This is a great read. If any of you have access to ‘Trump or JD, please forward this to them as it may help with the “negotiations” !! Nancy
This is a must-read document. It explains the futility of using the MOU as a means to change the IRGC’s strategy of destroying Israel and the U.S.
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Call Them People Not Like Us
Mar 12, 2026
November 2013, I was listening to an NPR interview of State Department Ambassador John Limbert as he talked about his date with history. He was the man who’d been sent to meet Mohammad‑Ali Najafi, the Head of Iran’s organization for cultural heritage at the United Nations in New York, and hand over a priceless artifact known as the Silver Griffin. This was a big deal. It had been seized by US Customs a decade earlier, and the refusal on the part of the US government to repatriate it was emblematic of our then poor relations with the Islamic Republic. With unconcealed pride, Mr. Limbert described how moved with emotion Mr. Najifi was to receive the gift, and how this goodwill gesture opened the door to meaningful dialogue. In the trademark way all NPR interviewers mete out understated but impactful validation while sounding oh-so thoughtful and really-really smart, his hostess fell short of proclaiming this coup as equal to Sadat going to Jerusalem, but only barely.
I saw things differently.
This retired public servant believed and believes that if Mr. Limbert was sincere in his assessment of Najifi’s reaction, he was played for a fool. I have my reasons. The good ambassador stated in the interview that, subsequent to the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979, personal contact between US State Department personnel and their Iranian counterparts had been basically non-existent. I had just retired from my in-the-weeds federal career where, among other things, I worked undercover as an international arms dealer – for about fifteen years.
As you might guess, many of my clients were from the Middle East, and a healthy fraction of those were Persians. I took my job seriously. I studied the history of Iran. I read the Koran. I lived abroad for five years, and traveled extensively in what we call Central Asia. I enjoyed some success, the way such things are measured. As pertains specifically to Iran, I had two big takeaways: (1) When negotiating with Persians, we Americans are metaphorically wrestling an opponent way above our weight class. Persians are black belts in the art of charm and persuasion. (2) When an American believes he truly understands the Persian mind, he’s making colossal mistake. Work with them long enough, and one is certain to encounter behavior that, to our way of thinking, makes no sense whatsoever. Their logic is not our logic.
I’m not contending that any contest with Iran is doomed to fail. On the contrary, I succeeded. But I did so armed with the knowledge that my adversary came to the table with strengths I did not possess, and I knew to a certainty that predicting his behavior with absolute confidence was a fool’s errand.
There is a popular expression in American English that I believe exists in no other language: ‘What you see is what you get.’ In matters of business and diplomacy, Americans can be jarringly direct. We might be industrial and technology heavyweights, but, culturally, we are conspicuously uncomplicated. We are often regarded as clueless and insensitive. This is especially true for those monolingual Americans who are certain they are anything but, as if arriving with unearned confidence was the same as actual empathy and understanding.
Could we be otherwise? For well over a century, America was peopled by Europe’s trash can – those tired, poor, huddled and unwashed masses, yearning to breathe free. A disparate collection of nationalities, many illiterate in their native languages, came and plowed virgin land, filled factories, and stampeded to gold fields – realizing lifestyles that hardly lent themselves to genteel niceties.
Western civilization had a great start with Athens and Rome, but we suffered a five hundred year stutter-step with the Dark Ages. While our forebears were dressing in rags and living in filth, Persian society (like the rest of the Middle East) was building on and refining its social heritage. Farsi speakers (Iranians) employ a rigid language structure that goes way beyond formal and informal methods to articulate the pronoun ‘you’. Depending on the status dynamic in play, different verb forms are employed, honorific titles matter, and, when showing respect, they employ indirect forms of expression that, in America, would be crudely deemed comic parody. We, on the other hand, routinely initiate interactions in a commercial venue with “I want” or “give me,” never even considering it might be appropriate to acknowledge the other party’s humanity with a simple greeting.
We design airplanes and computers. Our scientists will cure cancer. Socially, however, we’re still lagging. Our children are oblivious (and getting worse) when it comes to showing respect for elders. We always excelled at vulgarity, which is weirdly gaining ground. That is not the way of the entire world.
All over the Middle East, the culture of the bazar is evident. In the lands of the Bible, theatrical haggling is more than an art. For the sons of Persia, it is life itself. When one negotiates with an Iranian, one is up against millennia of uninterrupted refined social evolution. Case in point: in 2023, the Biden administration worked out a prisoner release agreement, wherein the Iranians released five Americans who had been wrongfully arrested in Iran, and the US released five Iranian nationals imprisoned in the US – along with freeing up $6 billion in frozen Iranian oil revenue held in South Korean banks, as well as allowing another $10 billion to be paid to Iran by Iraq for electricity. Presumably, but not confirmed, Secretary of State Blinken was allowed to keep his underwear.
I said I read the Koran. I did that along with some suras and hadiths, but I don’t pretend to understand Islam. The Koran was reportedly revealed to Mohammed in Arabic, the language of revelation. I speak a few languages, and Arabic isn’t one of them. I do, however, know it to be an ancient tongue, from a completely different linguistic tradition than English, and translations spanning that kind of a chasm are more than problematic. Nuance is the hardest thing to translate, and when interpreting the divine, or what’s purported to be divine, nuance matters.
