One question remains about President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran now that congressional members of his party refused to vote down a terrible agreement: Will Tehran honor it?
As Obama’s deal clearly paves the way for the mullahs to legally obtain nuclear weapons in the future, they would be foolish not to abide by it. But a more likely scenario—based on their established track record of failing to honor international agreements—is they will choose to break out of it, illegally pursuing their nuclear goals in violation of Obama’s timeline.
Regardless of whether the subject matter of past international agreements focused on weapons of mass destruction, human rights, governance or terrorism, one is hard-pressed to name a single agreement Iran has not violated. It simply is not part of the mullahs’ makeup to honor agreements with non-Muslims—even when one such agreement only sought to protect Iran’s own children by banning their execution.
While the mullahs demonstrate their willingness to negotiate an agreement with non-Muslims, compliance has been a much different story. It is the Islamic concept of taqiyya that empowers them to not comply.
Recently, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson raised the issue of taqiyya and was quickly criticized in the media for doing so. As he attempted to explain (an explanation that seemed to fall on critics’ deaf ears), a Muslim should not serve as president since taqiyya empowers him to lie to fulfill Islam’s goals.
The concept of taqiyya appears in the Quran, and issues from Allah a free pass to lie to non-believers for the purpose of advancing Islam. Iran’s continuous record of breaking international agreements is evidence taqiyya is practiced religiously by the mullahs.
The media made no effort to investigate whether Carson’s charge was correct. Such an investigation would have established that taqiyya is a building block for Iran’s foreign policy in dealing with the West.
With the media too lazy to investigate Iran’s track record on breaking international agreements and with a president too committed to his legacy to expose the lie upon which his nuclear deal is built, it is difficult for the American public to grasp the concept of taqiyya. And, even if the media and the president did their jobs in explaining it, the average American lacks the sophistication to understand all the complexities related to the violations that have taken place.
Let us, therefore, simplify our analysis of taqiyya and turn to some blatant examples of how Iran puts it to use. Two such examples occurred during the last two days of September.
On September 28,th Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani (who, as Tehran’s chief negotiator early on, bragged in 2005 he had successfully deceived the West about the country’s nuclear program) applied taqiyya while addressing the UN General Assembly.
Keeping in mind Iran is recognized as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, Rouhani, discussing Syria and Yemen, announced, “We are prepared to assist in the eradication of terrorism and in paving the way for democracy.”
Undoubtedly, President Obama and those members of Congress who supported the Iranian nuclear deal bought into this blatant lie, unwilling to peel back taqiyya to reveal it for what it really was.
But, the most blatant example of Iranian cheating that lays taqiyya bare has occurred—believe it or not—with its women’s soccer team.
On September 30, international women’s soccer authorities ordered Iran’s entire national team to undergo gender testing. The demand came as it became clear at least eight members of its team were males. While they are males awaiting sex change operations (such surgery, surprisingly, was sanctioned by a fatwa issued by the late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini), they clearly did not yet qualify as female members.
Interestingly, just like the Iranian nuclear deal allows Tehran to do its own test sampling, Tehran’s governing soccer body did its own random gender testing, which explains why the cheating continues.
Iran easily duped authorities as to team members’ gender, since the only skin female players may expose is that on their face and hands. Hijab headscarves, long-sleeved tops and tracksuit pants concealed all else from view.
Taqiyya thrives where Western naiveté and gullibility does. Mullahs exercising taqiyya to cheat on a matter as trivial as a women’s soccer game will not hesitate to do the same with Obama’s nuclear deal.
Lt. Colonel James G. Zumwalt, USMC (Ret.), is a retired Marine infantry officer who served in the Vietnam war, the U.S. invasion of Panama and the first Gulf war. He is the author of “Bare Feet, Iron Will–Stories from the Other Side of Vietnam’s Battlefields,” “Living the Juche Lie: North Korea’s Kim Dynasty” and “Doomsday: Iran–The Clock is Ticking.” He frequently writes on foreign policy and defense issues.
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