Our grand display of ignorance and stupidity in trying to deal with Middle East agreements is in full blown mode now. The career experts in the State Department have largely been tossed out, forced to resign or sidelined. So now we have some crooked political operatives/real estate goons with little to no knowledge of the culture, history of alliances/negotiations/conflicts etc. and how the Iranian government functions and is structured regarding policy and agreements trying to force things like it’s a tenant eviction case or a real estate foreclosure and they can’t figure out why it all keeps falling apart.
Never at any point have they been willing to consider that their whole approach to dealing with a Middle Eastern culture is the problem. As an example when they reach out to countries in the region to “help” they take whoever raises their hand, or sees a payoff, without regard to the long history politically and culturally between those countries. Western business goons are not the types to care or think it should be important. Therein lies the heart of the matter. The Western nations usually think negotiations should be done as they themselves negotiate between themselves. Never a thought to “When in Rome” so to speak.
As an example a buffoon like JD Vance would probably sit with the Iranian negotiators and say “Hey if we can make a deal you can all come to D.C. for the 4th of July and we’ll have a pig roast” and then wonder why that would be an offensive thing to offer. This is real life and it is not some TV tough guy show where we just bring more bombing and weapons. Only idiots fail to understand that these cultures have survived everything there is for a way longer time than the US has been around. They know world history and the history of conflicts around the world better than most people realize.
That knowledge of how to approach conflict, assess their foes and formulate strategy serves them well when dealing with lesser intellects like Vance, Crumb The First etc. To paraphrase the evil memory of Rumsfeld “The idiots don’t know what they don’t know.”
We are so stuck with the ignorant approach of believing that Iran “must” give in that the idiots at the wheel of foreign policy have gone to concession after concession and wondering why they have gotten virtually nothing in return. But the powers that be in this country refuse to consider the old saying about the definition of insanity.
We stopped being in a position of strength when we hooked ourselves to Netanyahu and his blood lust to bomb Iran again and again. We further degraded our position when we let Netanyahu continue on in Lebanon and to publicly make statements about not being bound etc. by any agreement between Iran and the US. The idiots showed the whole world that when it really comes down to it that Crumb The 1st is the servant of Netanyahu. That is not a position of strength and combined with cultural, political and historical ignorance it is a clear description of where we are.