Al SweigartSomeone left the comment "They don't know how to do anything if someone isn't actively bribing them and telling them what to do" and I'm going to remember that for the rest of my life.
quixote@AlSweigart They not only have Ph.Ds. They're _Iranians_ for god's sake. The people who've spent three thousand years on trade route crossroads haggling with _everybody_. They've absorbed the art before they're out of diapers.
Mind, that doesn't mean you have to give up. Hillary Clinton was Obama's Secretary of State. She managed to assemble a good enough team to come out of negotiations with a respectable agreement and without losing their underwear.