I am constantly amazed at how many of our countrymen and women, who have never so much as stepped inside a mosque, are completely unabashed about declaring what true Islam is or isn’t. There are Arabic-speaking scholars who dedicate their lives to the Koran, and they still argue with each other about what it means. A most painful thing for me is listening to some pretentious intellectual thoughtfully pronounce that the Iranians are predominantly Shiite, whereas the majority of the Muslim world is Sunni. Yes, the Shia-Sunni split goes back to the earliest days of Islam, and centers on a disagreement regarding succession to leadership following the death of Mohammed. Knowing that doesn’t mean one understands anything. Islam is fractured like a car window that just met a brick. It’s not just complicated, it’s über-complicated. I’m not positing that attempting to expand one’s knowledge base is a waste of time. Twelvers are real, and there’s a movement that wants to establish a worldwide caliphate. I’m merely counselling that one will be well served to approach the cultural divide with humility.
The Persians have been a single nation for thousands of years. They’ve had time to assemble their own worldview. Whereas European royalty generally transferred power to the oldest legitimate male child, Persian dynasties starting in the Parthian Era (247-224 BC), and continuing into the 20th Century AD, involved secluded harems of multiple wives competing to produce the next heir. A more perfect recipe for intrigue, murder, and betrayal there is not. For millennia, the survivors refined the dark arts of manipulation and mendacity through natural selection. It happened on occasion, that an alpha son would carpe diem his way to the throne through patricide. Knowing these schemes were always percolating, the shah had an unavoidable conundrum. He wanted to live into old age, but those princes whom he needed to guarantee the survival of his bloodline posed an inconvenient threat. Imprisoning them could be problematic, and banishing them put them dangerously out of sight. Blinding them, however, could still yield grandsons in the palace without the inconvenience of having to always watch his back. Thus, were imprinted upon the Persian psyche two traits for which modern Iranians are duly famous: brutal ruthlessness married to a near superhuman capacity to feign loyalty and affection while plotting murderous betrayal.
The man credited with establishing Tehran as the nation’s capital was Agha Mohammed Khan. He was a contemporary of George Washington, which is precisely where the similarity ends. The son of a chieftain, he was captured by his father’s rival and castrated. Following that, he’d been captured by Iran’s overlord, Karim Khan Zand, who kept him as a prisoner. Following Zand’s death, he escaped and set about raising his own army to conquer and pillage, which he did with abandon. When the contest for national dominance came down to Agha and his last remaining rival, Lotf Ali Khan, he defeated Lotf Khan by inviting him to a parlay under a truce, and then shamelessly betraying him. Agha had Lotf blinded, castrated, and gang-raped by his praetorian guard. He then had Lotf continuously tortured over the next weeks until he expired. Then things got ugly. Seeing as Lotf had been residing in the city of Kerman, Agha ordered that all its women and children be rounded up and pressed into slavery. The ten thousand adult males were then blinded, their twenty thousand freshly-plucked eyeballs brought to the palace in baskets and dumped on the floor so the father of his country could wade in the eyes of his enemies. His bronze statue still stands in the center of Tehran today.
Ruthless cruelty is a feature, not a bug. The late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei recently directed the murder of thousands of unarmed demonstrators. He may yet get a statue himself.
Another trait that I’ve observed among Muslims all over the Middle East is a Medieval sense of honor. When their honor is deemed to be at stake, they are capable of acting in ways that appear contrary to their best interests.
Possibly the best summary of the Persian psyche can be found in an official State Department cable authored by former US Ambassador Bruce Laingen, subject line: Thoughts on the Iranian Character. It is worth reading in its entirety. Here are some excerpts:
“… Perhaps the single dominant aspect of the Persian psyche is an overriding egoism. Its antecedents lie in the long Iranian history of instability and insecurity which put a premium on self-preservation. The practical effect of it is an almost total Persian preoccupation with self and leaves little room for understanding points of view other than one’s own. … The reverse of this particular psychological coin, and having the same historical roots as Persian egoism, is a pervasive unease about the nature of the world in which one lives. The Persian experience has been that nothing is permanent and it is commonly perceived that hostile forces abound. In such an environment each individual must be constantly alert for opportunities to protect himself against the malevolent forces that would otherwise be his undoing. He is obviously justified in using almost any means available to exploit such opportunities. … Persians have an aversion to accepting responsibility for their actions. … Persians are masters of ambiguity. … Their emotions can be intense and unpredictable. … They are patient, persistent, and adept at exploiting the weaknesses of their opponents. … (and finally) cultivation of good will for good will’s sake is a waste of effort.”
Yes, I believe Mohammed Ali Najifi was beside himself with glee when he received the Silver Griffin, and not because he needed another shiny doorstop.
