO summit in Ankara, President Trump insisted that the “ceasefire” was done, and that the U.S. would resume combat operations. Although Trump also acknowledged that he’d received some kind of back-channel plea to resume negotiations, this landed at the very same time that yet another Iranian plot to assassinate him was revealed. One suspects that this plea was met with due skepticism in Washington.
But are the gloves really off? After the first two days of massive U.S. strikes, Trump called a halt to further U.S. attacks, simultaneously insisting that the “ceasefire is over,” while leaving open the door to some kind of resumption of negotiations. Then, unsurprisingly, a tentative attempt to restart negotiations in Oman was torpedoed by the IRGC’s refusal to even consider the terms offered, underscored, predictably, by yet another attack on shipping. This prompted the heaviest U.S. response to date, over 140 strikes in a single night.
So, the back and forth continues, and while one might hope that our current actions represent an exercise in “4D chess,” it’s very difficult to see exactly how the diplomatic process can solve the fundamental conflict between U.S. objectives and those of whoever is currently calling the shots in Tehran. With respect to the latter, it seems clear that, while there are multiple contending factions, some of them at least wishful of a peace deal, it’s the IRGC calling the shots.
No reasonably objective observer can be the least bit surprised that negotiations have proven — and likely will go on proving — utterly fruitless. No amount of parsing of the day-to-day back and forth between Iranian and U.S. negotiators can obscure the fundamental truth, namely that neither the IRGC nor its proxies, notably Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, will allow their entire reason for existence to be bargained away.
Instead, what they want is relief from military pressure and economic sanctions. Above all, the IRGC needs relief from the economic crisis that has undermined the IRGC’s domestic authority as well as its ability to continue subsidizing Hezbollah and the remnants of Hamas. They need this to reestablish their authority over a subdued but restive population, and, even more, to serve their ongoing dreams of spreading the Islamist revolution. These are mutually reinforcing existential needs, absolutes that the IRGC will never willingly place on the bargaining table.
This war has never been about the kind of limited national objectives that could be addressed in a negotiated settlement.
In the end, this war has never been about the kind of limited national objectives that could be addressed in a negotiated settlement. No one who has paid meaningful attention to the course of the Iranian revolution from 1979 to the present day should harbor any such illusions. As I’ve argued for several years, the Iranian regime has always been at war with both the “little Satan,” that is, Israel, and the “Great Satan,” the U.S. That we’ve tried to ignore or palliate their hostility has only allowed it to grow ever stronger. (RELATED: We Are at War With Iran’s Mullahs)
For decades — and over multiple U.S. presidencies — the abiding concern has been fear that Iran will gain a nuclear weapons capability. Whether Republican or Democrat, this became an exercise in “kicking the can,” culminating in the most egregious such exercise of all, Obama’s ridiculously misnamed “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” or JCPOA. The “P” might better have stood for “Pretense” rather than “Plan,” since this was all it was, a fig leaf to hide the fact that Iran would never negotiate away its nuclear ambitions.
Unbelievable though it may seem, American policymakers comforted themselves with the notion that, at worst, a nuclear-armed Iran would be no worse than North Korea — I actually heard this whispered by individuals on the edge of the negotiations when I was still in government. Let that sink in. The reasoning partook of a kind of Alice-in-Wonderland internally coherent and thoroughly circular logic. Its adherents maintained that, while we’d failed to keep the Kim family from realizing its nuclear ambitions, and despite their occasional verbal challenges to their neighbors and to the U.S., their nuclear program was not a threat to the wider world. Given the difficulties of doing something about North Korean nukes, living with them is considered the easier solution, certainly the path of diplomatic least resistance.
There was a weird plausibility about this, but one that utterly ignored the differences between North Korea and Iran. The Kim dynasty, after all, had always been dependent on China, and the Chinese were unlikely to let them off the leash unless as a supplement in a larger direct nuclear confrontation between China and the U.S. — a situation that spelled much bigger worries than the North Korean supplement to China’s nuclear arsenal.
More fundamentally, it had always been quite clear that the Kim regime looked inward rather than outward. Even their most strident saber-rattling always had a “don’t mess with us” quality, a leave us alone — at most a “give us what we want” vibe — in exchange for not vaporizing Seattle or San Francisco.
