We have a deal—of a sort.

Unfortunately, any agreement we sign with Iran is likely to be tenuous at best. The heavily armed and exceedingly violent radical factions that Iran has been bankrolling for years—Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthi rebels, and Islamic Jihad among others—have a vested interest in continuing to fight because there is no money in amicable and neighborly relations. Car bombs, missile attacks, and shootings are money in the bank for terrorists, so it it highly unlikely they will lay down their arms and start selling Tupperware. It would, in fact, be no surprise if attacks both in the Middle East and around the globe increase in the wake of this week’s layered and caveat-laden agreement. Slaughter equals a steady paycheck.

One might ask, of course, why the Iranian government doesn’t simply stop funding terrorists, but this would neatly overlook the plain fact that the extremists who run the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC), which has a mission entirely separate from the regular Iranian Armed Forces, will never allow this to happen unless the Iranian civilian leadership is willing to take the risk of purging their ranks—which they simply do not have the power to do.

The IRGC, which was founded by the Ayatollah Khomeini in the immediate aftermath of the 1979 revolution, has a singular and unique mission for its roughly 125,000 soldiers and staff: to protect, support, and defend the ideological legacy of the Islamic Revolution—by any means necessary. These are the fanatics that are sent into the streets to shoot anyone who dares to oppose the orders of the mullahs and happily arrests anyone suspected of the least deviation from the extremist orthodoxy that shrouds women in chadors, insists on blind hatred of America, and yearns for nuclear weapons that can be used to force all nations to bend to their will. Whatever negotiated settlements America and Iran might agree to, the vast majority of the IRGC is guaranteed to see it as an affront and work to undermine it in every possible way.

To presume that the Iranians can pivot to a more moderate stance overlooks the past half-century of efforts to excise reason, judgment, and empathy from the minds of the soldiers and civilians who are convinced it is their moral and religious duty to crush the infidels who refuse to respect the ways of Islam.

Although apologists for the raised knives of Islam routinely point to the early and more conciliatory proclamations of the Prophet Muhammad to sell the idea that theirs is a religion of peace—strategically overlooking his later proclamations that preached the obligation to murder all infidels—the plain fact is that Islam as practiced in Iran and many other Middle Eastern nations is a religion that insists on submission and disdains co-existence with other religions. This does not mean that all Muslims are dangerous fanatics, but it would be foolish to forget that “love thy neighbor” is often not extended to Christians, Jews, and followers of other religions, who are considered worthless apostates and need not be considered to possess any human rights at all.

This week’s peace deal, therefore, begins in peril and likely will require yet more military action to enforce, and the Iranians are counting on a loss of resolve by whatever administration follows the end of President Trump’s tenure in office.

One can guarantee that right now Iranian mosques are crowded with senior officials praying for the continued good health of Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Pete Buttigieg, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez because they would rather run circles around a Woke Democrat patsy who will be content to “strongly protest” future violations of this week’s peace agreement while reverting to an Obama-esque policy of delivering pallets of cash—alongside assurances that we are A-OK with whatever they want to do.

The crux of the problem is that the Iranians are well aware that a significant portion of Americans can be easily persuaded that a one-dollar increase in the price of gasoline is more problematic than a Iranian nuclear bomb. Moreover, the overt and frightening ant-semitism of the mainstream Democratic establishment and their media mouthpieces makes it easy, in a sick resonance of the same tactics used by the Nazis in 1930’s Germany, to convince many voters that we were “betrayed” by Jews who lured us into war and stabbed us in the back.

The outcome is that Iran’s most extreme elements will probably be content to play a long game for a few years and occupy themselves with sabotage and deadly attacks upon civilians that they can easily disavow while waiting to see if a little compliance now will hand them the far-Left Democrat administration of their dreams, one that will look the other way while they push ahead with a “peaceful” enrichment of nuclear material—secure in the knowledge that America’s bombers will gather dust in their hangers. Nothing will warm their Islamic hearts more than the “Queers for Palestine” buttons and banners that will surely sprout throughout our divided nation if their ideological stooges are returned to power in a couple of years or a strong midterm showing for the Democrats in the House and Senate allows them to hobble the final two years of the Trump presidency.

Should we count on peace—or even be hopeful is possible? Given the extremism of a good portion of the Iranian leadership and the borderline treasonous behavior of Democrats angling for electoral advantage this year and in 2028, I have my doubts. Moreover, we cannot discount the possibility that other foreign policy and economic challenges lie ahead that will distract us and change our priorities. Given that the Iranian leadership seems quite willing to sacrifice their people now for perceived advantage later—and is well aware Americans are allergic to protracted military action—it could very well be the case that they can turn today’s crushing military defeats into victory at some future point.