I said I read the Koran. I did that along with some suras and hadiths, but I don’t pretend to understand Islam. The Koran was reportedly revealed to Mohammed in Arabic, the language of revelation. I speak a few languages, and Arabic isn’t one of them. I do, however, know it to be an ancient tongue, from a completely different linguistic tradition than English, and translations spanning that kind of a chasm are more than problematic. Nuance is the hardest thing to translate, and when interpreting the divine, or what’s purported to be divine, nuance matters.
I am constantly amazed at how many of our countrymen and women, who have never so much as stepped inside a mosque, are completely unabashed about declaring what true Islam is or isn’t. There are Arabic-speaking scholars who dedicate their lives to the Koran, and they still argue with each other about what it means. A most painful thing for me is listening to some pretentious intellectual thoughtfully pronounce that the Iranians are predominantly Shiite, whereas the majority of the Muslim world is Sunni. Yes, the Shia-Sunni split goes back to the earliest days of Islam, and centers on a disagreement regarding succession to leadership following the death of Mohammed. Knowing that doesn’t mean one understands anything. Islam is fractured like a car window that just met a brick. It’s not just complicated, it’s über-complicated. I’m not positing that attempting to expand one’s knowledge base is a waste of time. Twelvers are real, and there’s a movement that wants to establish a worldwide caliphate. I’m merely counselling that one will be well served to approach the cultural divide with humility.
The Persians have been a single nation for thousands of years. They’ve had time to assemble their own worldview. Whereas European royalty generally transferred power to the oldest legitimate male child, Persian dynasties starting in the Parthian Era (247-224 BC), and continuing into the 20th Century AD, involved secluded harems of multiple wives competing to produce the next heir. A more perfect recipe for intrigue, murder, and betrayal there is not. For millennia, the survivors refined the dark arts of manipulation and mendacity through natural selection. It happened on occasion, that an alpha son would carpe diem his way to the throne through patricide. Knowing these schemes were always percolating, the shah had an unavoidable conundrum. He wanted to live into old age, but those princes whom he needed to guarantee the survival of his bloodline posed an inconvenient threat. Imprisoning them could be problematic, and banishing them put them dangerously out of sight. Blinding them, however, could still yield grandsons in the palace without the inconvenience of having to always watch his back. Thus, were imprinted upon the Persian psyche two traits for which modern Iranians are duly famous: brutal ruthlessness married to a near superhuman capacity to feign loyalty and affection while plotting murderous betrayal.
The man credited with establishing Tehran as the nation’s capital was Agha Mohammed Khan. He was a contemporary of George Washington, which is precisely where the similarity ends. The son of a chieftain, he was captured by his father’s rival and castrated. Following that, he’d been captured by Iran’s overlord, Karim Khan Zand, who kept him as a prisoner. Following Zand’s death, he escaped and set about raising his own army to conquer and pillage, which he did with abandon. When the contest for national dominance came down to Agha and his last remaining rival, Lotf Ali Khan, he defeated Lotf Khan by inviting him to a parlay under a truce, and then shamelessly betraying him. Agha had Lotf blinded, castrated, and gang-raped by his praetorian guard. He then had Lotf continuously tortured over the next weeks until he expired. Then things got ugly. Seeing as Lotf had been residing in the city of Kerman, Agha ordered that all its women and children be rounded up and pressed into slavery. The ten thousand adult males were then blinded, their twenty thousand freshly-plucked eyeballs brought to the palace in baskets and dumped on the floor so the father of his country could wade in the eyes of his enemies. His bronze statue still stands in the center of Tehran today.
Ruthless cruelty is a feature, not a bug. The late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei recently directed the murder of thousands of unarmed demonstrators. He may yet get a statue himself.
Another trait that I’ve observed among Muslims all over the Middle East is a Medieval sense of honor. When their honor is deemed to be at stake, they are capable of acting in ways that appear contrary to their best interests.
Possibly the best summary of the Persian psyche can be found in an official State Department cable authored by former US Ambassador Bruce Laingen, subject line: Thoughts on the Iranian Character. It is worth reading in its entirety. Here are some excerpts:
“… Perhaps the single dominant aspect of the Persian psyche is an overriding egoism. Its antecedents lie in the long Iranian history of instability and insecurity which put a premium on self-preservation. The practical effect of it is an almost total Persian preoccupation with self and leaves little room for understanding points of view other than one’s own. … The reverse of this particular psychological coin, and having the same historical roots as Persian egoism, is a pervasive unease about the nature of the world in which one lives. The Persian experience has been that nothing is permanent and it is commonly perceived that hostile forces abound. In such an environment each individual must be constantly alert for opportunities to protect himself against the malevolent forces that would otherwise be his undoing. He is obviously justified in using almost any means available to exploit such opportunities. … Persians have an aversion to accepting responsibility for their actions. … Persians are masters of ambiguity. … Their emotions can be intense and unpredictable. … They are patient, persistent, and adept at exploiting the weaknesses of their opponents. … (and finally) cultivation of good will for good will’s sake is a waste of effort.”
Yes, I believe Mohammed Ali Najifi was beside himself with glee when he received the Silver Griffin, and not because he needed another shiny doorstop.
