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Notes -
I do agree with all of this, but this is a much more subtle and interesting observation than "Trump dumb."
Haven't most US presidents in recent history, going back at least to Clinton, slapped tariffs on EU countries?
I think the reality is a bit more nuanced than that; the US attacked Iran in the 1980s (apparently...not at the height of their powers?) and during the 2000s the US avoided a direct attack, but acted against Iran via covert means and on one occasion raided an Iranian consulate.
Anyway, I've been critical of the administration's messaging on here, and pointed out failure modes of pursuing this military course of action. I'm not convinced it's the best! It could be really bad! There are a lot of questions I have and the answers to them are fundamentally non-public, so I have to wait and see.
But if you go through my recent comments, you'll see me defending things the Iranians have done as being intelligent - even though the Iranian government does stuff like "get caught with evidence of uranium enrichment and suggest that they've been framed" (which, idk, I suppose is not impossible).
That's in part because I don't think modeling people (particularly people with more resources and information than you) as dumb is a good first course of action. I tend to think it's overly reductive, unless there's very specific reasons to think that is what is at play. This isn't to say I think it's wrong to be critical but I think those are two different things.
See, "asking for insane things up front is a repeated Trump strategy, but one that doesn't pay off" is a very interesting theory, and I would AAQC a top-level post that made that case persuasively through data and/or comparative successes by other US presidents.
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