There are political mistakes.

There are strategic miscalculations.

And then there is that particular kind of stupidity which dresses itself up as strength, speaks through bombs, performs itself through pathos, and in the end arrives exactly where it stood before — only with more dead, more hatred, more instability, and worse conditions.

That is precisely what has happened here.

One does not have to be a friend of the Iranian regime to see it. One only needs two functioning eyes and the ability not to confuse cause and effect with propaganda. Years ago, there was already a bad, imperfect, limited arrangement. It was not peace. It was not harmony. It was not a miracle. But it was a framework. An ugly, unsatisfying, imperfect framework — and still a framework. It held something back. It imposed limits. It pushed catastrophe, at the very least, into a system of control, inspection, and political predictability.

What that framework concretely achieved deserves a sober reminder: it limited Iran’s uranium enrichment to 3.67 per cent, drastically reduced the number of centrifuges, bound Iran to regular IAEA inspections, and extended the so-called breakout time — the time Iran would need to produce enough weapons-grade material — to at least one year. That was no guarantee. It was no disarmament. But it was a measurable, verifiable system of restraint. And that system no longer exists.

Then came the grand pose.

Trump destroyed that framework as though it were a historic act of clarity. His supporters cheered, Israel hoped for a harder line, and many behaved as if sheer destruction were already a strategy. But to destroy a bad framework is only wise if one is capable of putting a better one in its place. If one cannot do that, it was not strength. It was merely an attack of grandiosity.

And that is where the stupidity lies.

For what does........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)