The West habitually credits Iran's leadership with strategic brilliance - a regime playing chess while others play checkers. Ali M. Ansari, director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at the University of St. Andrews, dismantled this myth in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "We often think of the Iranians as very strategic thinkers, playing the long game. No, no. It's different. They're ditherers," he said.

As reported by "Hvylya", referencing the WSJ interview, Ansari argued the West ascribes "too much competence" to the Iranian regime. "I do not consider what's happening now to be the result of great strategic thinking." What drives Tehran instead is "a dogmatic ideology and a grievance culture, whereby they've taken a hit for their nuclear program and can't back down."

The regime's path to the current war illustrates the pattern. Iran had every chance to avert military confrontation. But it lost Europe by siding with Russia in Ukraine and refused to make a plausible offer when President Trump returned to office. "The longer they waited, the worse it got. They could've gotten a deal six months ago. But when ships are waiting outside, the asking price goes up," Ansari said.

The regime insisted throughout on a "right to enrich uranium" - which "would have more credibility if they respected any other rights as well," Ansari noted. By sheer stubbornness, the regime "basically decided to declare war on the U.S." They didn't count on a president who would break from standard operating procedure, whom they couldn't stall until the next U.S. election.

The historian pointed to a broader Western analytical failure. "We always see Iran as almost marginal to the problem, which is Washington," he said. Commentators rage about what Trump did or didn't do, but if there is now an opening for regime change, it is because U.S. policymakers "for once were able to turn from the mirror and see what the Iranian people know well: The problem is in Iran."

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