Western calls for a diplomatic solution with the Islamic Republic of Iran, coupled with criticism of Trump and Netanyahu, revive a dangerous illusion: that appeasement can tame a regime that stands in direct opposition to everything the West claims to uphold. The logic echoes the policies of appeasement towards Nazi Germany, where diplomacy became a rhetorical substitute for abdication and fecklessness.

Trump is a leader with a penchant for authoritarianism, but he touches on a real point: the EU and Britain have repeatedly shown themselves to be lacking direction. Iran remains a threat to the “free world.” Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the Islamic Republic has been a major destabilizing force in the Middle East, despite the tendency among several Western observers – influenced by ingrained anti-Semitic prejudices or selective narratives shaped by Al Jazeera – to shift that responsibility elsewhere, namely Israel. The war wasn’t started by the US or Israel but by the Islamic Republic at its birth, with the manifest aim of destroying Israel. And it was Khamenei’s objective to pursue that goal as the next step of a never-ending revolution – never-ending because of the structural need for perpetual mobilization inherent in any totalitarian regime.

To criticize Trump and Netanyahu for doing the “dirty” job no one has had the resolve to........

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