Iran: From 1979 to Today: Appeasement or Realpolitik? Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript is an edited version version of a transcript created using AI technology and may not reflect 100% accuracy.

The video can be found here.

Sarah: Good evening from Jerusalem or from Israel, and good afternoon in the United States. Thank you so very much for joining us today. Today marks the 600th day since the hostages were taken into captivity. This is a very painful day for most of us around the world, most of us who are Jewish or Christian, anyone who has a heart and a soul. We please ask you to keep the hostages in your minds today, in your hearts and in your prayers. Today is also a very, very important day because we have with us a magnificent guest, Ambassador Yoram Ettinger. Yoram has certainly been a friend of EMET’s and a friend of mine for way over 20 years. He was the minister of Congressional Affairs at the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC. He was the Consul General of the consulate in Houston, Texas. Yoram has an incredible expanse and depth of knowledge about everything having to do with the Middle East, everything having to do with the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, and most particular, of everything having to do with Iran.

Right now, the United States has concluded its fifth round of negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran. I am sitting here in Israel. Since I got here over a week ago, we’ve had seven Houthis missile attacks, all, thank God, that have been averted by the wonderful IDF. But we are in a very precarious situation here between President Donald Trump, who seems to want to negotiate a deal with Iran. And we’re wondering, is this going to be like the JCPOA? Perhaps longer? Is Iran going to try to conceal its malign intentions? And is America going to go along with Iran just for President Trump to say he signed a better deal than the JCPOA, perhaps for many more years? So, in order to answer all of these questions and more to take us to where we are today, we will be enlightened right now by Ambassador Yoram Ettinger. Yoram.

Yoram Ettinger: Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure and honor to be once again a guest of EMET. And what I would like to focus on this time is on the challenge with regard to the Iranian issue, and the challenge is to expose the difference between the Iranian reality on the one hand and alternate reality on the other hand. Alternate reality, in my mind, has characterized the State Department’s policy since 1979, when it was the State Department, the White House, CIA ushering in Ayatollah Khomeini from his exile in Paris to the top position in Iran, and that alternate reality has persisted until this very day. And one of the symptoms of that alternate reality is the assumption, which we keep hearing from the isolationist Kemp within the Republican party, claiming that with all the respect to the concern, the commotion around Iran, at most, it’s a problem for Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, the Persian Gulf, the Middle East, Israel, but it’s not a threat to the US.

Some of the isolationists, and I would say, highly influential isolationists who have the ear of the President, have even claimed that what’s the big deal? North Korea has nuclear power. Pakistan has nuclear power. So Iran will also have nuclear power. It does not constitute, so they think, a threat to the US, it’s a threat to Israel. And some even insinuate that it’s Israel which is attempting to drag the US into an unnecessary military adventure involving Iran. The reality is 180 from where the isolationist stand. It is the interest of the US, which is at stake, and independent of Israel’s existence. And even if there wouldn’t be, even if there wouldn’t be Israel in the world today, the fact is, the fact is that since 1979, when the Ayatollah toppled the pro-US Shah and started the ball rolling in the transformation of Iran from the American policemen of the Persian Gulf to the number one epicenter of anti-US global terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, and proliferation of military systems.

Since 1979, the Iranian regime, the Ayatollah regime has entrenched itself in Latin America, way, way beyond the Gulf, way, way beyond the Middle East way, way beyond Iranian adventures in Eastern Africa, North Africa, West Africa. Here they are in Latin America, and they’re not there superficially. They’re not there lightly. They are there deeply, deeply entrenched all the way to Mexico, US-Mexico border, and on US soil. They have done that since 1979 with absolutely no reference to Israel, with no regard to Israel’s existence or Israel’s position. They have done it as part of their own vision. And their vision has mandated the Ayatollah regime, among other things, also to bring the great American Satan to submission. Therefore, they have collaborated with the drug cartels of Mexico and Colombia and Bolivia, and Ecuador and Brazil. They have provided those drug cartels with equipment to construct underground tunnels between Mexico and the US.

