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  • Our Dangerously Miseducated Misérables

    George Rebane

    Greatest threat to America.  What is the most insidious yet likely path to end our glorious republic?  It isn’t our acknowledged global foes, or foreign terrorists, or even native terrorists.  It is the terminally ignorant and manipulated voter, most likely under 30-years=old.  Today that block of American citizens are firmly in the Democratic camp characterized as the most educated because they are college graduates.

    But now that this much publicized cohort has been more closely examined, we find that these people are really miseducated, having studied subjects and fields which have given them a jaundiced view of western civilization and culture, and no marketable skills to boot.  Most of them are either employed in minimum wage, dead-end jobs or unemployed and unemployable under today’s ridiculous minimum wage mandates.

    For example, the overwhelming share of DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) activists and members live with their parents, are unemployed activists, and/or earn less than $60K a year.  They purport to favor socialism and communism over capitalism, knowing neither the definition of these ideologies nor their historical role in abetting human misery wherever such collectivist regimes have gained power.  Their socio-political beliefs are conveniently summarized by a handful of slogans, unsupported by reason, history, or are simply propagandized lies.  The verification of these deficits is aired daily in our media outlets.

    The danger they represent to our republic and western culture is that they will willingly vote for unprincipled power-hungry politicians who repeat their slogans and know how to play on their emotions which substitute for critical thinking.  It is not certain that these misguided voters can ever be convinced of their wrongheadedness, or even if they can even be reached with an alternative message.  Most certainly the Republicans and the conservative media are doing a woefully inadequate job in reaching them with alternative solutions to those touted by Bernie Sanders, AOC, Elizabeth Warren, Abdul El-Sayed, and their ilk, let alone the prominent outpourings of the leftwing media.

    Bottom line of these recent survey reports of the country’s rising tide of socialism is that we can more readily destroy ourselves through rank ignorance than suffer the same fate at the hands of foreign powers.  And no one knows whether it’s already too late to back off the precipice.  Our Founders sagely warned us that the liberal governance they fashioned comes with a systemic weakness; it is not well-constituted to defend itself from an aggressively ignorant and unassimilated enemy within – “A republic if you can keep it.”

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  • Monte Hall with a Twist

    George Rebane

    Fun time.  We all know the original MH problem – three closed doors behind one of which is a car (C) and goats behind the other two.  You pick one door, MH knows the C-door and opens one of the other doors with a goat.  You now get to stay with the original door or switch to the remaining unopened door.  A lot of clever people made fools of themselves saying switching didn’t matter, since the probability of picking the C-door from the remaining two closed doors was 50-50.  We now know that switching ups your probability of winning the car from 1/3 to 2/3.

    So I was thinking of an interesting variation of the MH problem.  You now have N > 3 doors with C behind one of them.  You pick one, and then MH opens M < N-2 doors with goats staring at you.  What’s the probability of winning C by switching to one of the doors unopened by MH, and what is the probability of winning C by staying with your original pick?

    Notationally P(C|N,M) is the probability of winning C when switching given N and M.  And P(C|N) is the probability of winning, given N, when you stick with your original pick – i.e. you don’t switch.  Hint: P(C|N) is the same probability as C not being behind one of the remaining doors that MH can open.  Formally we write P(C|N) = P(¬C|N,M).  The minus sign with the hangy-down part is the symbol for the logical NOT.  So, the probability of C not being behind one of the N-1 doors that you did not select is the same as its being behind the door that you did select.  Capice?

    Finally, if the value of C is $VC = $100K in a game where N = 100 and M = 80, and you switch your door pick, then the expected value of the game is the maximum you should pay to play.  The expected game value $VG = P(C|N,M)*$VC = 0.0521*$100K = $5,210.  Most people would not go that high.  What amount would you be willing to pay for play?

    Extra credit question – if C is valued at $100K, what is the maximum amount you should be willing to pay to play the game?  So here is the solution.

