The art of the deal?

Matthew Continetti writes at the Washington Free Beacon,

International business consultant Wendy Sherman was the chief American negotiator of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Iran nuclear deal agreed to by President Obama in 2015 and abrogated by President Trump earlier this year. She has a new book out, Not for the Faint of Heart: Lessons in Courage, Power, and Persistence, and in the space of 14 Tweets promoting it the other day she managed to combine basically everything I dislike about Washington.

…”After dinner on the 25th day, I met with Abbas Aragchi, Iran’s lead negotiator, with his partner, Majid Takht-Ravanchi to go over one final UN resolution.” Aragchi agreed. Then he backtracked. He wanted to reopen a matter previously considered closed. What happened next is the most stunning thing I have ever heard a diplomat reveal.

“I lost it,” Sherman continues. “I began to tell [sic], and to my frustration and fury, my eyes began to well up with tears. I told them their tactics jeopardized the entire deal.”

The Iranians sat there, “stunned” and “silent,” as the representative of the United States of America, the global economic and military superpower, broke down in the middle of a conference room inside a posh hotel in the Austrian capital. “Women are told early in life that it’s not socially acceptable to get angry,” Sherman laments. “And it’s a sign of weakness to let people see you cry.” Men are told that too, by the way.

There’s a reason. Confidence and decorum are traits of strong leaders. Surrender to one’s emotions is a sign of loss of hope and will, of a lack of self-control. You’re more likely to get what you want by showing no emotion, by refusing to bend. That is exactly how the Iranians got the deal of their dreams, a nuclear agreement with the United States that legitimized their regime, infused their economy with cash, exempted their military sites from inspection, froze uranium enrichment at levels they were comfortable with, addressed neither ICBMs nor terrorism, and would begin to free them from obligations after 10 years.

…Sherman lauds an agreement that is no longer operative. The JCPOA is gone, a relic. President Trump withdrew the United States from the arrangement. Consequently, Iran’s economy is collapsing and the regime faces internal protests. Trump never had to set foot in the Palais Coburg.

Read more here.