Lying is as much a part of statecraft as it is of human nature. History is littered with deceptions—some confessed, others concealed—employed by politicians for everything from survival to conquest. In the fragile balance of war and peace, a well-timed lie has often been dismissed as a ‘necessary evil’ meant to de-escalate tensions or provide a face-saving exit from the brink of conflict.

In our hyper-connected era, a political lie’s shelf-life has plummeted. With facts weaponized in real-time, leaders find it increasingly impossible to build sustainable agendas on foundations of falsehood.

Donald Trump appears to be the exception to this rule of political gravity—not once, but more times than one can recall. By appearing to believe his own fabrications, he forges ahead with policies based on ‘alternative facts’ even as they are exposed in real-time. This creates a structural paralysis for diplomacy; when the architect of foreign policy is untethered from objective reality, diplomacy loses its primary function as a tool for de-escalation. In the current war on Iran, this becomes a compounding crisis as the public remains largely uninformed of the conflict’s ‘why.’ Meanwhile, career diplomats and ad-hoc envoys are trapped in an impossible position: unable to walk back his statements or openly correct them, they are left to navigate a geopolitical minefield guided by a map of falsehoods issued from the highest echelon of power.

READ: Trump prefers peace but ready to ‘unleash hell’ in Iran: White House

The cost of this ‘post-truth’ diplomacy is most visible in the justifications for the war on Iran. President Trump repeatedly claimed military action was a response to an ‘imminent threat’ and an accelerating nuclear program, yet the U.S. intelligence community has declined to endorse this. During congressional testimony, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard notably sidestepped the ‘imminent threat’ claim, stating instead that such ‘determinations’ are the President’s alone. Furthermore, while the administration cites preventing a ‘global catastrophe’ as a primary goal, the war was........

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