Why Iran's Rouhani refuses to meet with President Trump
Speaking to reporters, French oresident Emmanuel Macron said during his flight to the United States: "Iranians are flexible about parameters but say about meeting that it should be done at the end of the process, while Americans are aiming to meet in the short-term." He noted that "Donald Trump makes decisions quick and on his own. He has a trade attitude, so it's not hard to convince him. But Hassan Rouhani needs to negotiate with a whole system and forty years of its past history."
On the meeting between Trump and Rouhani, Macron has rightly touched on a point that explains the Iranian regime's actions in the current Middle East crisis and over the last forty years. The Iranian regime was able to crack down on nits opponents on the one hand and, on the other hand, brought together the backward forces of society centered on fundamentalist Islam in Iran and the region, including the forces that made up the Iranian-backed militias.
The Iranian regime, with the slogan of death to America, carried out all its warmongering policies in the region as well as the cruel repression of Iranian progressive forces.
By taking over the U.S. embassy in Iran, the Iranian regime succeeded in eliminating many of the progressive forces who sought liberal demands and the establishment of democratic institutions in Iran from the first year of coming to power.
One Iranian official made it clear that the slogan of death to America from the Ministry of Intelligence was more effective to eliminate the hypocrites (i.e., the Mojahedin-e-Khalq or MEK, the sworn enemies of the Iranian regime that now lead resistance units inside Iran for change) and the opposition.
The Iranian diplomacy site, close to the Foreign Ministry, regarding any meeting between Rouhani and Trump, referring to the presence of the Iranian delegation under the leadership of the mullahs' foreign minister at the G-7 conference, said: "After the Iranian delegation was stationed in the City Hall, Emmanuel Macron personally came to visit Zarif. Trump's condition for meeting with Rouhani had not been mentioned yet there, but when Macron met with the Iranian side, he said: 'I was at the G7 summit now and announced that I wanted to go to meet Zarif.' Trump was there and told me he was coming to visit Zarif, too. I replied to him that Iran had got assurances that there would be no meeting. Macron then jokingly said to Zarif, 'Do you want me to call Trump now to come?' Zarif also opposed it."
It is clear in this writing that one of the conditions for the French package implementation from the onset was the meeting between Trump and Rouhani. At the Macron and Trump press conference after the G7 summit that clearly indicated the future arrangement for a meeting between Rouhani and Trump, it seems that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, despite all the overwhelming pressure on the regime and despite the Iranian delegation's apparent consent, strongly opposed it. And so Macron's several-months-long effort was disrupted. Why?
Because the Vali-e-Faqih regime, coming out of medieval religious dogma, is based on two pillars for its survival. One is the export of terrorism and the policy of waging war outside Iran, and the other is repression inside the country. Cutting down either of these two pillars of the Vali-e-Faqih regime will cause it to collapse. Therefore, the Vali-e-Faqih (supreme leader) knows that by meeting early with U.S. officials and giving up his two pillars of retention, he must respond to the economic, political, and cultural demands of the forty-year-old suppressed people for the next step. If does so, will there be anything left of the his Velayat-e-Faqih?
Therefore, Trump's initiative for a pre-negotiation meeting, in the context of maximum pressure, can be fully explained, because it can force the mullahs' regime once and for all to stop military intervention in the region, along with all the killing and destruction that come with it.
Image: Erfan Kouchari via Tasnim News Agency.