They have been employing Mexico as a site, as an arena to launch sleeper cells into the USA, terror sleeper cells, which according to the latest 2025 threat assessment by the FBI, this has become a real and clear danger to US Homeland Security. The FBI has also emphasized that Iran has done that in collaboration with Russia and China. The FBI threat assessment is echoed by the Homeland Security Threat Assessment and reverberated as well by the Director of National Intelligence, all agree, all have stated that Iran and its operation on US soil, in addition to its very elaborate operation in Latin America, have constituted a real and clear and very alarming threat to America’s homeland security. The notion that Iran is not actually very much concerned about the US, and the US in fact is concerned about Iran because of Iranian threat to Israel, also ignores the very obvious, well-documented fact that the reason the Ayatollahs target Israel is not only because Israel is so called an illegitimate infidel entity in the abode of Islam.

But the Ayatollah regime has realized that Israel, in fact, has been the number one force multiplier and beachhead of the US in the very critical Middle East, critical Middle East, because it is the epicenter of anti-American Islamic terrorism. And the way the Middle East goes, so goes the anti-American Islamic terrorism. And the Iranians understand that the more they succeed in clipping the wings of Israel, the more exposed would be the US as well as the rest of the Western world to Iranian controlled Islamic terrorism. We have seen the Ayatollahs very, very busy in Latin America, together with Hezbollah especially, as well as Hamas. Hezbollah has leveraged the presence of very large number of Lebanese Shiite immigrants or immigrants in Latin America. Many of them, very successful business wise. Many of them, or some of them, have been willing to collaborate with Hezbollah and the Ayatollah regime in establishing or expanding the Iranian foothold into the soft belly of the US.

And this has been the reason for the Ayatollah regime to pay much attention to Latin America since taking over control of Iran, because they understand that the soft belly of the US happens to be Latin America, and since the Ayatollahs are very determined to hit badly the strategic posture of the US, Latin America has been a preferred arena, again, together with Hezbollah especially, as well as Hamas. Hezbollah has been in charge of training Mexican drug cartels in the area of car bomb, suicide bombers and the IED, the improvised explosive devices, in addition to drug trafficking and money laundering. We’re talking about the Ayatollah regime operated terrorist training camps in the two tri-border areas, the major one in the tri-border area of Argentina, Peru, and Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil, and the smaller tri-border area between Chile and Bolivia and Peru. Each such tri-border area has traditionally been lawless area, and therefore haven, paradise for drug traffickers, money launderers and terrorists, and Ayatollah and Hezbollah, and Hammas have leveraged such opportunities in order, in order to provide tailwind to their anti-American operations.

We are talking about the alternate reality as expressed by the isolationist elements who have the ear of the President, and they have claimed that it’s money which talks, and through money, through financial discussions, negotiations, transactions, one can moderate the Ayatollahs, and they failed not only to absorb the track record or the lessons of the last 47 years since 1979, when hundreds, hundreds of billions of dollars have not been successful in moderating the Ayatollahs. They have also failed to understand that with all the respect to Western values of money talks and peaceful coexistence, and the good faith negotiation, as far as the Ayatollah are concerned, it’s ideology that talks and ideology that walks, not money, not finance, not diplomacy. And we have seen that again in the conduct of the Ayatollahs of Iran since 1979, as underscored in their school curriculum, Friday mosque sermons and official media, whereby they highlight their 1400 year old vision which goes back to 680 AD, the Battle of Karbala, which concerns a very tiny minority among Western policy makers, but this is the battle which preoccupies until this very day in May, 2025, not only the leadership of Iran, but the vast majority of the Shiite Muslim community.