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  • Sandbox – 28aug26

    [The Left’s constant message drizzles into people’s ears that the rich are taking money from the middle and the poor, causing untold suffering across the land.  The real data on the economy and the spending behavior of consumers contradicts all of this.  But under tight socialist teachings and control none of this information reaches the “over educated” public.  They are led to believe that the rich are hiding their great wealth under mattresses where it does not contribute to the common good.  These geniuses have no idea nor do they even think to ask where does all the capital come from that is used to build factories, data centers, … create/sustain the millions of  jobs in the country’s workforce, and pay for the poorly managed government maintenance of our infrastructure and wasteful wealth redistribution programs.  Here’s a hint: it comes from corporate retained earnings and the savings of millions of makers.  Government does not generate wealth, it only enables its generation by a few enlightened policies and mainly staying out of the way.  gjr]

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  • Scattershots – 24aug26 (updated 26aug26)

    George Rebane

    Over-educated or mis-educated?  Hit to those who recognize that today’s description of the Left’s “over educated” young voters is fallacious.  The more accurate description is that most of these people have been mis-educated.  Their college education provided them no useful knowledge and/or valuable skillsets.  All employers immediately recognize a trash degree when they see one on a resume.  The only private sector work for them is a low-wage entry-level job (“Would you like fries with that?”), or in government, when available, where the only apparent acceptance criteria include spouting the correct ideology, belonging to a correct group, and fogging a mirror.

    No nationalized healthcare system is sustainable.  By the strict metric of non-increasing GDP share, healthcare systems in all OECD countries have been expanding at an unsustainable rate. The fundamental unmet challenge for governments is to balance the rising demand for care (driven by aging populations and new technologies) with the need to restore public finances. The attempted path toward sustainability involves aggressive changes to service delivery: reducing reliance on expensive hospital infrastructure, heavily increasing investments in cost-effective primary and preventive care, and eliminating wasteful clinical practices.

    Canada’s Healthcare is Failing.  Our leftwing readers continue promoting nationalized healthcare systems.  As pointed out above, no such systems are sustainable, all are costing more and delivering less.  In oft-celebrated Canada we have a clear real-world example of unmet global sustainability challenges and service delivery bottlenecks. Operating a predominantly publicly funded, decentralized system, Canada is currently grappling with the exact pressures outlined above.  An example of a failing system, Canada’s primary care bottleneck reports roughly 1 in 5 Canadian adults (over 5 million people) do not have a regular family doctor or primary care provider.  This is part of an overall service delivery failure, and because of this primary care gap, patients are frequently forced to seek basic medical attention in highly expensive hospital emergency departments. This creates a vicious cycle for all patients: it drives up immediate costs, causes severe hospital wait times, and actively undermines the goal of shifting care away from resource-intensive inpatient settings.

    Personalized Pricing Debate.  Technology is taking shopping back to how it was in the good ol’ days in market places and bazaars across the world.  Back then no-one posted prices of goods.  When a customer walked in the merchant sized him up and quoted a price for the selected goods.  Then they haggled until agreement was reached on a price and the deal concluded.  Today sophisticated merchants are considering bringing back personalized pricing that would access customer databases to instantly come up with a price specific to that customer.  That could be the final price or with smart phones the customer could submit a counter offer and so on.  In other words haggling would return to the modern marketplace.  Our leftists consider this to be ‘unfair’ according to their addled sense of fairness, justice, and equity.

    [26aug26 update]  Project Heart wins the Award of Recognition from the international Impact DOCS Awards Competition for its new film ‘Hope Has An Address’.  It will be available for viewing starting 24 September 2026.  Project Heart is a nonprofit organization serving individuals and families navigating some of life’s most destabilizing challenges through peer mentorship, recovery support, housing navigation, community connection and other services designed to help people build stability and move forward.  Jo Ann and I are board members and have supported the organization for the last several years.

