Wie der Iran den Krieg beenden sollte, geschrieben vom ehemaligen iranischen Außenminister

Zarif seems to be writing this piece with the home audience in mind as it feels like it’s trying to thread a very difficult line: “we are great and we’ve done nothing wrong but also we should make a deal”, appealing to both Iranian and American audiences.

I struggle to give too much credit to the IRGC – not because I’m biased (though I am) but because I’m not certain I’ve seen a greater gulf in the tactical capability of a states armed services and the strategic wisdom of its leaders in history.

Trump is motivated entirely by narcissism, and Hegseth is a hobbyist warrior LARPing as a crusader with the temperament of an abusive alcoholic that just lost a custody hearing. Hegseth’s diminutive capacity for grand strategy and Trumps inability to see beyond his own vanity means there’s no scenario where the US does not escalate further if it feels the alternative is humiliation. Neither Trump or Hegseth are rational actors, and their capacity for cruelty should not be taken lightly.

That doesn’t mean Iran should simply roll over in order to assuage the frail egos of American politicians. But Iran, realistically, has another year of this before a possible change in American congressional leadership starts to bite. And that’s an extremely long time to endure an air campaign like this. We should assume infrastructure across the Gulf will be targeted, and the wellbeing of civilians across the entire region is going to plummet.

I understand why they believe they have the upper hand – the war is unpopular in the US and Trump has found himself completely isolated. Yet I fear the IRGC believes Trump will act in America’s interest and not in his personal interest, and his personal interest is such that he’s not remembered for starting a war he needs to retreat from in humiliation.

A case study in behavior I read today that I felt was relevant for this discussion. Without a unifying cause these nations at war will continue to stay adversarial to one another and we will not know peace.

Robbers Cave: A Field Study in Intergroup Conflict
Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma was the unlikely setting for one of the most classic field experiments in social psychology. In the summer of 1954, a small group of 11-year-old boys—all white middle-class youngsters, all strangers to one another—arrived at a 200-acre camp located in a densely wooded area of the park. The boys spent the first week or so hiking, swimming, boating, and camping out. After a while, they gave themselves a group name and printed it on their caps and T-shirts. At first, the boys thought they were the only ones at the camp. Soon, however, they discovered that there was a second group and that tournaments had been arranged between the two groups.

What these boys didn’t know was that they were participants in an elaborate study conducted by Muzafer Sherif and his colleagues (1961). Parents had given permission for their sons to take part in an experiment for a study of competitiveness and cooperation. The two groups were brought in separately, and only after each had formed its own culture was the other’s presence revealed. When the “Rattlers” and the “Eagles” finally met, they did so under tense circumstances, competing against each other in football, a treasure hunt, a tug-of-war, and other events. For each event, the winning team was awarded points; the tournament winner was promised a trophy, medals, and other prizes. Almost overnight, the groups turned into hostile antagonists, and their rivalry escalated into a full-scale war. Group flags were burned, cabins were ransacked, and a food fight that resembled a riot exploded in the mess hall. Keep in mind that the participants in this study were well-adjusted boys. Yet as Sherif (1966) noted, a naive observer would have thought the boys were “wicked, disturbed, and vicious” (p. 85).

Creating a monster through competition was easy. Restoring the peace, however, was not. First, the experimenters tried saying nice things to the Rattlers about the Eagles and vice versa, but the propaganda campaign did not work. Then the two groups were brought together under noncompetitive circumstances, but that didn’t help either. What did eventually work was the introduction of superordinate goals, mutual goals that could be achieved only through cooperation between the groups. For example, the experimenters arranged for the camp truck to break down, and both groups were needed to pull it up a steep hill. This strategy worked like a charm. By the end of camp, the two groups were so friendly that they insisted on traveling home on the same bus. In just three weeks, the Rattlers and Eagles experienced the kinds of changes that often take generations to unfold: They formed close-knit groups, went to war, and made peace.