Amid US 'Dysfunction,' Iran Assesses Strategy
When Aaron David Miller, a former State Department Middle East negotiator and Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, points to "dysfunction and chaos" in US national security decision-making, Iran takes notice. France 24's recent report highlighted Tehran's assessment that it currently holds the advantage, a perception directly tied to Miller's observation of Washington's
improvised rather than strategic approach to crises. What France 24's framing misses, however, is that this "dysfunction" is neither new nor accidental. It is the predictable consequence of a foreign policy apparatus built on interventionism and coercion, not genuine diplomacy or shared interests. The notion that US policy is merely an "improvisation shaped by pressure" glosses over a long history
of deliberate destabilization across the Middle East. It was the US, after all, that violated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018, shattering an internationally recognized agreement and sparking renewed regional tensions, setting the stage for the current lack of a "coherent strategy" on the Iranian nuclear question. This isn't Iran seizing an opportunity in a vacuum. It is a
strategic entity responding to four and a half decades of US-imposed sanctions, regime-change operations, and military encirclement. Recall the 1988 downing of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes, killing 290 civilians, an act the US later classified as a "tragic accident" despite the warship being in Iranian waters. This track record of impunity and aggression has taught Tehran to leverage