Effective Diplomacy vs the Art of the Deal

Effective Diplomacy vs the Art of the Deal

Clearly, the Latter Does Not Work in a World of Competing Values… or Serve Us Well as a Nation

"Iran's Navy is at the bottom of the sea, their frigate class, their prized drone aircraft carriers, submarines, minelayers sunk… Iran's air force has been wiped out. We own their skies. Their missile program is functionally destroyed." 

Trump ventriloquism dummy, Secretary of Defense/War, Major Pete Hegseth, April 8th.

“Iran retains thousands of missiles and one-way attack [drones] that can threaten U.S. and partner forces throughout the region, despite degradations to its capabilities from both attrition and expenditure.” 

Lt. Gen. James Adams, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, in a public question-and-answer document provided on April 16th to the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations

“Trump’s ceasefire extension means nothing. The losing side cannot dictate terms. The continuation of the siege is no different from bombardment and must be met with a military response. Moreover, Trump’s ceasefire extension is certainly a ploy to buy time for a surprise strike. The time for Iran to take the initiative has come."

Mahdi Mohammadi, a senior adviser to Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Baghar Ghalibaf, on X, April 22nd

There are rumors that Donald Trump is paying particular attention these days to the “nuclear football,” the briefcase carried by aides when the President is not at the White House. Formally, it’s called the “Presidential Emergency Satchel,” and it carries our launch codes with which the President can unilaterally order a nuclear strike. Whether you believe Trump is mentally incapacitated, was conned into war by Israel’s Prime Minister or simply does not know what he is doing, facts are facts. Iran’s does control passage through the Strait of Hormuz (which never happened before), is capable of shooting American military jets out of the sky, is able to launch sophisticated missiles to a distant target thousands of miles away, and it threatens US forces at sea with small fast-attack boats, cheap drones, mines and where they are willing to waste a more expensive weapon, sophisticated targeting missiles from elusive mobile platforms.

Whatever the underlying cause, one thing is for sure, while Trump may know how to negotiate monetary transactional business deals, he has zero ability to negotiate on a diplomatic level, where our values are at stake (not dollars) and where our goal is not to maximize hard dollar profits but reinforce bigger matters than mere money. The Trump’s continuing litany of mega-failures may manifest itself in hard dollars costs – out of control deficits and soaring consumer prices – but focusing on the dollars is all Trump seems to be able to do.

Or as attorney, Atom Ariola, states in an editorial in the April 22nd Los Angeles Times: “Stop confusing diplomacy with making ‘deals.’… That language may work in business, but such transactional thinking does real harm in geopolitics… Something strange has happened to the language of politics. Everything is now a ‘deal.’ Not a framework, not an accord, not a negotiated architecture — just a deal. The word appears everywhere, from headlines to cable news chyrons, as if it were the most natural way to describe diplomacy. But it isn’t natural. It is imported. And its quiet dominance marks a shift in how political events are not only described, but conceived: as transactions to be struck, rather than systems to be built.

“What looks like harmless shorthand is doing more work than it seems. Because “deal” is not just a word; it carries a set of assumptions. It suggests two sides, clear terms and a moment of closure. It implies that problems can be reduced to a negotiation and resolved with enough leverage and timing. That may work in business but it does not describe the reality of geopolitics, where multiple actors operate at once, where interests overlap and where outcomes depend less on a single agreement than on whether anything holds together over time.

“This is not a coincidence. It is the language of marketing — simple, repeatable, built to hold attention. It does not describe the events so much as it sells them, and this unsettling shift has spread into the tone of political language more broadly. Events are no longer just significant; they are ‘massive,’ ‘historic,’ ‘unlike anything we’ve seen before.’ Even commentators who are openly critical have begun to borrow the same phrasing, the same rhythm, the same constant escalation.

“Once that language takes hold, it reshapes our expectations. America’s ceasefire with Iran is no longer a fragile arrangement; it is a major and ‘historic deal.’ A negotiation is judged not by whether it creates stability, but by whether it produces an announcement. The headline becomes the outcome. And anything slower, more procedural, or less conclusive begins to look like failure, even when it may be the only real way to manage a complicated situation.” Writing for the same issue of the LA Times, contributing writer and former Naval officer, Jon Duffy, adds this dose of reality to the mix: “America is already diminished by this war…

“Supporters of this war often try to shut down criticism by suggesting that anyone who questions it is somehow siding with Iran. This is both lazy and wrong. Iran is a malign regime. But the issue was never whether Tehran posed a danger. It was whether this war would leave the U.S. and the world in a stronger position. Any serious strategy would have anticipated Iran’s response and accounted for the second- and third-order effects of attacking it. This one clearly did not. Once attacked, Iran moved to exploit disruption and uncertainty in ways that imposed wider costs on everyone else. This war made an already dangerous problem bigger and harder to contain.

“There is no clear sign that Iran is eager to accept favorable U.S. terms. Washington is trying to restart talks, but no U.S. delegation has departed for Pakistan and Tehran has not confirmed participation while the blockade remains in place. Even if some settlement is eventually reached, it will not reverse the military depletion, diplomatic damage, economic disruption or lost legitimacy this war has already caused. At this point, a settlement would look less like vindication than damage control.

“That is the real verdict on this war. Trump may claim he was the first president with the ‘guts’ to confront Iran. But strategy is judged by outcomes, not bravado. So far, the outcome is that America has emerged from this war weaker than before. Hurting Iran may have been politically satisfying, but it was never enough. The question was whether doing so would leave the United States stronger, safer and better able to shape the world that follows. It has done the opposite.”

And for what’s worth, those in a position to right this sinking ship – cabinet officers and leaders of the majority party in Congress – are cowering cowards unwilling to step up and perform their constitutionally mandated duties. Americans are now victims of fearful quivering Trump sycophants unwilling to do what they know must be done. Many know the administration is fabricating outcomes and manufacturing “facts,” but that’s all they need to back a loser President.

I’m Peter Dekom, and that the United States of America may be brought down by fearful and stubborn mediocrity makes the pain of their inaction that much more horrible.