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  • Scattershots – 15aug26 (updated 18aug26)

    George Rebane

    Democrat Xavier Becerra (54%) leads Republican Steve Hilton (37%) in the polls for California governor.  Becerra is demonstrably unqualified for the office, having literally accomplished nothing in his 40 years in politics and now promises to keep taking our state down the road to social and commercial ruin with time-tested ruinous policies.  California’s dimwit Democrat voters will again vote for another dose of incompetence while expecting something better this time.  Besides being a successful free market capitalist, Hilton’s political experience has been as director of strategy for British prime minister David Cameron.  The bottom line is that Hilton will bring some new and diametrically different governance to our state, which it sorely needs.  Meanwhile, socialist Becerra is predictably starting to promise free giveaways to lock in his constituents – this time free electricity for the needy.  

    America’s adults (16 to 65) are to a high degree illiterate and innumerate.  This fact has been reflected for years in my writings and is a fundamental tenet of Rebane Doctrine.  The assertion is supported by PIAAC (q.v.) testing conducted by our NCES and the OECD, and confirmed by the National Literacy Institute.  Bottom line, 54% of U.S. adults read below a sixth-grade level, and roughly 21% are considered functionally illiterate; 50% of American adults read so poorly that they are unable to perform simple, vital tasks like reliably reading prescription drug labels.  34% score at the lowest level in numeracy, only able to add and subtract with whole numbers, struggling with multi-step calculations, solving proportions, or extracting information from charts and graphs.  Overall, about one in four US adults score in the lowest proficiency levels across literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving simultaneously, and the trend is markedly downward.  The Left denies all of this because they have been in charge of the country’s education system for two generations.

    Latin America goes capitalist.  After decades of ‘pink tide’, flirting with socialism and communism influenced by Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, several South American countries are beginning to rediscover the blessings of free market capitalism.  Key Latin American countries visibly shifting away from collectivist governance include Argentina, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Peru, and El Salvador.  Still having to shake leftist governance are Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay, and Guatemala.  Firmly in the grip of authoritarian socialist regimes remain Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba.

    Hormuz will remain effectively closed until the November election.  It is now clear that President Trump is not willing to spend either military or political capital to restore the strait’s traffic to pre-war levels.  During this time we will continue to be subjected to the administration’s bullshit that the US is in “complete control” of the waterway – “it belongs to us”.  To show the heights of Trump’s unrequited and diversional triumphalism, the man claims preparations to make Hormuz a US territory.  Hubris maximus.

    When shit happens on our streets, obviously fomented by activists from a multitude of extreme leftwing outfits, the Dems and the lamestream immediately claim that extremism is a symmetrical aspect of America’s political life.  Their go-to argument is to position the Tea Party as the equally extreme counter of their own Democrat Socialists of America.  On its face that is a facetious lie that anyone can confirm by looking at the platforms of both organizations and the politicians they support.  The TP’s platform replicates a stable set of conservative policies embraced by the Republicans for decades.  The DSA platform outlines a clear rush to socialism/communism that is giving old-time Dems maximum indigestion as November approaches.

    [18aug26 update] Miss to our modestly read locals who consider being labeled socialist, Marxist, communist, … as pejorative and even libelous.  These are legitimate ideological appellations proudly acknowledged and worn by millions of leftwing Americans.  Recent polls show that 2 of 3 Democrats are either socialists or view socialism favorably.  And the DSA, today the party’s most active and organized faction, is led by people over half of whom declare themselves to be communists.  So, we should understand and acknowledge the provenance of the tenets that we include in our published screeds.    If it walks and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.

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  • Sandbox – 13aug26

    [The Republican Party is somewhere between somnambulant and dead in the national public forum; and especially so in local politics as confirmed in the pages of The Union.  If our newspaper is any indication, one can readily witness the absence of conservative op-ed voices while the local progressives cum socialists enthusiastically populate those pages with their collectivist TDS screeds and relentless attacks on any conservative who dares call them out for their ignorant critiques that celebrate all things collectivist.  I have long assumed the mantle of conservetarian commentary in The Union, and almost daily take the slings and arrows from the Left for my unabashedly outspoken views.  It’s a lonely battle in these backwoods, and I sure would like some company from the party that supposedly opposes socialism.  Not holding my breath.  gjr]

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  • Lurching from Win-Win to Zero-Sum

    [This piece appeared in the op-ed section of the 12aug26 print and online editions of The Union.]

