At this point in time no other country should take the U.S. seriously. Right now, we are not a serious country. We are a joke because we have fools running the entire show.
Yup. The USA has no one in the White House apparatus with any coherent plan. For anything. I guess the plan might be tear it all down. Outsource the profit hubs to the billionaires and let the skeleton that is left lie in rot. Part of it is we never finished the Civil War. Another part is the haves have never felt the have nots deserved the basics to live their lives. As the rest of the world figures out how to untangle itself from the USA, the USA factions will eat each other’s faces.
Do you know how Hitler's third Reich compared with Trump's government's decoherence? I'm hoping Trump has it worse so his regime collapses sooner. Plus there's no Marshall Plan awaiting us
This is a brilliant analysis of the current state of U.S. negotiations in any sphere you want to talk about, be it conflict, trade, governance etc. No one can negotiate in confidence with the U.S. on anything as long as this is the case. The worst current example of course is Iran, but you can apply this problem to anything the current administration does. Statecraft has been replaced by gullibility, grievance and grift.
Thanks for putting forth this perspective.
How will sanity ever be restored after such a destructive and foolish chapter in U.S. history?
As usual, the mainstream media adopts the official framing without the least awareness that it’s pure propaganda. Or is that awareness just bad for business?
True, but if you view much of the coverage on CNN or Fox, or even read coverage in NYT or the WSJ much of their work is stenographic in nature. They value finding out what the players say first and being invited into the press room to ask their questions. That kind of work is faster and better for TV than long deeply-researched investigative reporting. Moreover I think many of them have absorbed the idea that the truth is in what people say is happening now rather than in the bottom of a long report. So yeah they won't get the truth from the spox, especially these, but they still see that chance to ask a question as doing their job.
The entire US national security bureaucracy is paralyzed, sitting on its hands, waiting for direction from the next Truth Social post. They are alternately aggressively doing nothing to avoid contradicting a future post and running around frantically trying to justify compliance with prior posts. Policy, as conventionally understood, no longer exists. It won't be recreated for the duration of this administration.
On 12 September 2001 I said “if the USA is a serious country they will put both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan back in their boxes”. They remained unboxed.
I have not thought of the USA as a fully serious country since.
Note: I have spent large chunks of my childhood then adult life living in the USA and have known many senior members of the US “national security establishment”. (Some have even agreed with me about this.)
Beautiful articulation of what I’ve been feeling about this government for some time. The only thing it doesn’t cover that I think is crucial to understanding both the present and future is the utter collapse of coherent political opposition, especially regarding this pathetic excuse for foreign policy. Part of it is the age problem referenced by the Klippenstein post you shared earlier. But it runs a lot deeper. I’d be interested in your or one of your sharp commentarian’s analysis.
On the issue of Iran specifically, do you think any of them actually *want* a coherent position?
Hegseth seems to want a glorious crusade and maximum blood while Rubio wants normalcy, Netanyahu (who effectively sets US policy it seems) wants more license, and Vance just wants to be as far away from the fallout as possible. Yes this erratic behavior goes beyond this issue to all things but on this one in particular it feels like the principals are not just disorganized but at each others' throats. I feel like on this issue in particular they would not be coherent even if the management structure were clear because they just refuse to be.
Fear not: Australia remains your best little pal and fully committed to the underwriting of the US defence industry. Or is it now the warrior manufactory? Whatever, on present estimates it will take delivery of its 1990's-designed submarines some time after 2040, though construction times are lengthening, so it might be a bit longer.
The harder question is, who is calling the shots on “our” side? King-president djt or bib? If jdv needed to call bibi in the middle of his futile 21 hours talkie, its not hard for the Iranians to reallize the current admin has a maxed out position but could not agree to the details of such, when attending negotiation there will always be a tango, back and forth but it seems to be the case where djt does not make the final decision, or least to say sane enough to be able to put forward a position.
This is a very satisfying take and it would make perfect sense except for a few things:
1) Before the Iranian negotiators had even returned from Pakistan, the IRGC was publicly excoriating Ghalibaf & co for “shaking hands with the Supreme Leader’s killers before he’d even been buried”.
2) The foreign minister tweeted days later that the Straight was “completely open” only for the regime-affiliated Fars news agency to publish word that this tweet was “unexpected”.
3) It remains unclear whether the Supreme Leader is in control or in a coma or somewhere in between.
4) The United States government has been negotiating with Iran’s for every bit as long as they’ve been negotiating with the U.S. Trump himself has a decade of direct experience with them as well. I’m not a fan personally, but that’s objectively true.
