Nobody is pulling the wool over President Trump’s eyes

To paraphrase Shakespeare, “will he or won’t he, that is the question.” Will President Trump order the U.S. military to attack Iran? All over the United States; indeed all over the world, everyone is watching the deployment of US carrier strike groups, and trying to deduce President Trump’s intentions by analyzing every off-the-cuff comment. Some of the headlines generated by journalists who treat Trump’s spontaneous quips as if they were official pronouncements, border on the absurd. If during some on the tarmac banter, President Trump retorts that a deal should be reached “I guess over the next month, something like that”, the headlines screech that Trump has given 30 days deadline to the Iranian regime. What a load of hooey. Those who engage in this type analysis may have been watching President Trump, but they haven’t been observing him. In his second term Trump is nobody’s fool.

President Trump knows that no agreement can be made with the regime that currently holds Iran in the grip of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamanei. The Iranian regime is made up of clerics who are hard core Islamic Shite “Twelvers”. To understand the regime that control Iran, you have to understand Twelver Shia Islam. The core belief of Twelvers is that after the death of the Prophet Muhammad the only legitimate leader of the Muslims (the “Ummah”) was a decedent of the Prophet. Between 661 CE and 874 CE, the first eleven (11) Imams contended for leadership of the Muslim Ummah, with each meeting with an unnatural death. The 12th Imam Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Askari a/k/a Muhammad al-Mahdi (the Mahdi), lived in his father’s house in Samarra, Iraq. In 874 CE, after the death by poison of the 11th Imam from, the 12th Imam went into hiding in the cellar of his father’s home, not wanting to share his predecessor’s fate. Without getting into the details of Shia theology of minor and major occultations, suffice it to say that when the soldiers of the Abbasid Caliph raided the house where the 12th Imam was hiding the 12th Imam was never heard from again.

However, Shia Twelver Muslims do not believe that the 12th Imam was killed or captured and thrown into a well. Apparently running short of people who were willing take the job of Imam with the 100% rate of unnatural death, the Shiites decided that it would be better if the 12th Imam didn’t die. Instead, they decided that what had really happened was that 12th Imam did not die but underwent the “Occultation”. Under Shia Twelver theology, this meant that instead of dying like his eleven predecessors, the 12th Imam was hidden by divine will and became invisible. Ayatollah Khamenei and the Shite mullahs of Iran are fanatical believers that the 12th Imam remains alive today, (a miraculously prolonged life of 1,091 years), and will reappear as the Mahdi (“the guided one”) to establish global justice before the Day of Judgment. It is a core belief, a central tenant of the Shite Twelver fanatics who control Iran, that the 12th Imam is physically alive, a normal human being in his normal human body (with divinely granted longevity of course), walking the earth today — but invisible, hidden until he is revealed. Yes, Ayatollah Khamenei and the fanatical Shite mullahs who rule Iran believe that there is a 1,091-year-old invisible man walking around today who will reveal himself as the Mahdi and usher in the Shite messianic age, and that they can help make this happen. Khamenei and his clerics believe this so completely that they will rape and hang 14-year-old children who dare to challenge them by not wearing head scarfs. These fanatics have been actively trying to obtain atomic bombs and ballistic missiles to wipe out anything and anyone that might interfere with the reappearance of the 1,091-year-old invisible man, the Mahdi. These are the people that control Iran, a nation-state of 95 million people.

Can you make an agreement with people like this? People who firmly hold such insanely delusional beliefs, and are holding a nation-state hostage to so that they can acquire the means to kill and destroy anything and anyone who might deny or hinder their fantasy? People whose ideology holds that they can lie and break agreements (taqiyya), if it helps them achieve their goals. Of course not. President Donald Trump is well aware of what the Ayatollah, the Twelver mullahs, and their followers in the IRCG believe; he knows what their goals are, and he understands what atrocities they are willing to commit to try to fulfill their delusional fairytale Mahdi fantasies.

Then, you may ask, why is President Trump negotiating with the Iranian regime? Why is he talking to them, saying he wants to make a deal on one day, then saying that regime change would be a good idea the next, all while deploying aircraft carrier strike groups, bombers, fighter jets, and massive amounts of military equipment to the middle-east? The answer is twofold.

First, as Sun Tzu said over 2000 years ago, “The way of war is a way of deception.” Sun Tzu also advised, “when able, feign inability; when deploying troops appear not to be; when near appear far, when far appear near; lure with bait, strike with chaos; if he is angry disconcert him, if he is weak, stir him to pride; attack where he is unprepared, appear where you are unexpected”. President Trump understands that Iran under the Ayatollahs has been, and is now, a real threat to the lives of US citizens and the survival of US allies. The opening words of the Art of War are, “War is a grave affair of state, it is a place of life or death, a road to survival or extinction”. While President Trump may not be able to quote from Sun Tzu, he certainly understands that when it comes to war the Marquess of Queensberry Rules do not apply.

If you don’t know what President Trump is going to do; if his vague and contrary statements make you anxious, that’s good. If your confused then the Khamenei regime is even more perplexed and anxious. That’s the point. This is the advantage that President Trump and his Department of War have achieved, and it is no accident.

Secondly, there is a legal question that arises when it comes to attacking the nation of Iran. Not some question of “international law”, an imaginary concept that only exists in the minds of people almost as deluded as the Twelvers, but a question of U.S. Constitutional law. No matter what you hear in the legacy media, President Trump abides by the Constitution of the United States. In his second term, the Trump administration has won 24 times in the U.S. Supreme Court, with an unheard of 90% rate of victory, clearly proving his actions have been within the laws of the United States. The legal issue confronting Trump is this; the U.S. Constitution provides that only Congress can declare war on another nation. President Trump does not want to start an undeclared war in violation of the Constitution. However, if the U.S. is attacked by another country, or if a nation declares war on the United States, then President Trump does not need a congressional declaration. As president, Trump is fully empowered to defend the U.S. without obtaining congressional approval to do so.

Trump knows that Iran cannot be allowed to continue to be controlled by the Twelver regime in Tehran. He understands that a regime of fanatics which believes it can cause the messianic reappearance of the 1091-year-old Mahdi will somehow use the resources of a nation-state of 95 million people to obtain an atomic bomb and sail it into New York harbor. The Khamenei regime has been given more chances that it deserves, and cannot be allowed to continue to control a nation-state.

You can be assured that the Twelver cult in Tehran, and the threat it poses to the lives and even existence of America and its allies, will not be allowed to continue to control the nation-state of Iran. Therefore, Iran must be, in the words of Sun Tzu, lured with bait, stirred to pride, and disconcerted with anger by U.S. forces that appear where unexpected, so that it either attacks or declares war on the United States. Then President Trump can give the order that ends Ayatollah regime’s grip on the nation of Iran, removes the existential threat the Khamenei regime poses to the United States and all its allies in the middle east and Europe, and frees the Iranian people from the grip of the religious fanatics that have been oppressing them.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)