    America’s sociopolitical landscape is undergoing a profound and dangerous transformation. We are witnessing a systematic departure from the principles of mutual benefit, moving rapidly toward a society fractured by envy and defined by a zero-sum mentality. At the core of this ideological shift is a stark contrast in how different factions view the mechanics of human nature, economic interaction, and social progress.

    Two Divergent Worldviews  To understand the depth of our current polarization, we must examine the fundamental premises of the two economic philosophies battling for the soul of the nation.

    • Free market capitalists interact in society on a win-win basis.
    • Collectivists (socialists, Marxists, communists) have a zero-sum perception of social interactions.

    Under the banner of true free enterprise, transactions are voluntary, meaning both parties walk away better off than they were before. It is an expansive vision where wealth is created through innovation and effort, not merely shifted around by bureaucratic mandate.

    • In a free society people invest resources, undertake risk, and receive rewards unequally with unequal results in generating and enjoying wealth.
    • This is the accepted and cherished norm under liberal free market capitalism which promotes social and material mobility.

    Such disparity of outcomes is not a flaw in the system; it is a desirable feature. It accurately reflects the diverse talents, unwavering efforts, and varied risk tolerances of free individuals operating within an open market while broadly maximizing the quality of life.

    The Seduction of the Takers  Contrast this with the collectivist worldview, which sees the economy as a fixed pie. If one individual inequitably succeeds, it is presumed they did so at the direct expense of another. This perspective is economically illiterate, yet it has proven incredibly effective as a political weapon.

    • The collectivists’ message to the ignorant is simple, comprehensible, and alluring.
    • It is based on buying support through the redistribution of wealth from the makers to the takers.
    • The ever inviting yet elusive mandate to ‘pay their fair share’ is always the readily embraced message.

    This rhetoric preys on base human resentment and promises salvation through the coercive power of the state. It slowly dismantles the engine of prosperity under the guise of an unreachable and mathematically impossible equity.  (https://program.dsausa.org/) 

    The Sickness of Corporatism  However, capitalism itself is being actively undermined from the inside by corporatists, those who seek the benefits of the market without enduring the rigors of competition.  Corporatism is not capitalism.

    • Corporatism is a perfidious joining of government and large institutions (i.e. corporations, NGOs, unions, …) wherein the institutions buy government power to achieve their specific commercial and social goals to exclude/inhibit competitors and maintain dominance.

    This unholy alliance between state power and mega-institutions destroys the win-win dynamic. It validates the cynics and provides the collectivists with the very ammunition they need to demonize free enterprise, all while the political elite consolidate their authority and insulate themselves from the consequences of their policies.

    Institutional Capture and the Great Divide  How did a nation founded on individual liberty become so enamored with ideologies that have consistently produced poverty and oppression throughout human history? The answer lies in a multi-generational, methodical capture of our foundational institutions.

    • Today the DSA-led Democratic Party is the leading institution promoting this change.
    • In recent decades union backed public schools and universities have reverted to propagating various collectivist ideologies in their curriculum which has produced two generations of young people with little knowledge of the realities of collectivism and a blind embrace of socialism.

    By controlling the ideological pipeline of the education system, the Left has successfully manufactured a compliant voting bloc that reflexively rejects the foundations of Western culture and prosperity.

    The Abdication of the Right  In the face of this systemic ideological assault, the defense mounted by those who purportedly champion liberty has been shockingly inadequate.

    • The free market capitalists, poorly led by the Republican Party, have not risen to the occasion of strongly repudiating collectivism in the public square while identifying its leading political proponents.