5) The insight gleaned from all these years - across administrations - is that the Iranians love to drag out negotiations as a play for time and regularly seek to renegotiate points that had been agreed the previous day.
6) Much of the leverage for either side in any negotiation comes from the other side being more eager to make a deal. Walking away signals the opposite of desperation and it’s perhaps true that both were inclined to project their willingness to walk. We don’t actually know. It seems reasonable to assume that both sides want a deal and that neither wants to look too eager for it.
One conclusion to draw is that the U.S. government has no idea what its bottom lines are.
Another is that Iran doesn’t have an authority capable of saying what is acceptable.
What is unquestionably true is that neither side holds all the cards, neither wants to look weak, neither trusts the other, and neither is particularly adept at allowing counterparts to save face.
I realize it’s quite fashionable right now to lift up the Iranian regime as strategic masters who know exactly what they’re doing and the U.S. government as a bunch of incompetents with no clue what they’re doing. And as somebody who voted against Trump, supported his impeachments, and opposes the way he went to war here, half of that might hold some emotional or intuitive appeal. The problem is the narrative isn’t as simple and neat as as all that.
And in the timeline you describe to as evidence that Iran knows what it’s doing, it can also be said the regime has achieved *none* of what they’ve set out to *strategically* over all this time. Whether through negotiation or other means, they have failed. They have not united the Muslim world behind their leadership. They achieved the exact opposite. They did not deter foreign aggression as their strategy sought to do. They achieved the exact opposite. They misread what they could get away with every bit as much as the Trump administration has. They’ve spent billions and decades negotiating now on a nuclear program (instead of fixing the water crisis in Tehran or the long running crisis in their economy) and they have absolute nothing to show for their acumen or efforts but rubble. The sanctions remain. The currency has collapsed. The economy has shrunk by half in 15 years. Their own people want them dead. And they’re still right back where they started twenty years ago.
The ground level truth is the US wants to prevent a nuclear armed Iran and it knows that. None of us know what’s going on inside the room. It’s guesswork at best.
With the greatest respect, one would hope your memos for senior government officials were more balanced objective fact and less certitude based on supposition and subjective narrative.
At this point in time no other country should take the U.S. seriously. Right now, we are not a serious country. We are a joke because we have fools running the entire show.
Yup. The USA has no one in the White House apparatus with any coherent plan. For anything. I guess the plan might be tear it all down. Outsource the profit hubs to the billionaires and let the skeleton that is left lie in rot. Part of it is we never finished the Civil War. Another part is the haves have never felt the have nots deserved the basics to live their lives. As the rest of the world figures out how to untangle itself from the USA, the USA factions will eat each other’s faces.
Do you know how Hitler's third Reich compared with Trump's government's decoherence? I'm hoping Trump has it worse so his regime collapses sooner. Plus there's no Marshall Plan awaiting us
This is a brilliant analysis of the current state of U.S. negotiations in any sphere you want to talk about, be it conflict, trade, governance etc. No one can negotiate in confidence with the U.S. on anything as long as this is the case. The worst current example of course is Iran, but you can apply this problem to anything the current administration does. Statecraft has been replaced by gullibility, grievance and grift.
Thanks for putting forth this perspective.
How will sanity ever be restored after such a destructive and foolish chapter in U.S. history?
As usual, the mainstream media adopts the official framing without the least awareness that it’s pure propaganda. Or is that awareness just bad for business?
Its certainly bad for access which many of them prize above all else.
True. But why? Having access to Press Secretary Pebble Nose is never going to reveal anything that resembles the truth.
True, but if you view much of the coverage on CNN or Fox, or even read coverage in NYT or the WSJ much of their work is stenographic in nature. They value finding out what the players say first and being invited into the press room to ask their questions. That kind of work is faster and better for TV than long deeply-researched investigative reporting. Moreover I think many of them have absorbed the idea that the truth is in what people say is happening now rather than in the bottom of a long report. So yeah they won't get the truth from the spox, especially these, but they still see that chance to ask a question as doing their job.
The entire US national security bureaucracy is paralyzed, sitting on its hands, waiting for direction from the next Truth Social post. They are alternately aggressively doing nothing to avoid contradicting a future post and running around frantically trying to justify compliance with prior posts. Policy, as conventionally understood, no longer exists. It won't be recreated for the duration of this administration.
On 12 September 2001 I said “if the USA is a serious country they will put both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan back in their boxes”. They remained unboxed.
I have not thought of the USA as a fully serious country since.
Note: I have spent large chunks of my childhood then adult life living in the USA and have known many senior members of the US “national security establishment”. (Some have even agreed with me about this.)