And as far as the Ayatollahs regime in Iran, 680 has been the origin of the legacy of avenging, what they call the treachery by the Sunnis of the Shiite Imam, the Shiite leader, Hussein, who was the grandson of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad. But it’s also the foundation of the martyrdom value, which has been expounded by the Ayatollahs of Iran. It’s not merely martyrdom which is also underscored by the Koran, but in the case of the Shiites, it’s deliberate, deliberate martyrdom, namely, it’s incumbent upon the so-called the faithful to be proactive as far as martyrdom. And the closer you are to martyrdom, the closer you are supposedly to paradise. And by the way, we have seen that during the Iran-Iraq war during the early 1980s when Ayatollah Khomeini dispatched a few hundred thousand youngsters, Iranian youngsters, to clear the minefield with chains and a key to paradise, namely, knowingly rushing into martyrdom in order to pave the road to the Iranian military, sacrificing hundreds of thousands of Iranian youth on the altar of war against Iraq.

And not much has changed, if anything has changed. And again, it’s being deeply, deeply and clearly expressed in the school textbooks, K-12 in Iran, and every Friday in the mosque. According to their 1400 year old vision, they are mandated to topple every single Sunni Arab regime, which includes, by the way, the pro-US oil producing regimes of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, as well as Kuwait and Oman and Egypt, and Jordan. And we’re talking here about entities which control most of the 48% of global oil reserves, which are located in the Persian Gulf area. We are talking about ideology, which is very distinct ideology. It’s ideology of the Shiite Twelver, Twelvers, because they believe, and when I say they, 80%, 80% of the Shiite community in the entire world today believes in the Twelver branch of Shiite Islam, which believes that the 12th Imam who disappeared in the 10th century is going to reappear and then will deliver victory to Shiite Islam. But in order to accelerate the arrival of the 12th Iman, Muhammad al-Mahdi, it is incumbent upon the believers, the Shiite believers, to engage in a battle against the apostate Sunnis and against the infidel Western world, and be willing, be willing to commit the martyrdom on the altar of the reappearance of the 12th Iman.

We are talking about the ideology of the Ayatollah regime, which has been embedded in the education system in Iran, which has been also derivative of the two most prominent personalities of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna, who established the Muslim Brotherhood, and Sayyid Qutb, both Egyptians, by the way, who became in the late 1950s, early 1960s, the most notable Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, both promoting the approach that in order to bring deliverance, every single national Islamic regime must be toppled on the way to establish a universal Islamic society governed by the rules of Quran, and establishing Islam as the only legitimate religion on earth so ordained by God, supposedly. For the Sunnis, this would lead to a Sunni domination of the world. As far as the Shiites are concerned, this would lead to a Shiite domination of the world.

But again, the Shiite leadership of Iran has borrowed much from the fanatic Muslim Brotherhood precepts guiding their steps from 1979 until this very, very day. We are talking about Iran of today, the Ayatollahs, Ayatollahs-governed Iran of today, which has faced the US, what they call the US oppressor, and the great Satan, facing policy makers who believe in negotiation, who believe in the diplomatic option. But 47 years have taught us that the diplomatic option, or the negotiation option, which has underlined US policy towards Iran since 1979, has not moderated the Ayatollahs. In fact, has been the number one engine behind the bolstering of the anti-US capabilities of the Ayatollah regime in Iran. The assumption by US policymakers has been that negotiation, diplomacy, generous gestures would induce the Ayatollahs to accept peaceful coexistence with its Sunni Arab neighbors, to accept the role of good faith negotiators, and even to abandon their own ideology.

The fact is that the Ayatollahs of Iran are as fanatic today as they were in 1979. But while in 1979, they were second or third rate military power, today, because of the US diplomatic option, they have surged to the top league, the NBA League of military and political powers in the world today. Who would’ve expected, back in 1979, that it’s going to be the Ayatollahs of Iran providing the Russian Empire with military systems? Who would’ve believed that the Ayatollahs of Iran would be there on the border of the US, aligned with the drug traffickers, with every single anti-American, Latin American government, be it Mexico, be it Venezuela, be it Cuba, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and recently also, Colombia and Brazil, and Chile? We have at the same time also the notion that if diplomacy doesn’t work, negotiation does not produce the expected result, then the US has to resort to very, very maximum pressure, crippling economic sanctions.

