Citing as a model Richard Nixon’s negotiations with China, which allegedly helped secure the triumph of Deng Xiaoping over hardcore Maoists, supporters of détente with Tehran have argued that the proposed June 30 deal will encourage friendly forces within that regime. Michael Rubin points out the flaws in this argument:

President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have predicated outreach to Iran on the idea that rapprochement will strengthen the hand of the moderates against Iran’s implacable ideologues. In a sense, the White House believes it has found a Deng Xiaoping moment in which support for pragmatists can marginalize hardliners permanently and enhance security and cooperation between former adversaries.

Their logic is wrong on three counts. First, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani is no moderate. . . . Second, even if a deal bolsters Rouhani’s popularity, he remains marginal on questions relating to Iranian nuclear policy today. In the Islamic Republic, the president is about style, the supreme leader about substance. . . . And, third, the China model may not be all that it’s cracked up to be. China never joined the West or embraced global peace and tolerance, but rather used its newfound wealth to build a first-world military and bully not only its neighbors but also the United States. Enriching and empowering enemies never works unless, of course, the goal is to lessen the relative power and position of the United States.

Addressing a recent meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Committee, Mahmoud Abbas criticized Hamas more sharply than he has previously (at least in public), calling them “sons of dogs.” The eighty-nine-year-old Palestinian Authority president urged the terrorist group to “stop the war of extermination in Gaza” and “hand over the American hostages.” The editors of the New York Sun comment:

Mr. Abbas has long been at odds with Hamas, which violently ousted his Fatah party from Gaza in 2007. The tone of today’s outburst, though, is new. Comparing rivals to canines, which Arabs consider dirty, is startling. Its motivation, though, was unrelated to the plight of the 59 remaining hostages, including 23 living ones. Instead, it was an attempt to use an opportune moment for reviving Abbas’s receding clout.

[W]hile Hamas’s popularity among Palestinians soared after its orgy of killing on October 7, 2023, it is now sinking. The terrorists are hoarding Gaza aid caches that Israel declines to replenish. As the war drags on, anti-Hamas protests rage across the Strip. Polls show that Hamas’s previously elevated support among West Bank Arabs is also down. Striking the iron while it’s hot, Abbas apparently longs to retake center stage. Can he?

Diminishing support for Hamas is yet to match the contempt Arabs feel toward Abbas himself. Hamas considers him irrelevant for what it calls “the resistance.”

[Meanwhile], Abbas is yet to condemn Hamas’s October 7 massacre. His recent announcement of ending alms for terror is a ruse.

Abbas, it’s worth noting, hasn’t saved all his epithets for Hamas. He also twice said of the Americans, “may their fathers be cursed.” Of course, after a long career of anti-Semitic incitement, Abbas can’t be expected to have a moral awakening. Nor is there much incentive for him to fake one. But, like the protests in Gaza, Abbas’s recent diatribe is a sign that Hamas is perceived as weak and that its stock is sinking.