The Iranians are pragmatic. Look beyond their relationship with the US. There are other state actors that Iran wants to remain in good relations with.

They understand that a defensive war is not the same as an offensive war. Besides, going on the offensive isn’t something they - as a regional power - have the firepower or diplomatic “street cred” for.

They are already painted as a so-called irrational actor. Doing something reckless will only prove their detractors right.

The other part to this is keeping the negotiation door open. The idea is to demonstrate to other state actors that they are cool headed & rational - even in wartime conditions.

Rational negotiations have to be based on the relative power of the parties.

It made sense for iran to try to negotiate with the US because the alternative was a war they had no chance to win. Arguably it also made sense for them to not come to an agreement because USA wanted concessesions the Iranian regime probably couldn't do while still staying in power given how weak they are domestically.

> I don't support any of these creeps but if any of them were minimally rational, they would have all gone to total war with Israel and the US the minute they realized what Hamas was doing on October 7th.

Israel's ability to divide and conqour its enemies here has been pretty impressive.

Could very well be that, on a diplomatic level, they're far more reasonable and forgiving than we've been lead to believe. Maybe in order to justify an aggressively adversarial posture against them and their interests.

But that's hard to grok without corroborating evidence. Like maybe an analogous social dynamic where the American mainstream maintains a hostile posture towards a particular ethnic group, stereotyping them as violent and irrational and criminals and parasites, and doing things to them that have triggered sustained, armed uprisings in other times and places, but who, in fact, have historically and in-aggregate been steadfast in a commitment to non-violent resistance, integration, and endurance of oppression.

Safe to say that this is the first time America's ever encountered that kind of thing, though, so I guess that we can be somewhat forgiven for not recognizing it.

No such thing as total war with the USA. Without the means to nuke the USA out of existence, actually engaging them is suicide. Even if by some miracle you start winning, they can just nuke you back to the stone age, thereby ending the conflict.

Better to play the long game, corrupt them from within and wait for them to destroy themselves.

> in what world does it make sense to negotiate with them?

The world in which America is a military superpower.

> if any of them were minimally rational, they would have all gone to total war with Israel and the US

They have been. They've been getting levelled. If the U.S. can staunch the flow of arms to the Houthis, they'll become irrelevant, too.

Houthi and Huzb do not have the organized armies to wage long-term war where they conquer territories. Their game plan is long term annoyance (at high casualty costs) and co-existence within a “neutral” state that provides cover and logistics for them.