And indeed, since 1979, when Jimmy Carter realized that he was tragically wrong when he ushered in the Ayatollahs into Tehran, assuming, as he stated, that they would be preoccupied with tractors, not with tanks, and Ayatollah Khomeini was going to be an Iranian edition of Gandhi, since 1979, they have been on again, off again, economic sanctions. And guess what? It has not delivered the goods. To be realistic, During Trump’s first term, the economic sanctions clipped severely the wings of the Ayatollahs. Donald Trump brought the Iranian economy down on its knees, and the Ayatollahs were not able to deliver the support they always enjoyed providing to proxy terror organizations in the Middle East, in Africa, and in Latin America. However, we know it, by now, after 47 years of track record, that at best, at best, economic sanctions are reversible. A president imposes and then comes a president that suspends.

There is another element of alternate reality, which has underlined, sadly, US policy on Iran. And this is the assumption that actually the US is better off negotiating with Iran, because when you negotiate, you can reach an agreement which would be better than the JCPOA of 2015. And during his first term, President Trump reiterated the notion, the belief that he could deliver a better agreement with the Ayatollahs. This is the alternate reality. The actual Iranian reality is that while the US, as does the Western world, consider negotiation to be a step towards reconciliation, a step towards hopefully peaceful coexistence, as far as the Ayatollah regime, just like Hamas, just like Hezbollah, and the PLO/Palestinian Authority, they view negotiation very differently. They view negotiation, as documented by their track record, as a step which enables them to lick their wounds, to be spared of a major, major military hit by a superior military power, and as a step also towards delaying that offensive against Iran, and hopefully, from their perspective, that delay would enable them to reach the level of nuclear power.

Moreover, negotiation for them is an element to basically have the time run out on the US administration. And they are very, very sophisticated. They’re aware that the closer the US gets to the 2026 midterm election. The more problems are going to be faced by American presidents, the less independent president could be on the international front. And certainly, they are very, very patient. They don’t face any election around the corner, unlike the Western, American negotiators. And again, the proof is in the pudding. Negotiations have been conducted, by the way, the same thing between Israel and Hamas and Israel and Hezbollah, and Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and every round of negotiation, in hindsight, now, we know only served to advance the fanatic terror organizations, undermining the gullible, the naive Western interlocutor.

There is another case of alternate reality versus the Iranian real reality, and that’s the idea that the focus must be, must be on denying the Ayatollahs the nuclear power. Obviously, this is a very, very necessary goal. However, however, in my humble mind, it must not be, it must not be the most urgent item on our agenda. The fact is that the Ayatollahs regime in Iran has been a clear and present threat to the US, to every single ally of the US, to regional and global stability, has been the major engine behind wars and terrorism and civil wars in the Middle East and around the world, all of that, with conventional power, all of that with ballistic power. And therefore, the goal has to be preventing Iran from becoming a more intensified threat to the US, which is, at this stage, a conventional threat, not a nuclear threat.

Banning, let’s say, the Iranian nuclear facilities, but allowing the regime to remain in power would enable that regime to continue doing what it has been doing until this very day through none nuclear power. And if indeed, negotiation have not delivered the goods, and economic sanctions have been at best reversible, but certainly have not moderated the Ayatollahs, then the only option left is regime change. And here again, we have a case of alternate reality. The case of alternate reality is highlighted by the noble desire, the obvious desire by President Trump to end wars, to prevent wars, to minimize wars, not to start wars. Well, with all due respect to such a very, very noble and worthy goal, you cannot prevent wars and terrorism. You cannot minimize wars and terrorism, as long as the epicenter of wars and terrorism is highly, highly active. And the only way to end that activity by the epicenter, which happens to be the Ayatollah regime of Iran, is to initiate a regime change in Iran.

And here again, we have the voice of the isolationists around the President who are claiming that regime change, an American initiative of regime change would galvanize the Iranian population in an anti-American manner, would in fact galvanize Islam in an anti-American move. Anyone who suggest that displays, in my mind, detachment from reality, and indeed, the isolation is have been detached from reality. I don’t doubt their expertise, their brilliance as far as domestic US politics, as far as the world of business. But when one hears that the Iranian population would oppose US initiative of regime change, one has to ignore, for instance, the 2009 attempt to revolt against Ayatollahs, and the majority of the Iranian public awaited then President Obama to come in to their side and together change their regime. But President Obama chose to leave them hanging high and dry.