Beautiful articulation of what I’ve been feeling about this government for some time. The only thing it doesn’t cover that I think is crucial to understanding both the present and future is the utter collapse of coherent political opposition, especially regarding this pathetic excuse for foreign policy. Part of it is the age problem referenced by the Klippenstein post you shared earlier. But it runs a lot deeper. I’d be interested in your or one of your sharp commentarian’s analysis.
Well stated! More facts that Trump and his"team" are totally incompetent, to the detriment of our country, Democaracy, military, and economy.
The state was replaced by a corrupted church!
On the issue of Iran specifically, do you think any of them actually *want* a coherent position?
Hegseth seems to want a glorious crusade and maximum blood while Rubio wants normalcy, Netanyahu (who effectively sets US policy it seems) wants more license, and Vance just wants to be as far away from the fallout as possible. Yes this erratic behavior goes beyond this issue to all things but on this one in particular it feels like the principals are not just disorganized but at each others' throats. I feel like on this issue in particular they would not be coherent even if the management structure were clear because they just refuse to be.
Fear not: Australia remains your best little pal and fully committed to the underwriting of the US defence industry. Or is it now the warrior manufactory? Whatever, on present estimates it will take delivery of its 1990's-designed submarines some time after 2040, though construction times are lengthening, so it might be a bit longer.
There are no peace talks, a bit of cocaine and rape though….most likely.
The harder question is, who is calling the shots on “our” side? King-president djt or bib? If jdv needed to call bibi in the middle of his futile 21 hours talkie, its not hard for the Iranians to reallize the current admin has a maxed out position but could not agree to the details of such, when attending negotiation there will always be a tango, back and forth but it seems to be the case where djt does not make the final decision, or least to say sane enough to be able to put forward a position.
This is a very satisfying take and it would make perfect sense except for a few things:
1) Before the Iranian negotiators had even returned from Pakistan, the IRGC was publicly excoriating Ghalibaf & co for “shaking hands with the Supreme Leader’s killers before he’d even been buried”.
2) The foreign minister tweeted days later that the Straight was “completely open” only for the regime-affiliated Fars news agency to publish word that this tweet was “unexpected”.
3) It remains unclear whether the Supreme Leader is in control or in a coma or somewhere in between.
4) The United States government has been negotiating with Iran’s for every bit as long as they’ve been negotiating with the U.S. Trump himself has a decade of direct experience with them as well. I’m not a fan personally, but that’s objectively true.
5) The insight gleaned from all these years - across administrations - is that the Iranians love to drag out negotiations as a play for time and regularly seek to renegotiate points that had been agreed the previous day.
6) Much of the leverage for either side in any negotiation comes from the other side being more eager to make a deal. Walking away signals the opposite of desperation and it’s perhaps true that both were inclined to project their willingness to walk. We don’t actually know. It seems reasonable to assume that both sides want a deal and that neither wants to look too eager for it.
One conclusion to draw is that the U.S. government has no idea what its bottom lines are.
Another is that Iran doesn’t have an authority capable of saying what is acceptable.
What is unquestionably true is that neither side holds all the cards, neither wants to look weak, neither trusts the other, and neither is particularly adept at allowing counterparts to save face.
I realize it’s quite fashionable right now to lift up the Iranian regime as strategic masters who know exactly what they’re doing and the U.S. government as a bunch of incompetents with no clue what they’re doing. And as somebody who voted against Trump, supported his impeachments, and opposes the way he went to war here, half of that might hold some emotional or intuitive appeal. The problem is the narrative isn’t as simple and neat as as all that.
And in the timeline you describe to as evidence that Iran knows what it’s doing, it can also be said the regime has achieved *none* of what they’ve set out to *strategically* over all this time. Whether through negotiation or other means, they have failed. They have not united the Muslim world behind their leadership. They achieved the exact opposite. They did not deter foreign aggression as their strategy sought to do. They achieved the exact opposite. They misread what they could get away with every bit as much as the Trump administration has. They’ve spent billions and decades negotiating now on a nuclear program (instead of fixing the water crisis in Tehran or the long running crisis in their economy) and they have absolute nothing to show for their acumen or efforts but rubble. The sanctions remain. The currency has collapsed. The economy has shrunk by half in 15 years. Their own people want them dead. And they’re still right back where they started twenty years ago.
The ground level truth is the US wants to prevent a nuclear armed Iran and it knows that. None of us know what’s going on inside the room. It’s guesswork at best.
With the greatest respect, one would hope your memos for senior government officials were more balanced objective fact and less certitude based on supposition and subjective narrative.
I like your writing and thinking. However, I am confused by your last line.