Diplomacy As Pop-Psychology

May 20, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Iran 

Noah Pollack at Commentary’s Contentions blog has a beef with those grand bargainers in Middle East policy. More specifically, Flynt Leverett a former member of the National Security Council who believes that any cooperation with Israel with hurt Iran’s sensibilities:

Of course, Leverett’s objection to the working group cannot be reconciled with the failure over the past eight years of the EU-3, the IAEA, the UN Security Council, and the P5+1 to get anywhere with Iran, and none of those negotiations were adulterated by sinister Zionist meddling. In Leverett’s world, the Iranians, practitioners of an ancient and sophisticated culture of negotiation and brinkmanship, are little more than emotionally unstable children whose sensibilities must be delicately appeased. This is diplomacy as pop-psychology, and it serves the vital task of fabricating a narrative in which our side is to blame for Iran’s belligerence. Now Leverett has his excuse.

It’s such a paradox — and naive for internationalists like Leverett to purvey such an opinion. Afterall — don’t others like like him believe that any effort at reconciliation has to include all parties?

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