Commenting on a ‘Memorandum on a Memorandum’ without an officially published text remains premature. Yet, a more fundamental question arises today: why is an agreement framework being pursued with such persistence with those who do not represent the sole center of decision-making in Iran, nor possess the resources for its full implementation and verification.

It is not that Washington is ignorant of Iranian diplomatic culture, the concept of taqiyya, or the nuances of taarof—they have undoubtedly been warned. The issue lies in the West’s distinct perception of temporality. The short electoral cycles of American politics, combined with an inherently low tolerance of Western society for protracted, grueling strategic processes, generate a form of selective political amnesia. The structural reliance on transactional pragmatism locks administrations into the same illusion that previously trapped both Obama and Biden, and which Trump now inhabits with particular structural fidelity: treating a highly fragmented system as a singular corporate partner, even though........

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