Too many cooks in the kitchen?

From where I sit, it looks like the 21 hours of Iran negotiations in Islamabad last weekend won’t go into the win column. The talks broke without resolution, and the central dispute remains unchanged: Iran’s nuclear program, particularly the scope of uranium enrichment and the duration of any meaningful restrictions. Since then, discussions have continued through intermediaries. Officials say the differences have “narrowed,” which in the careful language of diplomacy suggests the shouting has subsided, but the substance remains unsettled.

At the same time, the United States has increased pressure by imposing a naval blockade on Iranian ports. By constraining Iranian oil exports, it has the potential to raise the stakes economically in ways that could reach American consumers. If those constraints tighten global supply, the result would likely be upward pressure on fuel costs and the familiar inflationary ripple effects.

Watch your produce prices.

At the same time, administration officials have expressed optimism that markets may stabilize, particularly if negotiations lead to a broader easing of tensions in key transit points. Analysts suggest Iran can endure such pressure for weeks. Whether American households feel the effects as quickly may depend on how events unfold in the days ahead.

Against that backdrop, one detail from recent reporting continues to nag me. Reuters has reported that Iran’s delegation to Islamabad numbered roughly 70, but the U.S. contingent, depending on the count, approached 300. That figure doesn’t mean 300 people at the table, but it does reflect the full apparatus of modern diplomacy—experts, staff and layers of coordination.

Yet, still no agreement.

Even administration officials have suggested the Iranians are “better at negotiating than fighting,” a recognition that Tehran’s advantage lies in patience and leverage. If seventy are holding their own against three hundred, it is fair to ask whether scale has become a liability. Too many voices can blur strategy. Too many priorities can slow decision-making. Too many cooks in the kitchen.

That wasn’t always the American approach. Henry Kissinger built his reputation on the opposite model: small teams, tight control, and quiet backchannels. In the 1971 opening to China, his delegation numbered little more than a dozen, and at critical moments it came down to a handful of participants in the room. The same pattern held in Vietnam, where the real negotiations occurred privately, away from the larger and more performative delegations in Paris.

The contrast is not simply one of size, but of philosophy. Kissinger’s method favored speed, discretion and clarity of purpose over consensus-building. In an increasingly complex world, there are good reasons for that shift, but the outcomes are not yet positive. When negotiations stall, we should ask what Henry would have done differently.

Whatever our economic discomforts are at home, I can’t shake my concern for the good folks living under the system these talks seek to contain. Reports continue to emerge of crackdowns by the Gasht-e Ershad, Iran’s morality police, and of severe reprisals following unrest that began in 2022. Human rights groups describe thousands killed and many more detained, though exact figures remain difficult to verify. Some estimates run into the tens of thousands, underscoring the opacity of the regime and the limits of outside scrutiny.

Preventing a nuclear-armed Iran must remain the priority. But if the outcome leaves those already under the repression of religious zealots, it’s going to be hard for me to call it a success.