Breaking the Enemy’s Will

War is all about breaking the enemy’s will to fight. Clearly, we haven’t yet done that in Iran.

The regime continues to thump its chest in public, threatening its neighbors, threatening us, and claiming they have won the war. That is not the behavior of an enemy on its knees.

The regime’s latest peace “proposal” is no more than a rehash of the irredentist talking points they have been trotting out regularly for decades. They claim sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. They assert their “right” to enrich uranium (and to exclude it from the negotiations). They refuse limits on their ballistic missiles and drones and are not prepared to abandon arming proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

That’s no peace proposal. It’s a defiant declaration of war.

But even dictators reach a breaking point when they throw in the towel, commit suicide, or sue for peace.

Iran’s revolutionary leadership is no exception. In June 1988, Ayatollah Khomeini “drank the chalice of poison” and ended the eight-year war with Iraq. Why? Many commentators believe it was because the United States sank one-third of their navy in a single day that April (Operation Preying Mantis).

That certainly played a role. But the determining factor was Saddam’s ruthless use of chemical weapons.

It began with the devastating chemical weapons attack on the Iraqi Kurdish city of Halabja on March 17-18, 1988, to punish the city for having temporarily fallen into Iranian hands. The Iranians sent a Revolutionary Guards video crew to film the aftermath, and those images lived on to haunt not just the Iraqi Kurdish survivors but Iranian television viewers and regime leaders.

It continued with the final assault on Fao later that spring, when Lieutenant General Maher Rashid loaded the 200 tanks of an entire armored division onto West German transporters and shifted them from al Amarah, where the Iranians were expecting an attack, to the Fao Peninsula, some 170 miles to the south, all in a single night.

I was reporting regularly on the war at the time and will never forget the harrowing eye-witness accounts of terrified Iranian troops who fled from the lurid clouds of poison gas the Iraqis dispersed on the battlefield. They were literally frightened out of their wits. And Iranian television played those interviews abundantly – no doubt, to buttress the political decision the Ayatollah was about to announce that he was ending the war.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting that the United States should use chemical weapons, or nuclear weapons, or any other weapon of mass destruction in Iran. But I do think we need to strike terror in the hearts of Iran’s rulers, and that starts by striking terror in the hearts of IRGC troops.

We must make them understand that there is no way they can survive the continuation of the war. Right now, they are pinching themselves. Hey Trump, that’s the best you can do?

The President was briefed by Centcom commander Admiral Bradley Cooper at the White House on Thursday on his military options. As we learned during the takedown of Maduro in Venezuela in January, the U.S. has developed weapons whose existence has not yet been revealed. Then, it was what the president calls the “discombobulator.”  Who knows what else they might have in store?

Donald Trump has weaponized uncertainty, blowing hot and cold on negotiations, praising the “new” regime” for presenting “new” proposals, all the while our military deploys new capabilities in the region.

Will the blockade continue, or will we return to war? It will depend on the Iranian regime. Do they actually want to make a deal, which means meeting Trump’s terms?

I think they have no intention of actually negotiating, but are just trying to buy time. Meanwhile, they are running out of oil storage capacity and have stopped making payroll to the troops, the bassijis, the school teachers and oil workers.

Still, I do not expect the regime to implode from within. Not yet, at least. They will continue to fight — and fight their own people — until we make them stop.

Until we break their will. And we are nowhere near that point yet.

I discuss this, as well as the UAE’s landmark decision to leave OPEC, on this week’s Prophecy Today Weekend. I also talk about and the ongoing persecution of Christians, even in France.
 
As always, you can listen live on 104.9 FM or 550 AM in the Jacksonville, Florida area, or by using the Jacksonville Way Radio app. If you miss us live, catch the podcast later, here.

Yours in freedom.

©2026 Kenneth R. Timmerman. All rights reserved.

Website: kentimmerman.com

Ken Timmerman’s 14th book of non-fiction, THE IRAN HOUSE: Tales of Revolution, Persecution, War, and Intrigue, can be ordered by clicking here or by viewing my author’s page, here. 

Raising Olives in Provence, can be ordered by clicking here.