When one hears the word “negotiations” in connection with Iran, one inevitably becomes uneasy. Nevertheless, President Trump announces that he has given the mullah regime a deadline until the end of the week, so that an agreement may be reached, inter alia on the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, which will satisfy everyone.

It is unclear with whom he is negotiating. It is also conceivable that no negotiations are taking place, and that Trump merely wishes to create confusion among the surviving Iranian leaders, who are surely asking themselves who may be in the process of selling out what remains of the Islamic Republic.

But if negotiations are in fact taking place, and if Trump’s negotiating partner belongs to the Iranian power apparatus, there is cause for concern. For Trump can surely not believe that one can enter into agreements with the mullahs and expect them to keep their promises? For 47 years, the leaders of the Islamic Republic have lied, deceived and defrauded, and they will of course do so again as soon as the United States and Israel cease hostilities. They will immediately resume the production of drones and long-range missiles, restart the nuclear programme, and use oil revenues to finance terror throughout the world.

Unfortunately, very few Western observers have understood what “Twelver Shia” (tolver-sjia) – the ideology that animates the current regime in Tehran – actually entails. In brief, adherents of this branch of Islam believe that following the death of the Prophet Muhammad, twelve righteous imams succeeded him. The twelfth, known as the Mahdi, has, however, gone into hiding and has not appeared since the 9th century. But one day he will, as a kind of Muslim messiah, reveal himself and secure Islam’s global dominion.

The difficulty, however, is that this will only occur after the earth has experienced a ragnarok, and that it is the task of the Twelver Shia to bring about this collapse. It is for this reason that the mullahs have spent most of their resources on terror, missiles and the development of nuclear weapons, which will naturally be used as soon as they are ready for deployment.

This diabolical ideology implies that one cannot compare the Islamic Republic with other states possessing nuclear weapons, such as Russia, China, North Korea or Pakistan. None of these countries will embark upon a nuclear war, as they know that it would mean the end of their regimes. The Islamic Republic, by contrast, will launch its nuclear weapons as soon as it acquires them. That they themselves will die is of no concern to them, for the Mahdi will come and usher in Islam’s golden age.

One can only hope that Trump and Netanyahu have understood this.