In 2022, there was another attempt of revolting against the Ayatollahs, and this time it was headed by the Iranian women. But what we have seen was that once again, President Biden left them hanging, or it was Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, left them hanging high and dry. The vast majority of the Iranian population does not want the Ayatollahs regime, which has been the most discriminatory, repressive, despotic regime anywhere in the world today. But moreover, to hear that an American attempt or an American initiative of regime change in Iran would galvanize the Islamic world against the US, is another display of detachment from the world. With all due respect, the Shiites are a small minority in the Muslim world. The Shiites and the Sunnis have been fighting each other since the 7th century, since that Battle of Karbala between the Sunni caliph and the Shiite leader.

To assume that Saudi Arabia and the UAE and Bahrain and Egypt and Oman and Kuwait and Jordan, all the way to Morocco, would oppose an American initiative of regime change in Iran ignores the Ayatollah’s machete at the throat of each one of those Sunni countries. This has been the isolationist line. You can hear it on podcasts by some of the key isolationist, so-called philosophers, media people. But it has nothing to do, nothing to do with reality. In fact, talking about the Iranian population, supposed opposition to an American initiative of regime change, ignores, again, the record. This month may alone, 159 Iranians were hung by the regime in Iran. Last year, over 1200 Iranians were executed, hunged, by the regime in Iran. This is not a reality which suggests opposition by the Iranian people to an attempt to liberate them, to liberate them from the from the regime.

What I would say, in conclusion, is that should the US policy of conducting international, for Middle East policy as if it was part of the world of business where money talks, should the US policy be based on alternate reality, where supposedly, supposedly negotiation could facilitate transformation of Iran from anti-American to moderate entity or even pro-American. Persisting in the current policy of negotiation or economic sanctions would guarantee paving the road to the first ever apocalyptic nuclear power when the isolationist claim that it’s no big deal. North Korea is a nuclear power, Pakistan is a nuclear power. Some of them even lumped together India as a nuclear power. And therefore, what’s the big deal? Why get excited about Iran as a nuclear power? Neither North Korea nor Pakistan, certainly India, are not apocalyptic, are not governed by apocalyptic regimes. None of them, none of them aspires for global domination. None of them looks at the West, at the US, as a great American Satan, and certainly, none of them has espoused, has espoused. that deliberate martyrdom type of policy.

And therefore, if we persist in adhering to alternate reality, this is going to pave the road to the first ever apocalyptic regime. And anyone, anyone who suggests, and I’ve heard it plenty in my visits to the US, there’s no appetite for regime change, no appetite for potentially costly American initiative to bring about regime change, should realize not only that the US military power in the Persian Gulf, in the Indian Ocean, with or without Israeli military power involved, is way, way above what Iran can present. But let’s assume indeed that the cost of bringing about regime change would be horrendous, which I don’t buy, but let’s take this worst case scenario. Logically speaking, the cost of facing apocalyptic nuclear Iran would dwarf the most horrendous potential cost of regime change. And if indeed that’s the case, what are we waiting for? Are we actually waiting for nuclear Iran operating on the border of US and Mexico, nuclear Iran, leveraging the sleeper cells to sneak into the US nuclear device? It seems to me that it’s time, it’s time to submit oneself to reality and to liberate oneself from alternate reality.

Sarah: Thank you so much for that, Yoram. Okay. I have a load of questions. Number one, I have the US forces in the Middle East, as well as Israel are in a very precarious position. How long do you think these talks could drag on? I know that the Israeli Air Force, their fighter pilots have been drilled time and time again, and they can launch an initiative against the nuclear sites in Pashtan, in Fordo, in Esfahan, in Natanz, Bushehr, and all of the many, many places, Irak[?] [inaudible]. How long can we allow these talks to drag on before Israel is forced to do something?

