Why did they pursue the destruction of Israel like Ahab pursued Moby Dick, from the very moment they took over Iran? What had Israel ever done to them?

Why did the fierce attacks by the US and Israel last summer not dissuade them from their destructive goals?

Why were they seemingly not listening to Trump’s warning that if they didn’t give up their nuclear weapons and stop killing their own people in droves, they would suffer more attacks from the US?

Yes, nuclear weapons would make them untouchable; this was a good part of North Korea’s motives, too, in obtaining them. But North Korea is an island of sanity compared to the mullahs in their belief system and goals.

Please read this description of what drives the mullahs. Here’s an excerpt:

… [T]he late Ayatollah Khomeini’s Twelver-influenced Shi’i revolutionary theology, promotes a worldview that elevates death, martyrdom, and chaos as instruments of divine purpose.

Most wars can be halted through political pressure, negotiation, or deterrence. But this conflict is grounded in a dogma that sanctifies destruction and bloodshed as necessary steps toward redemption. Within this framework, Israel’s destruction is not simply a strategic objective; it is portrayed as a sacred duty. Iran will therefore persist in waging this war because its leaders believe they are carrying out God’s work, and that only through Israel’s elimination will redemption arrive. Until the West grasps this theological dimension, its response to Iran will remain inadequate—and dangerously naïve. …

The Iranian regime considers their nation to be chosen by Allah to prepare the world for the coming of their messiah, the Twelfth Imam (whom they call the Mahdi) who will establish justice in the world. They believe that catastrophic world chaos and the defeat of their enemies, especially Israel, are prerequisites for this event. Their murder and mayhem is not only a means to an end; according to their religion it is an end in itself, and their foreign policy is guided by the desired impending apocalypse. This makes them a most dangerous foe, since there is no chance of negotiating with them or resolving the conflict peacefully; peace and justice will come only through their own martyrdom, in their view.

The leader for whom Iran prepares the way is the Twelfth Imam, or the Mahdi. Twelver Shia Muslims believe that the Mahdi disappeared in the 9th century and was placed into “divine occultation” (ghaybah), where he will remain until he reappears to declare victory over all the world’s Islamic infidels and establish a global Shia Islamic kingdom. Chaos and war, however, are necessary to bring his return.

If you keep that in mind when you think about the leaders of the Iranian theocracy, I think many of their actions become understandable. And the need to eliminate their rule becomes not a choice, but a necessity. The chaos and destruction they seek to cause involves not just Israel, but other Muslim nations not in accord with them (the Gulf States, for example, which they have attacked recently), Western nations and in particular the US, and ultimately the world.

Perhaps the real reason the Iranians told Witkoff and Kushner at the recent negotiations that they had retained enriched material and could easily build eleven nuclear weapons in short order (see this) was a combination of their thinking that the US didn’t have the guts to do much about it, plus a way to say, “Hey, bring it on!”