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0 pointsdreghgh9mo ago0 comments

> This is probably what happens when your government isn't very competent and you don't have mathematicians doing game theoretic simulations for you?

Religious government or not, Iran has plenty of engineers, statisticians, scientists and intelligence analysts working for their foreign policy and war effort. Your underestimating this betrays prejudice.

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Gud9mo ago

But clearly all these smart people are not involved in the decision making, considering how Iran’s foreign policy has looked like, exactly how parent described.

diggan9mo ago

> clearly all these smart people are not involved in the decision making

Why not? Smart people can make decisions that look weird from the outside.

The foreign policy of the US been looking weird for decades to most outside parties, yet I'm sure there are smart people involved in it on a daily basis. But even with smart people involved, the US been invading countries based on false premises more than once, not sure why it would need to be different for Iran or any other country.

dreghghOP9mo ago

Compare military spending by Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt and the United States (only Middle East related) with Iranian military spending, over the four decades of Iran's shadow wars with these countries and isolation by much of the rest of the world.

And yet Iranian proxies have repeatedly challenged these powers across the Middle East, in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Sinai, etc. And a lot of Iran's actions have broad support in many other Middle Eastern countries, including strong US allies, those where there are no natural ethnic, religious or linguistic ties to Iran, and where there is prosperity based on peace and the American world order.

Whatever else the Iranian govt are, they are not foreign policy under-hitters or flawed tacticians blinded by dogmatism.

reissbaker9mo ago

On the contrary: at this point all of that spending appears to have been a waste. Hezbollah neutralized, Syria regime-changed, Gaza in tatters, and now they've lost their nuclear program.

Imagine if they'd spent the money on education, or developing their economy. They could easily have reconciled with the U.S. if they stopped chanting "Death to America" and done something productive with their time and money. This was the inevitable result of their plans, and easily predictable.

3 more replies

vixen999mo ago

As you say 'probably. How do you know no simulations have been explored? Or is this an assumption that events somehow prove that suggestion? Some might take issue with that.

nivertech9mo ago

1. Haha, just because someone is smart/knows one thing, doesn't mean they are smart/knows everything about all things. Especially when talking about people educated in STEM, not Humanities or Philosophy

2. There are plenty of engineers, statisticians, scientists and intelligence analysts who are religious fanatics or just power hungry or want to advance in the IRGC ranks/carrier ladder. Khamene.ai is a Living God and there are many engineers, statisticians, scientists and intelligence analysts who worship this deity

3. There are also lots of engineers, statisticians, scientists and intelligence analysts who are threatened and forced to work for the IRGC. Just like it was in the Soviet Union under the Communism

rxtexit9mo ago

Of course you get down voted.So many delusional people on this forum that believe themselves to be experts in all domains because they get well paid to write javascript.

We will just forget that von Neumann advocated for nuclear first strike based on game theory.

JumpCrisscross9mo ago

> Religious government or not, Iran has plenty of engineers, statisticians, scientists and intelligence analysts working for their foreign policy and war effort. Your underestimating this betrays prejudice

America also has lots of brilliant people. Then we have Hegseth, Noem and the other fuck.

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