    By refusing to boldly articulate the moral and practical superiority of free market capitalism, and by failing to ruthlessly call out the purveyors of collectivism, the Right has allowed the narrative to be completely hijacked. They have ceded the intellectual high ground to those who deal solely in grievance.

    An Autocratic Horizon  We can no longer afford to pretend that these are merely academic differences of opinion discussed in the halls of polite society.

    • Continuing this pretense promotes growth of the Great Divide with foreboding portents of an autocratic future.

    If we do not urgently rediscover the courage to defend the win-win nature of a free society and clearly define the terms of this ideological war, we will inevitably succumb to the zero-sum tyranny of the collective.

    George Rebane

    Nevada County

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  • Wildfires Are Decreasing

    George Rebane

    The ‘science’ of climate change, as reported to an ignorant public, has been and continues on a deluge of lies and hysteria.  Globally it is undoubtedly the most widespread and influential scam ever perpetrated by special interests in politics and, yes, science to make money and gain power.  The most prevalent m.o. is to ascribe all harmful weather events, from heat waves to blizzards, as due to global warming, never mind the mountains of evidence to the contrary. 

    It is summer and therefore wildfire season.  It is also the annual hysteria du jour with yellow journalists devoting prime time to videos of burning vegetation with flames reaching for the sky and background commentary citing this or that ‘expert’ attributing it all to catastrophic global warming.  The clear message is that the only way to fix the climate is by destroying our economies through massive new taxes, regulations, curtailing freedoms, changing lifestyles all enforced by ever larger governments.

    One of the constant voices of reason in this climate cacophony has been Dr Bjorn Lomborg, the frequently interviewed president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center – a noted think tank researching solutions to the world’s biggest problems, advising policy-makers and philanthropists on how to most effectively spend their money.

    Lomborg makes it clear that the global threat of wildfires is overstated by the media and environmental activists.  He cites data from NASA’s Earth Observatory and the European Space Agency, which show a steady drop in global fires since comprehensive satellite tracking began in the late 1990s. The total acreage burned by wildfires has significantly decreased over the last century. He points to a decline of approximately 25% in the global annual burned area over the last quarter-century.  Combining this data with historical reconstructions, the resulting trend shows a clear, long-term decrease over the past 120 years, even as the planet has modestly warmed.

    Lomborg asserts that public perception is skewed by intense media coverage of specific, severe regional fires (such as those in California or Australia, or now Europe). While he acknowledges that bad forest management has contributed to large fires in the U.S. recently, he notes that historical records show the 1930s Dust Bowl era was significantly worse for fires in America. Globally, he argues, fires have decreased in size and frequency on all other continents.

    The bottom line from the reasoned analysis of the historical record argues against sweeping, expensive climate policies.  Spending trillions on reducing carbon emissions to theoretically lower temperatures decades from now is an incredibly inefficient way to handle fire risks. Instead, Lomborg advocates for direct, practical adaptation strategies—such as improved forest management, clearing underbrush, and better zoning laws—which he points out are much more cost-effective ways to protect communities.

    But such counsel runs into the headwind of thwarting power politics, constricting readily available grant monies, and reducing media viewership eager for gratuitous catastrophic footage confirming the cause of the latest devastating disasters.

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  • Capitulation City

    Capitulate – to surrender, stop resisting, or give in to an opponent or an irresistible force, often under agreed-upon terms.

    George Rebane

    The Trump administration’s emerging strategy in the Middle East is culminating in what can only be described as a diplomatic and strategic disaster. What was marketed to the American public as a masterclass in “peace through strength” is rapidly devolving into a masterclass in strategic surrender. The administration is laying the groundwork to mask a total withdrawal behind a smokescreen of triumphalism.

