Wishful Thinking About Iran

The folks at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), are under the impression all will be well, regarding Iran's nuke program.  Here's their assessment in the End Game article.

Comrade Karla rolled-in on this quote:

“Third, no matter what Iran's response, negotiations are always beneficial. If successful, they can lead to diplomatic breakthroughs; and even if they aren't, they can provide the U.S. with important information about Iranian intentions.”

I’m not really sure about the above quote. Don’t these people read history?


To which, another friend provided this insightful commentary into the State Department's mindset:

That quote...from the article hits the mentality at State absolutely on the head - the guiding principle in the organization is not to ever actually accomplish anything, but to keep the process moving. And, it constantly amazes, me, too, because almost all FSOs really have read a lot of history and do know quite a bit about the local background and cultures of the countries they're stationed in. I think it all comes down to an organizational culture - very much akin to that of Oceania in 1984 - that automatically prevents people from reaching any sort of conclusion that would be anti-thetical to received dogma. In the case of Iran, if we ever gave up on negotiations and diplomacy we might have to finally accept that there are incorrigibly bad actors in the world. But, that conclusion would be contradictory to the mindset that everyone can be reasoned with and that mutually agreeable outcomes are always achievable.



And, unfortunately, I don't think that there's any possibility of any change in the organizational culture, so basically this is the sort of foreign policy apparatus the U.S. is going to be stuck with for a long time to come. Which in turn is why I think it better that the U.S. minimize its footprint overseas, because since we are essentially destined to have a foreign policy not rooted in reality, any foreign intercourse we have is bound to not work out.