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Why Iran Hawks Always Misunderstand Iran

They prefer to substitute their ideologically-driven caricature for real analysis, and that inevitably leads them to draw the wrong conclusions about policy.
trump pompeo bolton

The New York Times reported on Iran’s rejection of a claim from Mike Pompeo that they were open to negotiating on their missile development. I quoted from this report in the previous post. One section from the report that I didn’t include deserves some additional comment:

“For the administration to jump on this as a sign of ‘maximum pressure’ softening the Iranian position and opening up the door over negotiations over the missile program is at best a sign of desperation, and at worst a complete misreading of the dynamics in Iran,” Mr. Vaez said.

I agree that the Trump administration is desperate to show that “maximum pressure” is delivering any results other than escalating tensions and heightened risk of war, and I think they have become desperate because they have such a poor understanding of the Iranian government’s positions and how their policy has caused those positions to harden. Both the National Security Advisor and the Secretary of State are hard-line ideologues, and the administration’s outside allies likewise view Iran through a very distorted ideological lens. All of these people have an all-or-nothing view of diplomacy, they don’t recognize that Iran has legitimate interests of its own, and they have a very poor grasp of the country’s internal politics. They prefer to substitute their ideologically-driven caricature for real analysis, and that inevitably leads them to draw the wrong conclusions about policy. According to the simplistic “strangle into submission” approach that Iran hawks within and outside the administration have been advocating for years, Iran should be offering concessions in response to increasing pressure. The fact that Iran is pushing back and seeking to increase its own leverage in response to the pressure campaign doesn’t fit with what the ideologues expected and promised.

One reason that hard-line ideologues get things so wrong is that they refuse to see things from the other government’s side. As far as hard-liners are concerned, seeing things from another state’s perspective is tantamount to taking their side, and so they would prefer to not understand the other government’s position rather than be “tainted” by it. The ideologues also view any reduction in pressure as “weakness,” so they always call for more sanctions no matter what the Iranian government does. If the targeted state doesn’t make concessions, their answer is more pressure. If the targeted state does seem to offer concessions, their answer is more pressure. They are unable or unwilling to acknowledge that applying more pressure no matter what happens gives the targeted government no incentive to yield. Another reason that ideologues get things so wrong is that they can’t accept that there are some things that the Iranian government is never going to give up. Because they regard virtually everything the Iranian government does as “malign” and “illicit” whether it is or not, they can’t agree to “allow” Iran to do any of it. This is one reason why their demands are so unreasonable and maximalist, and it is also why those demands will always be rejected. The ideologues’ flaw is that they aren’t interested in understanding the other side, much less in finding a mutually agreeable compromise with them. They are interested only in compelling them to do what the ideologues want. The predictable result is resistance and a refusal to give up anything.

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