Yoram: Well, hopefully the publicized agenda between President Trump and Prime Minister Natanyahu also includes response to that question. Hopefully President Trump is not so-called enslaved to the alternate reality, as it may seem through media coverage. And hopefully he also understands that dragging the negotiation could by itself produce a nuclear apocalyptic Iran, because I don’t think that anyone knows really whether Iran needs few more weeks or few more months to become nuclear. And how can we take the chance that prolonging negotiation would present a nuclear Iran at the negotiation table? And that would change completely, completely the rules of that game to the disadvantage of the US and the free world. Obviously, if, if the President, President Trump is not awakened by reality in the Middle East, and if the President persists in the current policy of negotiating and contemplating or imposing economic sanctions, it would present Israel with a pretty tough dilemma.

Israel would be on a horn of a tough dilemma to step to move forward in according to its own national security prerequisites, or to yield to a very friendly president who has proven his friendship through the issues of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights and UNRWA, also Iran and the PLO and Muslim Brotherhood, et cetera. In my humble mind, it should not be a tough dilemma for Israel. Israel must, but must with three exclamation marks, to act in accordance with its national security, even if it could produce some major, major hardships when it comes to US-Israel relations, suspending shipment of certain military systems, suspending ammunition. At this stage, at this stage, based on what I know, we have the capability to hit Iran in a very painful manner, not just destroying the nuclear infrastructure, but primarily to cause potential regime change in Iran, hitting the various types of infrastructures in Iran, hitting the key personalities in the Ayatollah regime could bring down the Ayatollah regime.

Obviously, it could, doesn’t have to, but it could generate some very negative repercussion as far as President Trump’s attitude towards Israel. But again, our track record since ‘48 has proven that when it comes to American pressure on Israel to refrain from serving its own national security, the fines of American pressure yields very positive results, not only for Israel, but for the US itself. Sometimes the US needs an awakening caused by an ally like Israel, as it was with the Iraqi nuclear reactor. Israel demolished the nuclear reactor in the fines of President Reagan and other very, very, very friendly president, in the fines of American threats to suspend the delivery of combat aircraft, to suspend defense cooperation agreements, all of which took place. Israel was severely punished in the aftermath of the bombing. But it took the US few months to realize that such an action exposed Israel as a most worthy partner for a rainy day.

On a rainy day, the US has no use for fibble ally who cannot defy pressure when it comes to that ally’s top, top national security concerns. And my hope, my hope is that Israel will act the way it should act. And I would add one more thing. Should Israel do that in defense of President Trump, my own assessment is that Trump may, probably not in public, but in a closed door session with his advisors or alone talking to himself, would say, by God, those Israelis have just demonstrated Trumpism in the most effective manner. And we have received, I think, many, many example, and I don’t compare it to bombing Iran, eliminating the Iranian leadership, eliminating Iranian infrastructures. But a few weeks ago when the president was in the Persian Gulf, in the middle of his speech there, in the middle of his meetings with top, top Arabs of the Persian Gulf, Israel chose that time to eliminate 11 Hamas leaders in a very, very significant military offensive against Hamas in Gaza.

I haven’t heard any reproach by the US. I haven’t heard any reservation about that from the US. And if I were a fly on the wall in Trump’s suite in the hotel in Riyadh, I probably would’ve heard him telling his advisors, finally, finally, Israel understands what I meant when I say all hell will break loose. President Trump did not intend for American Air Force to cause all hell to break loose. He intended to deliver a message to Israel. I provided you with a military systems and ammunition, which were withheld by President Biden. Now it’s your role to cause all hell to break loose, and certainly it applies to Hamas. It could very well also apply to Iran.

Sarah: We’ve had a lot of great questions. One question is, could you clarify about the Cuban, Brazilian and Venezuelan regimes, Lula and Maduro especially, and their influence in enabling Iranian vessels to dock in their ports? The US has raised concerns about this, and there have not been any consequences. Do you know anything about this?

