OPINION: Relaxing sanctions won’t rein in the bestial appetite of Iranian regime

My column has often lamented the sickening appeasement of anti-western forces, whether of nation states (e.g., Putin’s Russia, Iran or Syria) or ideologies (such as radical Islam). Such appeasement is always immoral and short sighted, empowering authoritarians, weakening the West and undermining liberal values.

Yet few of the politicians, academics or policy gurus see it that way. More often, they have projected a fantasy onto their opponents, pretending that they will be more amenable to the West if only a few specific grievances are satisfied.

There was a reminder of all this last week following the sickening attack on Sir Salman Rushdie in New York State. Rushdie has long paid a terrible price for daring to write a novel that questioned the foundations of Islam.

The fatwa that was imposed on him by Ayatollah Khomeini was never lifted and was merely waiting to be activated by a ‘righteous’ fanatic with the means and opportunity. Some conservative newspapers in Iran were glowing in their praise for the attacker and sought to justify the near killing with reference to the original religious edict.

In response to this heinous crime, one western leader after another has offered pious condemnations and fallen over themselves to defend principles of free speech and expression, as indeed they should.

But they have also been seeking to resurrect a failed nuclear deal with a regime that openly supports terrorism against the West. Whatever one thinks of the merits of the JCPOA (and there are many legitimate criticisms), one cannot doubt that it openly ignores much of Iran’s most nefarious behaviour: the appalling persecution of minorities within the country, the growing ballistic missile threat, its bloody intervention in Lebanon and the use of terrorist proxies in multiple countries.

For good reason, Iran is considered the world’s leading state sponsor of terror. For years, it has trained Shia terrorists fighting against coalition forces in Iraq and kept alive the flames of civil war in Syria. It has supported Houthi rebels in Yemen, helping to exacerbate a humanitarian disaster in that war torn country. It has dispatched militias to other Arab countries and funded Palestinian terror groups, including Hamas, in the hope of igniting a regional war to destroy Israel.

But its activities don’t end there. Its terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, was behind a terror attack in Bulgaria that killed five Israelis in 2012 while in 2018, an Iranian diplomat planned a terrorist attack at a rally of the Iranian opposition in Paris.

American and Israeli intelligence services have reported that Iran has terrorist sleeper cells in Africa. This includes a group that only last year planned to attack the embassy of the United Arab Emirates, as well as operatives who have tried to murder Israeli diplomats. Iranian terror has also claimed lives in South America, most infamously in the 1994 AMIA attack that killed 85 people.

Within the last week, an Iranian member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was charged with plotting to kill former national security advisor John Bolton, possibly in retaliation for the killing of terror chief Qasem Soleimani in 2020, while assassination plots against former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have been described as ‘real and ongoing’.

Lest we forget, Iran has also taken innocent civilians hostage, among them Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Needless to say, such an administration is dangerous enough without the massive injection of cash that any nuclear deal would bring.

What is abundantly clear is that the ayatollahs operate a rogue regime that is contemptuous of international law and which is dedicated to the violent march of Shia Islamism in the region. It inspires supporters to commit heinous crimes in its name, including the attempted murder of secular writers like Rushdie.

Yet western nations seem to think that relaxing sanctions or the threat of force will rein in the bestial appetites of the Iranian government. It is a tragically misguided perception based ultimately on a delusion. Religious fanatics cannot be appeased or wished away. They must instead be confronted and defeated.