Dealing With Islamic Extremism: How The Soviets Did It

Obviously, the U.S. would never adopt the Soviet approach. However, what the Soviet’s response reveals is that in any negotiations with Iran, there can be no quarter.

James Zumwalt | June 25, 2026

There’s an old tale about a farmer who recognized there was only one way to deal with his donkey. He had to strike it twice on the head with a two-by-four—the first time simply to gain its attention, the second to get it to listen to what he had to say.

Not to trigger animal rights activists by relating this tale, it is shared simply to underscore the more serious problem of how to negotiate a meaningful deal with Iran’s mullahs who are predisposed not to submit to the West.

The singularly critical issue of the talks is how do we get them successfully to comply with terms of a deal when they have no history of honoring compliance? We face the same problem the farmer did in gaining the attention of an ass to make it toe the line.

The negotiations between Iran and the U.S. under the administration of President Barack Obama, ending in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), were significantly flawed—both in the terms of the agreement itself and the negotiating tactics to get it.

As to the first issue, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies—a nonpartisan institute focusing on national security and foreign policy—identified several flawed JCPOA  terms/non-terms including: no sanction against a nuclear development program; setting preset expiration dates by which certain........

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