    It appears that the administration is preparing to retreat on all foundational demands that justified American engagement in the first place. The concessions being drawn up represent a wholesale abandonment of regional security:

    • The Strait of Hormuz: The vital waterway is being reopened by Iran without any ironclad, long-term guarantees from the regime that it will remain toll-free and unharassed.
    • Nuclear Weapons: The regime’s highly enriched uranium stockpile remains a catastrophic threat, with concrete enforcement mechanisms inexplicably punted into future negotiation windows where Iran will undoubtedly stall and defect.
    • Long-Range Missiles: The agreement leaves unaddressed and intact Iran’s arsenals of nuclear-capable long-range missiles, preserving its infrastructure for global terror.
    • Funding Terrorism: The deal portends nothing to stop the Mullahs from continuing their bankrolling of proxy terrorist organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.

    Instead of securing vital American and allied interests, the administration’s apparent plan is to summarily declare victory and retreat. The strategy appears to loudly proclaim a historic triumph, sign a hollow memorandum of understanding, and pull out American forces, effectively lifting the very pressure that was supposed to bring Tehran to its knees.

    This illusion of victory will not survive contact with reality. Both Republicans and Democrats will view such a declaration and subsequent pullout for exactly what it is: complete capitulation to the Muslim mullahs. Hardline Republicans are already warning that the regime will simply march back onto the road toward nuclear weapons and global terrorism while repressing its own people.

    For the Democrats, this failed strategy provides more ammunition than they could have ever hoped for. They will have a clear, irrefutable mandate to tell Americans that the conflict was a colossal mistake—costly in time, talent, and treasure—and disastrously executed from the start. They will point to the billions spent and the lives lost/disrupted, contrasting those heavy costs with a final agreement that achieves none of its pre-war objectives.

    This capitulation does more than just damage American credibility abroad; it sets up a domestic political catastrophe. By demoralizing voters, projecting profound weakness, and handing the opposition a ready-made narrative of systemic incompetence, such capitulation sets up the socialists for a resounding victory in November. Make no mistake: a Democratic victory in November will hamstring the administration and set the country on a course to fundamentally transform America into a collectivist future of poverty and misery.

    How did this come about? The answer lies in a basic misunderstanding of the administration’s core competency. The harsh reality is that Trump has had no genuinely successful negotiations per se during his term.

    He prevails only when he holds all the cards and can simply issue one-sided demands to a captive counterpart. But true negotiations involve parties with different interests who have definite wants, for which they are prepared to give up something the other party desires. It is not entirely clear that as president Trump has ever successfully entered into—let alone concluded—such a complex negotiation on the world stage. He operates in an echo chamber of his own making, unable to sense whether he is headed for a win-win or zero-sum resolution. By centralizing all power and treating delicate geopolitical standoffs with the same blunt force as, say, a real estate dispute, he prioritizes the immediate public relations “win” over the substantive, grueling work of securing a lasting agreement.

    For students of post-Bolshevik geopolitical history, this litany of failures had predictable and obvious harbingers. The Soviet Union’s early diplomatic maneuvers routinely exploited the West’s impatience and desperation for a declared “peace.” Totalitarian regimes—whether the Bolsheviks of the 20th century or the theocrats in Tehran today—do not view negotiations as a vehicle for mutual compromise. They view them as tactical pauses to consolidate power and exploit the adversary’s desire to withdraw.

    Bottom line, there is literally nothing to negotiate with the murderous Mullahs.  The only negotiations should be with our allies to determine an acceptable path to the regime’s unconditional surrender.

    By failing to understand the ideological rigidity and absolute patience of his adversaries, the administration has fallen into a predictable historical trap. In its rush to declare a win and exit the stage, the administration is securing nothing but its own defeat, mortgaging America’s future, and inviting the very domestic and international disasters it promised to prevent.