Yoram: The Ayatollahs of Iran have been very, very smart, displaying intelligence. I’m not saying it facetiously. This is the reality. They understand that they must, they must take advantage of every single anti-American government in Latin America. And sadly, most governments in Latin America are pro-Venezuela, pro-Cuba, anti-American and pro-Iran, and they have done their utmost to take advantage of it. They have provided recently Venezuela with naval and aerial military systems to bolster, to bolster a potential Venezuela invasion of Guyana, which in recent years, have become increasingly an oil power. There has been a territorial dispute between Guyana and Venezuela going back some 100 years. Venezuela has a claim over that part of Guyana, which is a major, major chunk of the Guyana territory. And that is the area which also controls much of the newly discovered oil power of Guyana.

They have been very busy in the Panama free trade zone in an attempt, in an attempt to strengthen their hold or their control, their leverage in that critical area of the Panama canal. They have done the same thing with Chile, which until the December election of two years ago, was pro-American and then has become anti-American. And as a result, we have seen more and more Iranian vessels docking in Chile, and certainly all that has basically done mockery of the Monroe Doctrine, which president after president, recent presidents in the US have ignored completely. I assume that President Trump, with his America First, and I would add, correct, America First philosophy, his correct philosophy of make America great again, would also take care of the Monroe Doctrine. And if you take seriously the Monroe Doctrine, you cannot but recognize that Iran is a clear and present danger to the US, and again, as underlined by the recent 2025 threat assessment by the FBI, by the Homeland Security Department, and by the Director of National Intelligence.

Sarah: Thank you so much, Yoram. I want to conclude with just one little vignette from the late great friend of mine, Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, who when Israel bombed the nuclear reactor in Iraq, President Ronald Reagan summited her to the floor of the United Nations to condemn Israel. And she said to me, “Sarah, I knew the day would come when I would live to regret those words, and I really regretted those words.” So I know that every nation has a foremost responsibility to look after and protect their own civilian population. And they have to protect the national security interests of Israel. And the way I see things, the national security interests of the state of Israel are one and the same as the national security interests of the United States. So I thank you so much. And I do have to say, Yoram is going to be on Capitol Hill with us in a few short weeks, and today, this evening, this afternoon American time, we’re going to be Zooming in to some members of Congress and staffers and senators and staffers. We are very, very busy. Part of our staff is on Capitol Hill right now as we speak, and we are very, very honored to be able to take Yoram around.

Yoram: If I may add or clarify one point, my suggestion to anyone in this session and anyone who would get the message of this session, to realize that for friends of Israel, that number one element is to focus on American interests when it comes to talking about Iran, to come to congressional office, to come to any friend, any mover and shaker, trying to convince them that Iran is a deadly threat to Israel, in a way, is a wasted opportunity. Because the reality is that for Iran, it’s not Israel. It’s the US which is the number one target. Iran has a mega vision, to dominate the world. In order to advance that mega vision, they have to develop the mega capabilities, ballistic capabilities, nuclear capabilities, and in order to realize their mega vision, they have to do away with the mega obstacle. The mega obstacle, with all due respect, has never been Israel. The mega obstacle has always been the great American Satan. And the sooner Americans, especially on Capitol Hill, but also beyond, realize that, the closer we will be to the end of the Ayatollah regime.

And one more comment, again, from our joint experience, we know that vast majority, vast majority of the Republican legislators on Capitol Hill, and a sizable minority of Democrats on Capitol Hill, do realize that the only way to deal with the Iranian challenge is through regime change. And don’t underestimate the power of the legislators to impact presidential policy, especially as we approach the midterm election. And if you follow, especially Senators’ public pronouncements, more and more senators express publicly their dis enchantment with the current negotiation with Iran. More and more senators highlight certain red lines, red lines, which must not be crossed by the US, and none of them has to do with Israel. It all has to do with American interest. Thank you very much for the opportunity, Sarah.

Sarah: Thank you so much. And please, if you can, do the utmost you can to support EMET, go to emetonline.org. Thank you so much.

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