The Democratic Party Just Doesn’t Understand Iran’s Regime
The Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader will not mend his ways.
Mr. Intractable
Photographer: Behrouz Mehri/AFP via Getty Images
The Democratic Party’s draft platform for the 2020 election cycle sees the world as I did when I was a Model United Nations delegate: A place where foreign policy is a vessel for pious intentions, and informed by the common good.
Back then, I argued that India and Pakistan could sheath the daggers they held at each other’s throat — if the leaders in New Delhi and Islamabad simply set aside their blood-soaked history and had a rational, reasonable discussion. So what if General Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq, the Pakistani dictator at the time, was a religious fanatic, menacing his own people as much as the neighborhood? Surely he would recognize the benefits, economic and political, of peace in South Asia?