But the Iran of the mullahs — and now the IRGC — always entertained much more expansive nuclear ambitions. Although willing to wave the “peaceful purposes” or “only for self-defense” placard when discussing their nuclear desires, these assertions, so comforting to U.S. and European politicians of a certain stripe, were always fundamentally deceptive. (RELATED: Ending the Ayatollah’s Nuclear Threat: No Better Time Than Now)
The regime of the mullahs was always radically expansionary in its goals, messianic in its intent to spread its own harsh version of Islam throughout first the Middle East and then across the globe. In 1979 and this past week, in the streets of Tehran during the Ayatollah’s recent funeral procession, “Death to America” meant exactly what it said. (RELATED: A Six-Day Funeral and a Long War)
We deceive ourselves when we believe that we can do a deal so long as the IRGC exerts effective veto power over any negotiations. One way or the other, they will hold out for money, missiles, and a nuclear weapons arsenal. They will never deny the Islamist fanaticism that justifies their very existence.
Nor will their followers let go easily. The Basij militia has fully earned its reputation for cruelty and brutality. Even if the remaining top-tier IRGC leaders could be driven into exile or killed outright, the thousands of street thugs would remain. They’ve left a trail of blood that no apologies can erase. It would require a truly breathtaking level of forbearance for a new regime, a moderate and U.S.-friendly regime, not to stand aside while a long-suffering populace wreaked vengeance on the Basij. A regime up to its elbows in innocent blood should expect nothing less than an equally bloody response. (RELATED: No Pieces of Paper Ever Bound the Islamic Republic)
Six weeks ago, before the June ceasefire and its subsequent disintegration, I laid out three basic considerations for achieving current victory and a lasting peace. First, we must completely break the IRGC’s ability to interfere with shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. We come close, and then we let our foot off their necks. This won’t do. So long as they maintain even the illusion of control, they continue believing that they will ultimately prevail. It’s the lever they’ve counted on for decades, with good reason. (RELATED: Iran War: The End of the Beginning)
The world — and previous U.S. governments — have always flinched at the thought of the oil market disruptions. Moreover, there can be no half measures, no deals that allow the IRGC to publicly collect tolls or covertly collect tribute. We should always remember that the IRGC is more than the fount of worldwide Islamism — it’s also a world-class criminal enterprise.
Second, we must break the IRGC’s hold on critical infrastructure. In the last few days, we’ve made a start with our strikes on the bridge to China and the Bushehr nuclear plant, but we can do more, much more. We shrink from measures that would hurt the people of Iran, because a fundamental human decency ultimately guides our actions. That should always be our guide, but this scarcely precludes further deep strikes at specific IRGC-related targets. And yes, that includes bouncing the rubble around their various nuclear weapons sites.
Third, we must find a way to encourage the people of Iran to finally assert themselves against IRGC tyranny. We must be very careful here. If we make promises that lead them out into the streets, unarmed, then we’re simply inviting more massacres. Instead, we need targeted pain, pain inflicted on IRGC personnel right down to the local level. The Kurds have the capability to do this. It may be, as I argued in May, that disaffected regular army members might also play a role. In the end, this war will only end with “boots on the ground,” but they don’t have to be ours.
Finally, and for all of this to lead to a genuine peace, we need to be absolutely relentless. Short-term dealmaking only encourages the IRGC to believe that they can wait us out, hopeful that the coming elections will usher in a U.S. Congress that will allow them a way out. Short-term dealmaking, after all, appeals to many “moderate” Democrats, while the radical Democratic Socialists appear eager for an outright IRGC triumph. Humiliating Donald Trump, after all, has become their overriding purpose, more important than our national interest.
Our Gulf state allies have long feared this, afraid that they will be stuck alone with a vengeful and dangerous neighbor if the U.S. walks away with the job undone. Interestingly, there are quiet whispers that these same Gulf state allies have finally drawn the correct conclusion, making more active contributions around the edge of the latest U.S. strikes. In this regard, we also need to remove our restraining hand on Israel and Saudi Arabia when it comes to Hezbollah and the Houthis. The IRGC must finally be deprived of all the tools it uses to threaten the region.
This can’t go on, and we can’t create a lasting result by continually striking hard and then stepping back. For an enemy as intransigent as the IRGC, nothing short of a comprehensive attitude adjustment will do, less “hearts and minds,” more “take them by the balls and squeeze.” In other words, we need to let Marshal Foch be our guide. Failure to finish what we’ve started means that someday, sooner or later, we’ll have to do it all over again, and likely at greater disadvantage. We’ll never have a better opportunity than right now.
READ MORE from James H. McGee:
The Christian Slaughter the World Ignores
‘We Have Only To Be Lucky Once’
Society’s Right to a Speedy Trial
James H. McGee is a retired nuclear security and counter-terrorism professional. His most recent novel, The Zebras from Minsk, was featured among National Review’s favorite books in 2025. You can find The Zebras from Minsk and his previous thriller, Letter of Reprisal, in paperback and Kindle editions at Amazon.
Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.
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