No. of Recommendations: 11
You missed all her points about how there are effectively multiple Irans out there right now to talk to, and that affects the outcomes we might get.
I didn't miss it - I dismissed it as irrelevant. Again, the IRGC has the ability to kill anyone who doesn't toe the line. The fact that there's a large segment of the Iranian population that might be willing to "talk" to us isn't really germane to the outcome of the war. It's a continuation of the hope that the regime might fall early in the conflict when their leadership was decapitated. But that didn't happen, because the regime was well prepared for this contingency and has more than enough stability to maintain rule by force over the civilian population.
I mean, this specific thing is a very unserious proposal from a person who doesn't know much about how any of this stuff works (apart from game theory, which she seems quite knowledgeable about). A trivial example - the first part of the first step of her "Miftan Protocol" is to provide negotiated settlements to 21,723 American families from the asset pool before any money goes to Iran and while the IRGC is still in existence. Okay - so Step 1A will take...what, maybe two or three years? At best? it's a very silly plan.
But more generally, we can all recognize that while there's maybe a background hope that the Iranian people might rise up in revolution and cast out the regime, there's no indication that it's a likelihood. Whether we resume bombing or seize Kharg Island, that's a remote possibility. It's not zero. Maybe more damage to the economy increases the odds a bit (though there's always the chance of a rally 'round the flag effect, too, as folks get pissed off at the privation the other side in the war has caused them and not just the regime). But there's nothing to indicate that it's likely, even if we could magically settle tens of thousands of lawsuits and set up a mechanism for funneling tens of billions of dollars to all the Iranian hospitals and water treatment plants and schools and whatnot without the IRGC just taking the money for itself.
