Anything Short of Regime Change in Iran Would Be a Failure

Co-authored with Pouria Hadjibagheri.

Read the full piece in Newsweek.

The United States does not negotiate with terrorists: a platitude repeated so often it has become reflex, from presidential podiums to Senate floors to Hollywood scripts. But it is worth asking whether it still applies. The central figure now being discussed in connection with a negotiated settlement with Iran is Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf—former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) air force, U.S.-designated and sanctioned, and a man embedded in the machinery of the Islamic Republic’s worst abuses for three decades. If Ghalibaf is at the table, the U.S. isn’t refusing to negotiate with terrorists. It is legitimizing them and calling it diplomacy.

And if that is where we are, we should say the next part out loud: When the cost rises, we give in. A settlement structured this way signals permission, not compromise. To Tehran, it says defiance pays. To others watching, it says American red lines are negotiable...

Read the full piece here.