What’s the Best Course of Action for Iran?

by James Zumwalt

Meetings are taking place in Oman between the US and Iran to determine if war can be prevented as we seek to end the mullahs’ killing spree of its citizens. Those citizens, tired of a currency collapse, high inflation, 47 years of repression, etc., have been courageously rioting in the streets. The government has brutally been putting them down.

Despite our goal to bring the massacre to an end, Iranian leaders have insisted the talks be limited to but one issue. It is the same issue that brought the two nations—along with our Israeli ally—into a military confrontation in June 2025. That issue is the development by Tehran—contrary to international accords—of a nuclear arms program.

President Donald Trump warned the mullahs their ruthless killing must stop, and sent military forces to the region. Based on last year’s bombing campaign, the mullahs should have no doubt as to our willingness to use military force against them again. However, there is something we still seem unable to fully grasp in negotiating with their leaders.

In 2003, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared a fatwa against nuclear weapons, though the declaration should have given no one in the West confidence about its truthfulness as Iran has worked ever since to build a nuclear weapon.

Through every means possible, Iran has endeavored to hide the fact it is developing a nuclear arms capability. Deep underground tunnel systems have hidden much of what Iran has developed. Independent inspectors have not been given access to verify developments are not underway, nor to test soil samples. And, to reach a 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran that President Barack Obama assured us would guarantee Iran would never have nukes, he secretly made an outrageous side deal with the mullahs. Obama did not insist on independent inspectors taking soil samples—he unbelievably allowed the Iranians to provide their own samples.

Derailing Iran’s nuclear program is a must. In 2010, a malicious computer virus was discovered known as Stuxnet. It was probably in development since 2005, having but one major goal—to sabotage Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility. It was the first known virus to cripple hardware, and was believed to be a joint creation by both the U.S. and Israel. Clearly, only two years after Khamenei’s fatwa against nuclear arms, both the U.S. and Israel knew it was a deception.

It was on May 31, 2025 that the International Atomic Energy Association reported Iran had sharply increased its uranium enrichment to 60% purity. This was a 50% increase in just three months and is just below weapons grade.

Iran was getting too close to being able to provide enough uranium to produce several nuclear weapons if further enriched. Knowing it would be the first recipient of such a weapon, Israel launched a surprise attack on June 13, 2025 against Iran’s nuclear facilities and military infrastructure. The U.S. joined in on the attack four days later. Once again, Iran’s nuclear program was derailed.

Compromise by the U.S.—such as allowing Iran to provide its own soil samples in 2015—only encourages non-compliance. And it should not take a rocket scientist to realize what this is—Iran is firmly committed to developing nuclear weapons and absolutely nothing will stand in its way.

Interestingly, it is virtually impossible to cite any arms agreement with which Iran has ever complied. It is fully committed, as part of an Islamist ideology, to possessing such weaponry. We need to understand why.

Iran has the world’s largest Shia population. While globally, most Muslims (85%) are Sunni, approximately 13% are Shiite. They are “Twelvers”—i.e., they believe in the future return of the Twelfth Imam—who was born in 869 B.C. and disappeared as a child a few years later. Supposedly, the disappearance was to escape persecution, which the imam allegedly did by entering into a state of occultation.

The Twelfth Imam’s reappearance is to be preceded in time by human chaos and an apocalyptic war against Israel. What better way to create that chaos than by the detonation of a nuclear weapon?

Interestingly, Iran’s sixth president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who served in that capacity from 2005–2013, was more extreme in his Twelfer beliefs than were many mullahs. With Iran’s nuclear program advancing rapidly back then, Ahmadinejad told his inner circle that the Twelfth Iman would be reappearing during his presidency. It is obvious then why the Stuxnet malware was necessary at the time it hit.

It is imperative that we recognize the mullahs cherish nuclear weapons more than they cherish the air that they breathe. Iran’s first Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, hinted at that decades ago as he dismissed any concerns about a nuclear counter strike against Iran: “I say let Iran go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world.”

One critic of the current ongoing negotiations with the mullahs notes simply that “There is no diplomatic solution. The key variables here aren’t economic or strategic, they’re Islamic.” Accordingly, we must accept the fact that compromise on Iran’s nuclear program is non-negotiable.

The “Homicide Hunter” is a television series hosted by retired police detective Joe Kenda who has solved almost 400 murder cases. Kenda is a no-nonsense guy who sees little merit in wasting time with people unable to make positive contributions.

The mullahs have proven to be a negotiating nightmare for us. Not only has time been wasted, but billions of dollars too. We need a Kenda-like negotiator at the table to get the mullahs off the dime. We need to communicate the same point Kenda did when meetings were going nowhere, issuing the warning: “You’ve got a minute to tell me something I want to hear or I am leaving.” U.S. negotiators, upon hearing anything less than a verifiable end to Iran’s nuclear program, should then depart, relaying the commitment to the mullahs a more aggressive course of action is about to be pursued.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/02/what_s_the_best_course_of_action_for_iran.html