Letter in Turkish Paper Calls Iranian Regime Erratic, Full of Empty Suits!
An opinion letter by A. Craig Copetas published in Turkiye Today calls the Iranian regime a phantom! Here is an excerpt:
Iran is a theology. It is no longer a country. Not in the way diplomats mean the word. Not in the bureaucratic sense that produces signatures, ministries, chains of command, and solemn communiques printed on heavy paper before disappearing into filing cabinets.
What remains of Iran is something stranger: a prayer house where the faithful still answer a call no one can command.
MAGA still behaves as though there’s a political switchboard secreted in Tehran, even after six destructive months of war. They imagine some paneled room where a weary official picks up the telephone, listens gravely, and relays instructions down an orderly ladder of command. That fantasy died before the ink on the latest memorandum of understanding had dried. The ceasefire was less a peace than an intermission between explosions.
American officials now concede what was obvious from the opening act: the agreement never had a pulse worth checking. Ironically, the reason was not military failure but military success. The strikes shattered the machinery that was supposed to make diplomacy possible. You cannot negotiate with an organization after you've demolished the office where the negotiations are supposed to be approved.
Political scientists spend careers asking Robert Dahl's famous question: "Who governs?" In today's Iran, the answer is comic in its emptiness: Nobody knows! Perhaps not even the people carrying the titles.
The civilian leadership resembles survivors wandering through the smoking remains of a railway station after the schedules have burned. Presidents, speakers, ministers—everybody still wears the costume of authority, but the authority itself has slipped away like water through cracked concrete.
One faction plots assassinations while another schedules diplomatic meetings. One hand reaches for the olive branch while the other loads another missile. Analysts describe this as a contradiction. It looks more like fragmentation.
Empty suits and blown stages
President Donald Trump keeps sending ill-educated negotiators to meet officials who may possess elegant offices, polished talking points, and perfectly tailored suits—but none of those things constitute power. They can promise almost anything because they control almost nothing. It is diplomacy performed on a theatrical stage whose backstage has already been blown apart.
Meanwhile, the Revolutionary Guards continue operating according to a logic entirely their own. Their command structure, decentralized long before the bombs fell, survives differently from the civilian institutions surrounding it. The civilian faces become interpreters rather than decision-makers, translating events they neither ordered nor prevented.
The temptation in every capital is to believe there must be "moderates" somewhere. Somewhere behind the curtains sits a reasonable technocrat waiting patiently for the extremists to tire themselves out. It is a comforting myth because it preserves the idea that every conflict can eventually be reduced to coffee, conference tables, and mutually acceptable language.
Reality is much less civilized.
The illusion of authority
Power in revolutionary systems has always been a slippery substance. Titles matter until they don't. Institutions exist until men with rifles decide they no longer do. Constitutions become decorative literature whenever armed organizations discover they can write their own amendments in smoke.
That’s why the post-strike behavior appears so erratic. The contradiction isn't necessarily evidence of strategy. It may simply be evidence that no conductor is standing before the orchestra anymore. The brass section is playing one anthem and the percussion another, while a bunch of guys backstage are auctioning off the violins.
...
You can read the complete letter here.
Negotiating with ghosts
If the governing assumption is correct—that Iran's central authority has fractured beyond practical coherence—then the old diplomatic playbook belongs in a museum beside rotary telephones and treaties negotiated by plump gentlemen in waistcoats.
Continuing to bargain with officials who cannot reliably command the institutions they represent is mistaking ceremony for substance.
Washington is in the grip of analysis paralysis. Continue negotiations despite mounting evidence that the negotiators lack the power to enforce them. Escalate economic pressure and attempt to constrict the financial arteries feeding the remaining centers of force. Or resume military operations in the belief that unfinished campaigns rarely become easier with time....
You can read the complete letter here.
Related to Turkey:
- Erdogan's Turkey Snubs Ayatollahs: Iranian Leaders Must Learn Their Lessons!
- Iranian Analyst Lashes out at Russia, Azerbaijan for Collusion against Iran and Armenia
- 2023 Will be Celebrated as the Year of Rumi in Turkey
- Turkish-Born Muslim Scientist, Awarded in Iran, Developed Pfizer’s COVID-19 Vaccine
- Netanyahu and Erdogan in Unlikely Alliance Against Iran and Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh?
- Fastest Iranian Girl, in Hijab, Beats Tall Runners, Wins Gold in Istanbul Indoor Cup
- You May Soon Print Your Kidney and Heart! Turkish German Scientist Creates Transparent Human Organs With 3D Printers
- Cool Rock and Roll Muslim Imam Disciplined in Turkey
- Why was Bijan Kian, Iranian American Businessman and Friend of Queen Farah Diba, Indicted?
- 2500 Year Old Persian Palace Excavated in Northern Turkey
- The mass migration of world millionaires, to where?
- In Pictures: Shepherd in Turkish highlands checks news on solar-powered phone
- Trump's deal with the mysterious Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab
- Nowruz and Lavash Bread Added by UNESCO to List of Cultural Heritage of Humanity
- Rivalry after diplomacy: US, Iran compete for World Wrestling Championship in Las Vegas
Related to Trump:
- Desperate or Brazen? Iranian Regime Reveals Plot to Assassinate Barron Trump
- Who is Winning the Clock? Miscalculations in Iran-US War
- Does the US-Iran Deal Presage a New World Economic Order?
- What Did Rubio Tell the US Congress about Iran?
- Iranian American Mother and Daughter may be Deported after False Allegations by Laura Loomer
- Weekly Videos: Post-War Tehran Bazaar, Elon Musk and Melania Trump's Surgeries
- Post-War Iran: Like Turkey or North Korea? It All Depends on Trump's Wisdom
- Barrack Says Israel has More Chapters Left for Hezbollah and Iran!
- Trump Issues Iran a Warning but also an Open Invitation to Join Regional Peace Accord
- Did Charlie Kirk Oppose Trump on Attacking Iran?
- What's Next? Trump and Iranian Leader Fully Disagree on Terms of a Deal
- Commentators: US and Iran are Both Just Buying Time?
- Columbia Student Mohsen Mahdawi Arrested Just for Supporting Palestine?
- Is Trump Following the Atlantic Council's Advice on Family Members of Iranian Officials?
- Columbia Professor and US Army Colonel Discuss Possible US Attack on Iran
