The US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has told the world that Iran’s foreign policy is driven by “pure theology” and that “no one has ever been able to do a successful deal with Iran”.

Both claims are demonstrably false. Both reveal a man profoundly unqualified for the White House office he holds.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is one of the finest diplomatic minds operating in the world today. A career diplomat of 30 years, he was the technical architect of the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) — mastering every clause, every verification mechanism, every sanctions schedule across 18 months of gruelling negotiation with the world’s major powers.

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He doesn’t need briefing notes. He is the briefing note.

Rubio:

Doing a deal with Iran is not easy. I said it yesterday, I’ll repeat it again today.

We have to understand that Iran ultimately is governed, and its decisions are governed, by Shia clerics, radical Shia clerics.

These people make policy decisions on the basis of pure… pic.twitter.com/2Xz26wbzui

— Clash Report (@clashreport) February 16, 2026

When Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner sit across the table from him to negotiate, the contrast is almost painful to witness. Here is a man who has spent three decades studying the granular architecture of nuclear nonproliferation, sanctions law, and regional security arrangements facing two real estate developers from New York who cannot tell a centrifuge from a footnote.

Detail at his fingertips
Araghchi has every detail at his fingertips: the technical specifications, the legal precedents, the diplomatic history, the red lines and their rationale. His American counterparts are essentially improvising.

This is not negotiation. This is a doctoral examiner sitting down with students who have not read the syllabus.

Iran has concluded deals — repeatedly. The 2015 JCPOA was negotiated with five permanent Security Council members plus Germany. It was verified by the IAEA. It worked. It was America that tore it up.

And then there is Rubio himself. Anyone who has watched him testify before Congress will know exactly what I mean. What you witness is not statecraft. It is a man who has made a career of spouting propaganda and ideological talking points — recycling neoconservative slogans in place of analysis, substituting bluster for knowledge, and confusing belligerence with strength.

He has never demonstrated a serious understanding of Iran’s political structure, its factional dynamics, its strategic doctrine, or its negotiating history.

The words in that image are not merely wrong — they are terrifying in what they reveal about the man now simultaneously occupying the offices of Secretary of State and National Security Adviser. That such extraordinary concentration of foreign policy power should rest in hands this ignorant is one of the most alarming facts about American governance today.

Revealing Washington’s incapacity
What Rubio is actually revealing is not Iranian irrationality. He is revealing Washington’s own incapacity — its inability to honour commitments, sustain agreements, or treat adversaries as strategic actors deserving of serious engagement.

The most dangerous diplomats are not the radical ones. They are the ignorant ones — those who mistake their own ideological blinkers for geopolitical insight.

In my assessment, Rubio is the most ignorant and incompetent Secretary of State the United States has produced since the Second World War.

That is not hyperbole. It is a considered judgment from someone who has studied American foreign policy across eight decades.

The world deserves better. So, frankly, does America.

Lim Tean is a Singaporean lawyer, politician and commentator. He is the founder of the political party People’s Voice and a co-founder of the political alliance People’s Alliance for Reform.