The West must stop thinking in terms of negotiations and start thinking of it as war. Iran already is.

Both the Iranian response to the Natanz incident and the US lack of counter-response were painfully predictable.

On Tuesday, Iran's deputy foreign minister and a top nuclear negotiator Abbas Araghchi told state-run Press TV that the International Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA) had been informed of Tehran's decision to ramp up enrichment to 60% purity, a big step up from the current 20% purity levels.

The decision pushes Iran closer to reaching the 90% enrichment level that is considered weapons-grade. Iran has continually denied it intends to assemble nuclear weapons.

The Biden administration said Tuesday that Iran's intention to enrich uranium up to 60% purity was a "provocative announcement" that both "calls into question Iran's seriousness with regard to the nuclear talks and underscores the imperative of returning to mutual compliance with the JCPOA."

Iran and the US are playing different games - and Iran's game is winning.

Because the Biden administration thinks like negotiators in a business deal. They think that both sides have a modicum of good faith and want the same goals, with everything else being mere details.

Iran is treating the negotiations as war.

It is worthwhile to look at Sun Tzu's Art of War to see how well Iran is following his advice:

Keep [your enemy] under a strain and wear him down.

Iran doesn't even have to do this - the Biden administration has already signaled strain by doing everything it can to return to negotiations. Iran's announcement of the additional enrichment is adding to the strain, keeping the West on the defensive. 

Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive exhausted.

Iran is dictating all the terms of the battle. 

The clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him.

Iran determines the conditions and the timing. It is not giving in to anything, forcing the West to make all the concessions. It makes it appear that it has red lines, while the West has none. 

We can form a single united body, while the enemy must split up into fractions. Hence there will be a whole pitted against separate parts of a whole, which means that we shall be many to the enemy's few.

Iran has managed to split the US and Europe; it already could rely on Russia and China to be uninterested in enforcing the provisions of the JCPOA. The US has not managed to put forth a united front while Iran has been nothing but united. So we see that after the US withdrew from JCPOA, Iran pressured Europe to make up for the sanctions - and achieved that with threats. 

O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible; and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands.

The Biden administration telegraphs everything it will do in negotiations ahead of time. Iran stays quiet.

Though the enemy be stronger in numbers, we may prevent him from fighting. Scheme so as to discover his plans and the likelihood of their success.

Rouse him, and learn the principle of his activity or inactivity. Force him to reveal himself, so as to find out his vulnerable spots.

Western thinking on Iran is in the newspapers, published by think tanks, and said out loud by the State Department every day. Iran doesn't reveal anything. 

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. 

Iran has intimate knowledge of how the West thinks. The negotiators in the West appear to be floundering on understanding Iran. They seem to assume that Iran is a rational actor and can be predicted. Iran is rational - and a great part of its tactics is to keep the West off balance.

At the end of good negotiations, both sides feel like they have gotten what they wanted. Good negotiators look for win-win scenarios.

At the end of a war, there is one winner. Good generals defeat their enemies.

Iran is engaged in a war with people who don't even realize it. Unless the West gets its act together, one doesn't need to study Sun Tzu to realize what the outcome will be.

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