We Won’t Be Fooled Again

Oh wait . . . (checks news about on again off again US-Iran ceasefire) . . . Damnit!

It is growing increasingly difficult to maintain the enthusiasm with which I greeted our long overdue punitive campaign against the ayatollahs ruling Iran. Because Internet search engines now function as propaganda aggregators, the only news you can find on the current state of play is written using distinctly feminized, fact-free argumentation.

We expect sneering contempt in headlines like “Iran makes a fool of Trump…” from Jen Psaki because she’s a female partisan hack from the progressive authoritarian wing of the Democratic Party. But search for Iran War news on Substack, and you will find dozens of articles written by men, often from Commonwealth countries, using emotion-laden, fact-free language. Excessive use of seething sarcasm is the mark of a weak mind and probably a very weak man.

As public discourse becomes more feminized, there has been a shift in language patterns. A massive study on the rise and fall of rationality in language found that male-dominated institutions and spaces will generally be much better at generating and managing feedback than female-dominated spaces. When people note that feminizing institutions and occupations tends to make them less functional, it is precisely because they are worse at generating and managing feedback and at generating and maintaining trust. Lower trust and the narrowing of acceptable feedback encourage safety through conformity.

This helps explain the dramatic rebound of our Department of War under Secretary Hegseth. Four years ago, the Pentagon was obviously a feminized institution caught up in DEI mania. Men with four-star rank said ridiculous things like “diversity is our strength”, “women can do anything a man can do,” or “We clearly recognize the threat from domestic extremists, particularly those who espouse White supremacy or White nationalist ideologies.” I spent 22 years in the military and never heard of anyone advocating for white supremacy or white nationalism. The idea that those ideologies were prevalent in the military at any time in the past 60 years was absurd.

When institutions stop thinking systematically and start thinking empathetically, they stop functioning as institutions. During the Biden administration, the Pentagon ceased to function as a healthy institution. Now all the services have met their recruiting and retention goals, which never happened under Biden. The military has chalked up an impressive string of unambiguous victories, yet SubStackers like Jeff Tiedrich continue to call Secretary Hegseth Piss-Drunk Pete.

Compare this fact-based article on the Iran punitive campaign by Green Beret Nap Time with this emotionally laden, fact-free, potty-mouth diatribe by Jonathan Larsen. One writes using logic and facts; the other doesn’t.

Mr. Nap Time may well have spent time in Kurdistan and have a good read on their capabilities, motivations, and feelings toward the Iranian regime. I’m one of the few Americans to have traversed the Dash T Margo with a Baluch Lashkar (War Party). In my case, they were in Afghan livery, but there was no question their loyalties lay with the Baluch people. They were disgusted with the Karzai regime in Kabul, antagonistic toward the Taliban (unless they were paid to smuggle drugs or arms for them), and they hated the Iranian regime.

Explaining my understanding of the US Department of State decision-making process to the Nimroz Province Governor Abdul Karim Brahui. The Brahui people are closely linked to the Baloch. The districts I worked in Nimroz Province were almost 100% Baloch/Brahui/

What I don’t feel good about is the current trajectory of the conflict in Iran. I was fully behind the punitive campaign, which has now devolved into an endless cycle of ceasefires and negotiations by two of President Trump’s cronies. The optics are all wrong. Jared Kushner is a lawyer/real estate developer married to Trump’s daughter. Steve Witkoff is a lawyer/real estate investor who has been one of President Trump’s business partners for over forty years. Even if both are ten times better than your average senior diplomat, it’s a self-inflicted wound to have them be the face of our negotiating effort.

The problem is that we need things from the Iranian regime that it refuses or cannot deliver. The stunning tactical performance of both the American and Israeli militaries is about to be made irrelevant. Even if we arrive at a negotiated settlement that checks most of our stated objectives on paper, any agreement that allows the Iranian regime to survive contains a fundamental structural flaw.

The IRGC is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, not the Iranian Guard Corps. They remain willing to machine-gun 30,000 of their own citizens for the crime of protesting the regime. Our ability to negotiate with them will always be limited by our inability to understand them. The art of the deal – we concede something, they concede something- has no relevance when dealing with authoritarians who are willing to murder their own citizens to maintain their grip on power.

Most of the Iranian people hate the current regime for good reasons. Let’s put that number at 70 or 80 million. The problem is that it leaves 10 or 20 million people who are pro-regime, and they have all the guns. That segment of the Iranian society should be our focus. Most joined the paramilitaries because it was a ticket to a better way of life. Iran is not a great power; it’s a weak power, so there are few options for upward mobility. If you’re trying to uproot the anti-US phenomenon that is ruling Iran, it’s deeper than you think. It has roots that you don’t understand. And 10 million loyalists with guns is a lot to overcome.

We have probably permanently destroyed the Supreme Leader position and, with it, the arbiter of all the factions in Iran, leaving them with a classic scorpions-in-a-bottle dilemma. We could have forced the regime to confront its failures and illegitimacy while it lacked money, water, food, or fuel. We should have continued to apply unremitting pressure, but instead called a ceasefire and adjourned to Pakistan?

Pakistan gave the Iranians their nuclear bomb making ability, and we think they will help negotiate with Iran to take that away? In which alternative universe does that make sense? Pakistan is not our friend; they proved that with their support of the Taliban.

The only thing we now have going for us is Islamic extremist stupidity. By closing the Straits of Hormuz and attacking its Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) neighbors, they forced the Gulf Arabs to either aid the United States or live with the ayatollahs pointing a loaded gun at their collective heads. Before this happened, the GCC was less than transparent about how much IRGC funding was held in its banks. Now they have become very compliant and are willing to help the US freeze all Iran’s bank accounts.

If our negotiators don’t give the regime a 300 billion reconstruction fund, we could see the ayatollahs and IRGC driven from power. But if we, once again, play Charlie Brown to Iran’s Lucy, they will pull the football at the last minute and we, once again, will look like total idiots. President Trump will pay a steep price for that failure during his remaining time in Washington DC. We all could pay a steeper price if the democrats ride this clown show into power. You can pray for the best outcome, but it is clear it’s time to anticipate the worst.