It's the IRGC, Stupid!
The White House keeps dancing around the real problem in Iran.
The White House’s dance with Tehran continues.
President Trump announced this morning on Truth Social, “IRAN HAS REQUESTED A MEETING. IT WILL TAKE PLACE TOMORROW IN DOHA!”
The White House simply cannot quit the Islamic Republic of Iran. And Tehran knows it. The flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz is the priority, and Iran is making its play on ownership of the waterway — and the bounty that comes with it.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is enforcing it, striking the Singapore cargo ship Ever Lovely last week off the coast of Oman, which led to U.S. retaliatory strikes on Iran and more threats from Mr. Trump on Truth Social: “United States aircraft just struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations, and coastal radar sites, for violating the Ceasefire Agreement, AGAIN! It is very possible that they will never learn! There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started. If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!”
Despite Mr. Trump’s comments, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, still proclaims that his country will assume sole authority over the strait. “The management and full restoration of maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz is Iran’s responsibility. No other country or entity has any responsibility or authority in this matter.”
In the balance: IRGC head Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi believes he has “tamed President Trump,” telling regime officials, “We got what we wanted. As always, the naïve West believes it will get something in return, which, of course, will never happen.”
More than 60 of the Assembly of Experts’ 84 members, Iran International reported yesterday, “thanked Iranian negotiators but warned them to learn from what they called the failures of previous talks, adding that observing Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s red lines was a religious obligation and that violating them was ‘not permissible under any circumstances.’”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio gets it: “The Iranian system is led by clerics, radical clerics. That’s what it’s always been led by.” The IRGC keeps those clerics in power and enforces their decisions.
Iran’s Assembly of Experts, political hardliners, and the IRGC are the problem.
Mr. Vahidi says, “Our goal now is to keep the Americans under strict surveillance. Any violation, no matter how small, will allow us to threaten to close the Strait of Hormuz, and Trump and his people will accept anything.”
He welcomes negotiations in Doha.
Decision point: Mr. Trump’s negotiating team of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, along with Vice President JD Vance, is swimming upstream. The White House needs to embrace the fact the Iranian officials they are negotiating with do not have final decision-making authorities in Tehran.
Day 38 of U.S. Central Command’s Operation Epic Fury was April 7. We are now on day 83 of the “ceasefire” and negotiations.
One definition, widely attributed to Albert Einstein, best describes the current situation: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
To borrow a line from Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, “It’s the IRGC, stupid!” Until the White House addresses Iran’s center of gravity, this dance will continue.
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