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  • Let’s talk negotiations

    George Rebane

    In an effort to settle a claim, the insurance adjustor says to the claimant, “We’re prepared to offer you $100k.”  Looking obviously unsatisfied and avoiding eye contact, the claimant hesitates and finally responds, “Well, I don’t know … .” and trails off.  The adjustor considers this and offers, “OK, I can go as high as $150K.”  Still looking dissatisfied, the claimant again says, “Well, I don’t know … .” and just sits there.  After a bit the adjustor comes back with, “Look, we’ll go up to $200K, but that’s our final offer.”  Once more the claimant comes back with, “Well, I don’t know … .”  Exasperated, the adjustor finally says, “All right then, let’s make it $250K and bring this dickering to an end.  And let me ask you, why do you keep refusing my generous offers?”  Finally, the claimant looks at the adjustor and asks, “Why should I stop?”

    Does this little anecdote remind you of what’s going on between President Trump and the ragheads?  The media reports of these on/off again negotiations are extremely uninformative and until now have failed to draw the obvious conclusion as to what the Iranians are doing.  During the last months we have witnessed the Iranians doing the same thing and the president repeatedly assuring us time and again that we are close to a deal, which the regime then quickly denies and and confirms with another attack on shipping and/or its neighbors and/or American bases.  All the while time passes, the elections approach, the president’s ratings are cratering, consumers are pissed about gas prices, etc, and an all-out military response becomes politically more and more expensive and less likely.  (What did Einstein say about this sequence?)

    We all know that the anticipated negotiations will be a farce, even if they’re ever concluded.  But our professional journalists (especially on the Fox outlets) are behaving like propaganda shills for the administration when they report and/or interview a never ending row of ‘experts’ on this and that.  The experts don’t know any more about what’s going on and what might happen, and they answer no questions other than the obvious tautological ‘If this, then that’ which anyone paying attention could answer equally well.  The journalists accept this ongoing bullshit without any follow-up questions that demand a rationally informative answer, or even an honest ‘I don’t know’.

    So let’s take a look at the structure and sequence of a real negotiation between parties, one that is to be carried out with public awareness through the media.  First and foremost a productive negotiation requires a clear statement of its objective – why negotiate at all?  Then we need to know the points to be negotiated; in short, what disagreements between the parties need to be resolved.  Finally, the parties need to agree on the negotiation process – venue, participating parties, schedule/timing, and the bona fide imprimaturs for accepting the negotiated agreement.  Besides the resolved points, the agreement should also state how it will be enforced and/or terminated.

    In civil negotiations – say, between management and a workers’ union, or between politicians about legislation – each party should communicate these preliminaries to their constituents or audiences.  In the much-touted negotiations with Iran we see none of this kind of organization or preparation.  Instead we witness a chaotic see-saw that goes on between shifting parties with shifting demands to be satisfied by agreement on a set of ever-changing points, with both sides issuing divergent reports on what is actually going on – a strictly junior high kind of undertaking on a most important geo-strategic engagement.

    As scholars R. Fisher and W. Ury of the Harvard Negotiation Project study have taught us, not all issues can be resolved through good-faith and/or principled negotiations.  And some of those that possibly could be so resolved, quite often are not.  In negotiation talk, parties contemplating negotiations should always have formulated their ‘best alternative to a negotiated agreement’, or BATNA in the literature.  Only reveal your BATNA to the other side if you feel it is better than what they anticipate.

    Our BATNA is clearly to resume full-scale destruction of Iran’s capability to attack its neighbors, control commerce, and generate income to fund its stated terrorist objectives.  But we are even deficient in doing that when we draw ‘red lines’ and then cave when Iran impertinently and with insolence crosses them, and we respond by once more by slapping their wrist with fruitless attacks on their missile launchers and storage sites, radar emplacements, and command centers.  We confirm our lack of resolution by refusing to attack their infrastructure which would cause the necessary pain that the mullahs would feel and motivate the Iranian people to rise up.

    In the final analysis, there is no reasonable basis for negotiations with Iran’s murderous theocratic regime.  We simply have a set of necessary demands for them to meet, among them regime change, and an effective BATNA if they continue to spit in our faces.  Accepting anything short of that will not bode well for the west, and most certainly not for President Trump and the Republican Party.

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