My fave Mark Twain quote is the one about how history doesnt repeat itself, but it rhymes, and it is so so so accurate. For 40+ years the West chose to tolerate and appease the IRGC, the same exact way how it chose to tolerate and appease Nazi Germany, thinking that itd eventually pay off and that the irrational actors at the helm of these barbaric shitholes will magically fall into the Western ideological lines.
The results of this method were devastating in an inevitable WW2, when a millions of people had to die as part of the efforts to stop Hitler, who managed to conquer entire swaths of Europe without firing a single bullet, because Western governments wanted to appease him so much. If only we give him a piece of this country or that country, if only we strike one more trade deal with him. Surely, he will stop taking territories; surely he will stop threatening to exterminate us. The exact same thing has happened with the IRGC: if only we strike another deal, if only we let them develop nuclear energy, if only we gift them a boatload of money, surely they wont use it against us the way they constantly said that they will; surely they will suddenly start liking us and stop committing regional terrorism; surely they will begin to adopt our cultural values. Like what part of "theocratic fundamentalism" are people not understanding?? how is this so difficult to grasp??
These types of regimes dont see your culture as valid, they dont want to share air with you, they wont suddenly wake up and develop an appreciation for humanism. They think youre literally satan, they dont believe in your right to exist in a liberal world, they dont even consider your liberal values to be valid; they do not see you as their equal and they do not see you as a fellow human being. They constantly and very openly state these facts, then proceed to develop plans to get rid of you. They dont say these things for show, or to be dramatic or even to scare you, that would mean theres some rationale behind it. There is none. This is religious fundamentalism, hatred for the Western, infidel world and a very very deep, strong and potent emotional intertwining of religious and ideological belief, both of which do not align in any way shape or form with the secular values we fortunately developed during the Age of Enlightenment.
No amount of money, nice words, appeasement or hand shaking is going to change their minds, much like it didnt change the minds behind Nazi Germany. This dragged out appeasement in the earlier part of the 20th century led to the deaths of millions of people in an inevitable war, and this similar, 40yr old appeasement of the IRGC is also going to deal to devastating consequences, which, similarly to Nazi Germany, could have been far more minimized had it been nipped in the bud and not tolerated for this long. This was literally inevitable from the moment the IRGC completed their revolution, as WW2 was inevitable from the moment Hitler coup d'etat his ass into Supreme Leader. It rhymes in the most horrendous of ways and we are all going to see how the results will also rhyme.
